Biography
Elizabeth “Liz” McAlister is an American peace activist and former Catholic nun, long involved in anti-war and disarmament movements. She was a member of the Catholic Worker Movement and co-founder of the Jonah House community with her late husband, fellow peace activist Philip Berrigan. McAlister has participated in decades of civil disobedience against U.S. militarism and nuclear weapons dating back to the Vietnam War era.
On April 4, 2018, McAlister was one of the seven members of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, a group of Catholic peace activists who entered the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia to symbolically protest the presence of Trident nuclear weapons. She was convicted in federal court on charges including trespass and destruction of government property for this action. In June 2020, McAlister was sentenced to time served, probation, and restitution for her role in the protest.
The documentary The Berrigans: Devout and Dangerous presents the family’s anti-war and anti-racist organizing through archival footage, interviews and the perspectives of younger family members. Its press kit describes the costs of imprisonment and family separation within that movement. The film’s collective reference to more than 300 arrests is not an individual arrest count or a measure of time served. Source: https://theberrigansmovie.com/assets/stuff/2021/11/BERRIGANS_DEVOUTDANGEROUS_PRESS_KIT.pdf#page=2
The November 12, 2019 NYC Anarchist Black Cross compilation reproduces reporting on the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 jury verdict of October 24, 2019: conspiracy, destruction of property on a naval installation, depredation of government property and trespass. It describes the defendants other than Stephen Kelly as free at home awaiting sentencing, while Kelly remained jailed. The reported twenty- or twenty-five-year maximum was a possible penalty, not an imposed term or actual service. Later dispositions remain separately recorded. Source: https://nycabc.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/updates-12-nov-2019-1.pdf#page=2
The demonstration report prints a prison solidarity message identifying Elizabeth McAlister at Alderson. This is evidence of the institution at the time of the April 1986 report; it supplies no exact transfer day and does not change a later or earlier institution in the existing case. Source: Report on the Marion/Lexington demonstration, April 19, 1986, PDF page 21. https://freedomarchives.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/3.report.demo_.4.19.1986.pdf#page=21
Initial Griffiss custody ended December 12, 1983
The Thanksgiving at Griffiss report individually names Elizabeth McAlister among seven resisters who entered Griffiss Air Force Base on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1983. All seven were initially held on an Air Force bus, then remained in Syracuse City Jail until their December 12 arraignment, when they were released on their own recognizance. This establishes an initial eighteen-elapsed-day interval, not continuous custody through any later July 1984 sentence or final federal discharge. The next court appearance in January was future and not a release date. All existing later proceedings and endpoints must remain separately preserved.
The Nuclear Resister No22, December 16, 1983, original page 3.
Separate later Griffiss custody
The contemporary Inside & Out directories expressly identify Liz McAlister (register 01263-052) as then imprisoned at Alderson under a nominal three-year Griffiss Plowshares term. The existing biography explicitly identifies Elizabeth as Liz. This later sentence-phase custody is distinct from the separately recorded November 24–December 12, 1983 initial jail stay and recognizance release. No actual date of re-entry, final discharge, or total served is established by these listings. The ordered term is not a measured period in custody; all other cases and independently documented dates remain unchanged.
The Nuclear Resister: No.35, October 24, 1985, PDF page 4; No.37, January 20, 1986, PDF page 4.
The Militant reported that Elizabeth McAlister received a six-month jail sentence on January 7, 1977 for throwing blood on the Pentagon steps during an anti-nuclear protest on December 28, 1976. That report establishes the sentence and protest dates, but does not establish when she entered or left custody for this action.
In her April 2019 family remembrance, Frida Berrigan describes her mother spending 26 months at Alderson following the Griffiss Plowshares action. This is an attributed recollection of actual imprisonment, retained as context rather than a new numeric case total because precise custody endpoints remain unresolved.
The June 8, 2020 sentencing report records a $310 assessment and $33,503.51 in restitution, owed jointly and severally by the Kings Bay defendants, with minimum payments of $25 per month. No additional fine was imposed. McAlister appeared remotely from her daughter’s home; the time-served judgment was not a new physical release from jail. Bill Quigley and Jason Clark represented her. The reproduced press release gives a different restitution figure of $30,500; the opening court report’s more precise amount is retained here as its attributed account.
Paul Elie’s November 2019 account reports that all seven Kings Bay defendants pleaded not guilty at their October 21 trial, arguing that the action sought to prevent nuclear destruction. The jury convicted them three days later. The plea records their position at trial, separately from the verdict and later sentencing.
Paul Elie, The New Yorker, November 19, 2019, reproduced by The Nuclear Resister.
On August 26, 2019, Judge Lisa Godbey Wood denied the Kings Bay defendants’ pretrial motions to dismiss, including their Religious Freedom Restoration Act defense. The contemporary account reports that the court accepted the sincerity of their religious beliefs and found prosecution burdened their religious exercise, but held that the government’s security interests justified applying the criminal laws. The following day the jury trial was scheduled for October 21. These were pretrial rulings, separate from the later verdict and sentence; they did not establish a new jail admission.
Frida Berrigan’s April 2019 memoir reports that her mother served 26 months at Alderson Federal Prison following the Griffiss Plowshares prosecution, and describes monthly family visits. This attributed account of the later federal imprisonment is distinct from the already recorded initial November–December 1983 Syracuse jail stay. It supplies no exact later admission or discharge day; no numerical total or continuous custody interval is added from the memoir.
Frida Berrigan, April 4, 2019 memoir, reproduced by The Nuclear Resister, April 10, 2019.
The Kings Bay Plowshares’ March 28, 2022 update reports that Elizabeth McAlister was no longer under court-ordered supervision. It does not supply the exact termination day; this historical report does not change the separately documented physical prison release.
In her October 19, 2012 first-person family essay, Frida Berrigan reproduces a letter from Elizabeth McAlister during her confinement at Alderson, West Virginia, on November 17, 1985. The account describes a telephone conversation and a birthday letter to her three children while she was serving a sentence for a New York Plowshares action. It supplies no new admission or discharge day. The essay describes a two-and-a-half-year sentence; contemporary prisoner directories separately describe a three-year Griffiss term, so the differing nominal-term descriptions are not treated as a measured period actually served.
Bill Quigley’s report of the August 2, 2018 Kings Bay hearing identifies Stan Baker as the magistrate hearing dismissal motions, Lisa Godbey Wood as the district judge who would ultimately decide them, and Karl Knoche as the assistant U.S. attorney opposing dismissal. Those procedural roles and pending motions are distinct from a later trial verdict or sentencing disposition. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
The April 2018 report describes the Kings Bay defendants’ April 6 first appearance before Chief Magistrate Jennifer E. Lewis on the initial Georgia state allegations, with bail denied and detention at Camden County Public Safety Complex. This initial state-court phase is distinct from the later federal prosecution; the report’s April 5 arrest account does not resolve every conflicting legacy profile date. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
The July 23, 2014 Hancock report individually names Elizabeth McAlister and reports Trespass and disorderly conduct, followed by release on recognizance. For the five people held on bail, the article gives no later physical discharge date. Brian Hynes participated but was not arrested in this action; no custody is allocated to him from the seven-person roster.
Sources: The Nuclear Resister report 549.
