Biography
Born in Casper, Wyoming, Corbett earned a BA from Colgate and an MA in philosophy from Harvard before turning to ranching, goat-herding, and library work. In May 1981 he encountered a Salvadoran refugee detained by the Border Patrol and began smuggling refugees across the Sonoran Desert; in March 1982 he and Rev. John Fife declared Southside Presbyterian Church a public sanctuary, launching the national Sanctuary Movement. He was the most prominent of the three defendants acquitted in U.S. v. Aguilar. He died of cerebellar paraneoplastic syndrome at his Cascabel ranch in 2001 at age 67. His books "Goatwalking" (1991) and the posthumous "Sanctuary for All Life" remain standard texts in the movement.
