Biography
Linda Sue Evans became politicized through 1960s antiwar organizing, including activity linked to Michigan State University and later national organizing that included travel to Hanoi during the Vietnam era. Over time she moved from protest politics into clandestine organizing, becoming associated with the Weather Underground and related underground networks that framed their actions as resistance to racism and U.S. foreign policy.
She faced recurring law-enforcement attention, including an early 1970 arrest tied to protest organizing that was later dropped. Her most consequential arrest came in May 1985 when she was arrested alongside fugitive Marilyn Buck. Evans was convicted in 1987 on firearms-related charges involving false identification and for harboring Buck, then later received an additional sentence connected to the 1983 Senate bombing and other attacks attributed to an armed underground group. Her lengthy sentence was commuted in 2001 by Bill Clinton. After release, she became active in advocacy around incarceration and prisoners’ rights, drawing in part on her experiences while imprisoned (including time at Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin). Linda Sue Evans is a longtime anti-imperialist organizer and former member of Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground. Arrested on May 11, 1985 in New York with co-defendants in the Armed Resistance Unit, she was first convicted in 1986 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for using false identification to purchase firearms and was sentenced to 35 years in federal prison. In May 1988 she was named in the Resistance Conspiracy indictment for the 1983-85 Armed Resistance Unit bombings. In 1990 she pleaded guilty to conspiracy and destruction of government property and was sentenced to an additional 5 years consecutive. On the last day of his presidency, January 20, 2001, President Clinton commuted her sentence; she was released on January 24, 2001 after 16 years in federal prison.
