Biography
Walter Augustus Bowe was a member of the Black Liberation Front arrested in New York on February 16, 1965, with Robert Steele Collier, Khaleel Sultarn Sayyed and Michelle Duclos in the national-monuments prosecution. The government alleged a conspiracy targeting the Statue of Liberty, Liberty Bell and Washington Monument.
Bowe and Sayyed testified that undercover NYPD officer Raymond Wood had initiated the proposals for violence. A jury convicted Bowe, Collier and Sayyed on June 14, 1965; the Second Circuit rejected their appellate claims and affirmed on April 28, 1966. The National Park Service-sponsored historical report records an initial ten-year sentence for each man, later reduced to five. Bowe's exact prison placement and time actually served have not been established by the sources used here.
