Kautantowit's Mecautea
In Remembrance of
Judith Beatrice Bari
(November 7, 1949 – March 2, 1997)
Jud Bari was born and raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, the daughter of mathematician Ruth Aaronson Bari and diamond setter Arthur Bari. The elder Baris were both active in left-wing politics; they advocated for civil rights and opposed the Vietnam War. One of Judi Bari's sisters is New York Times science journalist Gina Kolata; the other sister, Martha Bari, is an art historian.
Judi Bari's father was of Italian descent and her mother was Jewish. Although Judi attended the University of Maryland for five years, she dropped out without graduating. She admitted that her college career was most notable for "anti-Vietnam War rioting"
The Martin Luther King of the Redwoods, Judi Bari was an Earth First!er, AFL-CIO and IWW labor organizer, radical feminist, world class orator, author of Timber Wars, fiddler and songwriter, fundraiser, mother of two girls and a force of nature. See why she was car bombed and arrested by the FBI and Oakland Police for the deed done against her.
Prior to her move to northern California, Bari was a clerk for a chain grocery store and became a union organizer in its work force. At her next job as a mail handler, she organized a wildcat strike in the United States Postal Service bulk mail facility in Maryland.
In 1978 Bari met her future husband Mike Sweeney at a labor organizers' conference. They shared an interest in radical politics. Sweeney was a graduate of Stanford University and a member of the Maoist group Venceremos in the early 1970s. By 1980 they were married and living in Santa Rosa, California. They were prominent in a neighborhood effort to shut down a west Santa Rosa airstrip, claiming that it would be expanded into a commercial airport.
She bore two daughters, Lisa (1981) and Jessica (1985).
In 1988, with a divorce between herself and her husband underway, she met KM honary member Darryl Cherney, and the pair began a romantic relationship based partly on shared political beliefs.
A veteran of the late 1960’s and 1970’s counter-culture, she was also a carpenter and union organizer. Her friend and sometime partner Darryl Cherney was another main organizer for Earth First!.
At the turn of the 1990’s, the main companies cutting down trees on the North Coast were Louisiana-Pacific, Pacific Lumber, and Georgia Pacific–the Big Three. Capitalism was in a state of psychotic expansion, from Tokyo to Berlin, and the North Coast was no exception.
These practices led to the destruction of primeval old growth forests and the stripping of entire hillsides. The lumber workers began to see their own childhood forests turned into ravaged moonscapes, but few of them seemed to care. These loggers were being manipulated by their employers, on whom their livelihoods depended. Anyone without the yellow ribbon of logger pride was on the side of the tree-hugging hippies.
Judi Bari was an organizer both for "Earth First!" and the "Industrial Workers of the World" (IWW), and was instrumental in the ‘Redwood Summer Justice’ campaign that fought to preserve old growth forest. Bari also worked to bridge the gap between radical environmentalists and timber workers. This is why Judi along with others began organizing loggers into the Industrial Workers of the World. Realizing the potential power of their efforts, the FBI and people from the logging industry worked to derail the Earth First! campaign.
A radical is somebody who goes out to the furthest edge of the debate in order to gain leverage with which to move the larger body of thought. If an ant wants to move an elephant, he has to move as far out onto the seesaw as possible. Then, through the laws of physics, he can move the great weight. That’s what activists do, only in a more psychological fashion. You go as far out there as you can in order to move society. The problem is that, once you’re out there, you’re perceived as an extremist and society is unwilling to embrace you. ~ Greg King, The Sun Magazine ( Issue 321)
Judi gained notoriety in California for bringing environmentalists and loggers together, pointing out that the real enemy was industry (capitalism) that was exploiting both the workers and the environment for profit. In the weeks following the bombing, industry and the government would attempt to employ a divide and conquer strategy and drive a wedge between environmentalists and workers by spreading disinformation to the public that Bari and Cherney were “terrorists.”
