Supporters remember 1990 Oakland car bombing of environmental activist Judi Bari

[n2doc]

By Angela Hill
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 05/24/2010 03:00:08 PM PDT

OAKLAND — Though 20 years have passed since Earth First activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were injured in a car bombing as they drove through Oakland, Cherney and fellow activists remain determined to find out who did it.

"Today is a testimonial that we're still here, still asking the question, 'Who bombed Judi Bari?'" Cherney told a group of about 50 people who gathered Monday morning on the sidewalk along Park Boulevard outside Oakland High School, near where a pipe bomb went off under Bari's driver's seat on May 24, 1990.

"It's been 20 years, but as recently as January, we're still following new leads, a DNA trail," Cherney, 54, said through a bullhorn, standing in front of "Earth First" and "Justice for Judi Bari" banners. "We're still trying to figure out who did it. When we find out that answer, there will be a whole new set of questions."

The annual event is also a memorial to Bari, who died of cancer at age 47 in 1997. Cherney, now living in Humboldt County, continues his activism in addition to sitting on the board of a hospital.

On the day of the explosion, Bari and Cherney were on their way to an organizing event on the UC Santa Cruz campus for Redwood Summer, a mass mobilization of students and others from across the country to protest the deforestation of the redwood region in Northern California.


more

http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_15152468

[XemaSab]

1. That was right around the corner from my house

I remember it well.

[Raine]

2. THANK YOU for posting this

I didn't know Judi but knew Darryl thru environmental actions that I was involved in at the time. Twenty years is too long for this to go without justice for the victims. :mad:

[Forkboy]

3. K&R

[Xithras]

4. This bombing motivated me to join the protests that summer.

Bari was on an organizing trip for Redwood Summer, and I'd caught an earlier protest/speaking engagement at another university and was on the fence about joining up. The bombing pissed me off enough that I did. I spent the next two summers staying with my aunt in Eureka protesting regularly, and the summer after that up in the Headwaters and other sits in the area.

She was a great woman, and it's sad that she didn't long enough to see her beloved Headwaters be named a National Reserve.

[Mojeoux]

6. RIP Judi and God Bless the Judi Baris of the world. nt

[Mojeoux]

5. The stupid COINTELPRO did this to her.

God I love my country, but my country lets these assholes pull this shit and lets them crawl back into their cracks and under rocks.

[petronius]

7. I didn't know this - absolutely spectacular lawyering:

A federal jury awarded Bari's estate and Cherney $4.4 million in 2002. The city and the federal government agreed to drop any appeals and settle the case for $4 million. Included in the settlement was the provision that Oakland declare every May 24 "Judi Bari Day."

:rofl:

[Mojeoux]

8. some more info on Judi and the bombing...

The 20th anniversary of the pipe bomb attack on Judi Bari, Darryl Cherney
and Earth First! on May 24, 1990 will be recognized in events in the
San Francisco Bay Area over the course of two days

Twenty years ago on May 24, 1990, a bomb planted in the car of Earth First! activist Judi Bari exploded, sending her and fellow activist Darryl Cherney to the hospital in Oakland--Judi with life-threatening injuries, since the bomb had been hidden directly under her driver's seat. Judi and Darryl were on their way to a music and speaking event on the UC Santa Cruz campus, part of an organizing tour for Redwood Summer.

That explosion, and the subsequent attack on Earth First! as well as Judi and Darryl by the FBI and Oakland police, would forever change the face of forest activism in the redwoods and elsewhere. The bomber was never found, because the FBI never conducted a serious investigation, choosing instead to blame and harass Earth First! activists. But a lawsuit filed by Judi against the FBI for violation of Constitutional rights was ultimately successful in 2002, vindicating Darryl and Judi, but coming five years after Judi's untimely death from breast cancer at the age of 47.

Redwood Summer, 1990, was a mass mobilization of students and others from across the United States to protest the deforestation of the redwood region in Northern California, which was being decimated by the corporate chain saw. The mobilization was modeled after Mississippi Summer, a major organizing effort in the nation's civil rights movement in the South in the 1960s. A key architect and organizer of Redwood Summer was labor and environmental leader Judi Bari. The bomb which nearly killed her was preceded and followed by a smear campaign against Earth First!, carried out by the FBI, which tried to charge Darryl and Judi for the bombing, and tried to brand the deep ecology group Earth First! as a terrorist organization.