Bettina Aptheker

Released
Date of birth:13. 09. 1944
Age:81
Gender:Female
Race:White
Era:1960s
State:California
Time Imprisoned:
1 Month 14 Days
Support
Communism Communist Party USA
Bettina Aptheker

Biography

Bettina Aptheker is an American political activist, feminist scholar, and longtime professor of feminist studies at UC Santa Cruz. The daughter of Marxist historian Herbert Aptheker and a member of the Communist Party, she was a leader of the 1964 Berkeley Free Speech Movement and sat on its Steering Committee. She was arrested in the December 1964 Sproul Hall sit-in — the largest mass arrest in California history to that point — convicted of trespassing and resisting arrest, and sentenced to 45 days, which she served at the Santa Rita Rehabilitation Center in 1967 while seven months pregnant. She went on to help lead the campaign to free Angela Davis.

Case

Santa Rita Rehabilitation Center
Charges: Trespassing and resisting arrest — December 1964 Sproul Hall sit-in (Free Speech Movement), UC Berkeley
Arrested: Dec 4, 1964
Incarcerated: Jul 2, 1967
Released: Aug 16, 1967
Sentence: 45 days at the Santa Rita Rehabilitation Center; surrendered to serve in late June/early July 1967 after appeals failed, while seven months pregnant. Exact entry and release days are not documented — the dates shown reflect the ~July 2, 1967 start (a photograph that day shows her preparing to serve) plus the 45-day term. Verdict as recorded: Yes — convicted 1965 in the Free Speech Movement mass trial
Judge: Rupert Crittenden
Convicted: Yes
Institution State: California

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