Proclamation Declaring November 7th Judi Bari Day
Whereas, November 7th is the birthday of Judi Bari, a dedicated activist, who worked for many social and environmental causes, the most prominent being the protection and stewardship of California's ancient redwood forests; and
Whereas, examples of Judi Bari's efforts include the preservation of the Headwaters Forest in Humboldt country, the protection of the Cahto Wilderness and the Albion River Watershed in Mendocino County; and
Whereas, prominent environmental activist David Brower stated on the occasion of her untimely death on March 2, 1997 from cancer at the age of 47, "Judi always projected an unwavering commitment to her values and her continued urgings to affect apathy into action. We will miss her commitment and compassion, her strength, courage and conviction. We can honor her by sharing it."
Now, therefore, the City of Arcata hereby designates November 7th as Judi Bari Day and celebrates and honors the work of Judi Bari in advancing the causes of forest protection, labor organizing, bridge building between environmentalists and timber workers, and civil rights for political activists; and
Be it further proclaimed that the City shall encourage its schools, civic institutions and citizens to memorialize Judi Bari's work through art,
media, festivals, school assignments and other creative means.
Dated: November 5, 2003
(Signed) Robert J. Ornelas, Mayor
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Judi Bari was nearly killed in a still-unsolved terrorist attack on May 24, 1990, when a motion-triggered pipe bomb wrapped with nails exploded directly under her driver's seat. She and Darryl Cherney were driving through Oakland, California when the bomb exploded. They were on a concert and speaking tour to recruit college students for Redwood Summer, a campaign of nonviolent mass protests against corporate liquidation logging.
Judi was maimed and disabled by the bombing, while Darryl received lesser injuries. In the previous two months, both had received numerous death threats from timber industry supporters and had reported them to local police. They had copies of written death threats in the car, where investigators found them. Right away, Judi and Darryl told paramedics and police officers that they had been bombed because of their activism against the timber industry, and both of them separately named the same individuals and a right-wing group that they believed were behind the bombing.
But instead of investigating the bombing as attempted murder, as the evidence clearly showed, the FBI, with the willing collaboration of the Oakland Police, tried to frame Judi and Darryl for the bombing, further victimizing them by false arrest and accusing them of knowingly transporting the bomb that nearly killed them.
It was a deliberate, politically motivated effort to target and "neutralize" Judi, Darryl and Earth First!, and to discourage people from traveling from all over the nation to join in Redwood Summer. The sensational false charges made headlines nationwide, and the FBI and their Oakland Police accomplices kept a two-month media smear campaign going with a series of false claims about physical evidence linking Judi to building the bomb.
But after delaying arraignment for seven weeks, when it was finally time for the District Attorney to present evidence in court and file formal charges, the FBI and Oakland Police didn't actually have any. The D.A. announced he would not file charges, citing the lack of evidence. The Oakland Police closed their "investigation," but the FBI continued theirs, telling the media that Judi and Darryl were their only suspects.
The FBI then used the pretext of investigating the bombing as cover for a nationwide investigation of Earth First!, sending agents to create dossiers on over 500 people whose only crime was to have received a long-distance phone call from Judi, Darryl, or one of 14 other people associated with them.
A year after the bombing, when it was clear that the FBI and OPD were making no genuine effort to solve the bombing, Judi and Darryl filed a federal civil rights suit against the FBI and OPD. The suit claims false arrest and unlawful search in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It also claims a politically-motivated conspiracy in violation of the First Amendment which attempted to suppress and chill their free speech by discrediting them in public perception as violent extremists.
While it remains unknown where and how the bomb was placed into Bari’s car, it’s worth noting Bari’s home was in the Northern Mendocino town of Willits.
In order to protect the earth and allow the North Coast to heal, we must stop every logging company in Northern California.
In honor of Judi Bari, who died in 1997 from breast cancer, we encourage you to resist the destruction of the earth with your bodies.
Put your life on the line for the planet, because it is your home.
Here is a video aboubt the organization, for those of you interested in more information about them:
