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Susan Rosenberg

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Susan Lisa Rosenberg (born 1955) is an American radical who was accused, but never tried or convicted, of driving the getaway car in the Brinks robbery (1981) in which two police officers and an armored-car guard were killed.[1] After living as a fugitive for two years, she was arrested with an accomplice, Timothy Blunk, in 1984 while unloading 740 pounds of dynamite and weapons from a car into a storage locker in Cherry Hill, New Jersey . She had also been sought as an accomplice in the 1979 prison escape of Joanne Chesimard.[2] Rosenberg was sentenced to 58 years in prison on the weapons and explosives charges, but was not tried for the Brinks robbery and deaths. She spent 16 years in prison, before her sentence was commuted by President Bill Clinton on January 20, 2001, his final day in office.[3][4]

Rosenberg was born into a middle class family in Manhattan. Her father was a dentist and her mother a theatrical producer. She attended the progressive Walden School and later went to Barnard College.[5] After graduating from Barnard, she became a drug counselor at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx and became licensed in the practice of Chinese medicine and acupuncture. [6] She also worked as an anti-drug counselor and acupuncturist at health centers in Harlem. [7]

In an interview with the radio show "Democracy Now," Rosenberg said that she was "totally and profoundly influenced by the revolutionary movements of the '60s and '70s." She became active in feminist causes, and worked in support of the movement for Puerto Rican independence and the fight against the FBI's COINTELPRO program. [8] [9] She also joined the revolutionary May 19th Communist Organization, which worked in support of the Weather Underground Organization.

Rosenberg was charged with a role in the 1983 bombing of the United States Capitol Building, the U.S. Naval War College, an Israeli aircraft company, and the New York Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, but the charges were dropped as part of a plea deal by other members of her group.[4][10][11]

A statement that her compatriots issued, on the occasion of the Capitol bombing, said, "We purposely aimed our attack at the institutions of imperialist rule rather than at individual members of the ruling class. We did not choose to kill any of them this time. But their lives are not sacred."[1]

Rosenberg was one of the first two inmates of the High Security Unit (HSU), a high-security isolation unit in the basement of the Federal Correctional Institution in Lexington, Kentucky.[12][13][14] Allegations were made that the unit was an experimental underground political prison that practiced isolation and sensory deprivation .[15] After a lawsuit was brought by the ACLU and other organizations, the unit was ordered closed by a federal judge in 1988 and the prisoners transferred to regular cells.[12]

Her pardon produced a wave of criticism by police and New York elected officials.[16]

In 2004 Hamilton College offered her a position to teach a for-credit month-long seminar, "Resistance Memoirs: Writing, Identity and Change." Some professors, alumni and parents of students objected and as a result of the ongoing protests, she withdrew from the offer.[11]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Nordlinger, Jay (2004-11-29). "Clinton's Rosenberg Case". National Review. Retrieved 2008-04-19.
  2. ^ Raab, Selwyn (1984-12-01). "RADICAL FUGITIVE IN BRINK'S ROBBERY ARRESTED". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-04-19. A Weather Underground fugitive who had been sought for two years in the $1.6 million Brink's robbery and murder case has been arrested in New Jersey by a police officer who became suspicious of her ill-fitting wig.
  3. ^ http://www.democracynow.org/2001/1/23/an_exclusive_interview_with_susan_rosenberg
  4. ^ a b Tommy Christopher, "Clinton has Bigger Weather Underground Problem," "Political Machine," in "AOL News," April 16, 2008 http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/04/16/clinton-has-bigger-weather-underground-problem/
  5. ^ http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/1989vol13/rosenberg.php
  6. ^ http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/1989vol13/rosenberg.php
  7. ^ http://www.pen.org/author.php/prmAID/173
  8. ^ http://www.democracynow.org/2001/1/23/an_exclusive_interview_with_susan_rosenberg
  9. ^ Berger, Dan. Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity. P. 328 http://books.google.com/books?id=6KC36MHH3j8C&pg=PT206&lpg=PT206&dq=may+19+communist+organization&source=bl&ots=54Dx5eV-cj&sig=PxLMNNJpYZsp67lbmvi-1PhdcVU&hl=en&ei=_wLXTJOzMoWglAfmv9WBCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwADgU#v=onepage&q=susan%20rosenberg&f=false
  10. ^ "3 Radicals Agree to Plead Guilty in Bombing Case". The New York Times. 1990-09-06. Retrieved 2008-11-03. Three radicals will plead guilty to setting off bombs at the nation's Capitol and seven other sites in the early 1980's. The Government has agreed to drop charges against three other people.
  11. ^ a b Roger Kimball, "Meet the Newest Member of the Faculty Clinton pardons a terrorist, and now she's teaching in Clinton, N.Y.," "Wall Street Journal," December 3, 2004 http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110005979
  12. ^ a b "Judge Bars U.S. From Isolating Prisoners for Political Beliefs", The New York Times, July 17, 1988. Accessed 19 October 2008
  13. ^ http://www.monthlyreview.org/0701day.htm Day, Susie. "Cruel But Not Unusual: The Punishment of Women in U.S. Prisons, An Interview with Marilyn Buck and Laura Whitehorn." Monthly Review,August, 2001. Accessed 19 October 2008
  14. ^ http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-5038508.html Reuben, William A.; Norman, Carlos. "Brainwashing in America? The women of Lexington Prison". The Nation, 1987. Accessed 19 October 2008
  15. ^ Rodriguez, Dylan. Forced Passages: Imprisoned Radical Intellectuals and the U.S. Prison Regime. U of Minnesota Press, 2006.ISBN 0816645604. P.189
  16. ^ Eric Lipton, " Officials Criticize Clinton's Pardon of an Ex-Terrorist," "New York Times," January 22, 2001 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06EED7133CF931A15752C0A9679C8B63

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