Biography
David Gilbert is an American radical Marxist, author, and a member of The Weather Underground Organization. Inspired in his teens by the Greensboro sit-ins and other events of the American Civil Rights Movement, he joined the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) at 17. He became a student at Columbia University and funded the Independent Committee Against the War in Vietnam [ICV] and a chapter of Students for a Democratic Society.
In 1969, SDS split into different ideological factions and the Weathermen emerged, its purpose being to build up armed struggle amidst young white-Americans in support of the Black Panthers and other militant groups and also oppose the war in Vietnam via actions that “Bring the War Home”. Gilbert joined this group in 1969.
In the late 1970s or early 1980s Gilbert and other white activists took the name RATF (Revolutionary Armed Task Force), declaring their solidarity with the Black Liberation Army (BLA). RATF attempted to rob a Brink's armored cash handling car with Gilbert and his wife Kathy Boudin serving as getaway driver and lookout. A shootout ensured, leading to the death of a security guard and later two police officers. Gilbert fled the scene with other RATF and BLA members but was later caught by police, tried, and sentenced in 1983 to 75 years for three counts of felony manslaughter. While in prison, Gilbert co-founded an inmate peer education program on HIV and AIDS and published book reviews and essays in a number of small/independent newspapers.
Gilbert received a grant of clemency from Governor Andrew Cuomo on August 23, 2021, reducing his minimum term from 75 years to 40. He was granted parole on October 26, 2021 and released on November 4, 2021.
