Laura Whitehorn was born in 1945 to Lenore and Nathaniel Whitehorn of Brooklyn, New York. As a college student in the 1960s, she organized and participated in civil rights and anti-war movements.^[1]. After her graduation from Radcliffe College in 1966, she went on to receive her master’s from Brandeis University.^[2]

The early days

Having worked as an organizer for Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Whitehorn became a member of the Weathermen/The Weather Underground organization in 1969.^{[citation needed]} She traveled with them to Havana, Cuba as part of the organization’s instruction in the ideology of Marxism and urban warfare, visiting one of the camps established by Soviet KGB Colonel Vadim Kotchergine.^[3]

"The Days of Rage"

On October 6, of that same year, the Weathermen blew up America’s only monument to policemen, a statue located in Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, preceding several days of street fighting between protesters and police.^[4] According to FBI records, “The “Days of Rage” or the “National Action” rapidly degenerated into destructive riots and open confrontations with Chicago Police, leaving a vast amount of public property destroyed, including 100 shattered windows in the vicinity.^[5] The Weather Underground Organization (WUO) made a number of demands, primarily related to the Vietnam War.^[6] Whitehorn, along with approximately 55 other people, was arrested for her participation in the violence.^[7] A Federal Grand Jury in Chicago later returned a number of indictments charging WUO members with violation of Federal Antiriot Laws. The Antiriot Law charges were dropped in January 1974.^[8]

The townhouse explosion

The March 6, 1970 accidental explosion in a Greenwich Village safe house was a culmination of the political direction in which Weatherman had been headed, according to Whitehorn. “We were out of touch with what was going on, and we lost sight of the fact that if you’re a revolutionary, the first thing you have to try to do is preserve human life."^[9] Three Weathermen died in the explosion, Terry Robbins, Diana Oughton, and Ted Gold.^{[citation needed]}

While Whitehorn continues to claim that great care was taken (during the numerous bombings), to insure that no one would be hurt, including the janitorial staff,^[10] critics have asserted that when a bomb goes off, there is always the potential of endangering the lives of innocent victims, especially the emergency agencies responding to the scene, who are at risk by the very nature of such an intrinsically dangerous situation.

Feminist Education

In 1971, Laura Whitehorn helped organize and lead a militant takeover and occupation of a Harvard University building by nearly 400 women to protest the war in Vietnam and demand a women’s center.^[11] One of the founders of the Boston/Cambridge Women’s School, Whitehorn helped establish the school as an alternative source of feminist education.^[2] Operated and taught by a collective of female volunteers until it closed in 1992, Boston/Cambridge Women’s School had gained the reputation as the longest running women’s school in the United States at the time.^[12]

The climate of militancy

The dead end of militancy and violence for their own sake was obvious after the townhouse explosion, says Whitehorn.^[9] Events at the 1972 Republican National Convention protest led Whitehorn to question once more the need for militancy, confirming her belief that they should allow for militancy when guided by a political framework, but not militancy for militancy’s sake.^[9]

The Battle of Boston

During the Boston busing crisis, which the WUO referred to as “the Battle of Boston,”^[9] Whitehorn was among a small group of the Praire Fire Organizing Committee (PFOC) activists in the Boston area who sat with baseball bats in people’s homes, protecting families from local white supremacists who tried to attack with bats, Molotov cocktails and spray-paint.^[9] While Whitehorn and other members of the aboveground cadre carried out their vigilance for two years, the WUO engaged in only minor confrontational tactics in response to the Boston crisis.^[9]

The Praire Fire Organizing Committee

The Praire Fire Organizing Committee, of which Whitehorn was a member, planned the Hard Times Conference (with WUO support and leadership) as a way to build a national multiracial coalition. The goal was to bring together a multiracial crowd of more than 2,000 people at the University of Illinois Circle Campus in Chicago, from January 30 to February 1, 1976.^[9] The slogan for the conference was “Hard Times are Fighting Times.”

Even though attendance far surpassed what the WUO and PFOC had anticipated, the conference became a political disaster.^[9] Whitehorn was so nauseated by the politics of the conference that she became physically ill in the middle of it. “I hated it more than anything else I’ve ever done, she told Nicole Kief in an interview on October 20, 2002. She began to pull away from the WUO.^[9]

The May 19 Communist Organization

The May 19 Communist Organization, also known as the May 19th Coalition, was a U.S.-based, self-described revolutionary organization formed by splintered-off members of the Weather Underground and was active from 1978 to 1985. Originally known as the New York Chapter of the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee (PFOC), argueably, they were devoted to promoting the causes of the Weather Underground through less radical means.

By the early 1980’s, Whitehorn was active in a variety of radical organizations, in addition to the May 19 Communist Organization, including the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and the Madame Binh Graphics Collective, a radical art group. During this time, Whitehorn worked with liberation movements in Zimbabwe and Azania/South Africa and Palestine. ^[13]

From 1982 to 1985, a series of bombings were attributed to the May 19 Communist Organization, including bombings of the National War College, the Washington Navy Yard Computing Center, the Israeli Aircraft Industries Building, New York City's South African Consulate, the Washington Navy Yard Officers' Club, New York City's Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, and the United States Capitol Building.^{[citation needed]}

By May 23, 1985, all members of the May 19 Communist Organization had been arrested, with the exception of Elizabeth Duke. Whitehorn became one of the defendants in the Resistance Conspiracy Case, and was charged with “conspiracy to oppose, protest and change the policies and practices of the United States government in domestic and international matters by violence and illegal means.” ^[14] Other charges included participating in a string of property bombings, including the U.S. Capitol (in which no one was injured), that protested police brutality and U.S. foreign policy.

Laura Whitehorn agreed to plead guilty on September 7, 1990,^[15] as part of a plea agreement to help her co-defendant who was suffering from cancer and poor health care in prison. ^[9] Sentenced at a proceeding by Federal District Judge Harold H. Greene,the courtroom was packed with supporters.^[15] Her original sentence was thirty-three years, which was eventually reduced to twenty-three years. On August 6, 1999 Whitehorn was released on parole after serving just over 14 years in prison.^[2]

The years in prison

During the 14 years Whitehorn served in prison, she directed AIDS education and wrote numerous publications. When asked if her political work ended once she was in prison, she replied that it had consisted basically of three areas: being a political prisoner, organizing and being part of the struggles for justice inside the prisons, and being part of the fight against HIV and AIDS.^[16]

Whitehorn lost many friends while she was in prison during some of the worst years of the AIDS epidemic.^[2] While Whitehorn served time in a Federal women’s prison at Lexington, Kentucky, her father, Nathaniel, “Tanny” Whitehorn died on January 3, 1992.^[17] Whitehorn identifies many consequences of being behind bars for fourteen years, including losing someone you love. She notes that not being with them while they are dying, or being able to go to the memorial service afterwards, is just one way families are destroyed by prison.^[2]

Life after prison

Since her release from prison in August 1999, Laura Whitehorn has been involved in a wide range of causes, including the release of political prisoners.^[18] She has contributed writings and art work to numerous books and articles, and has been a controversial guest speaker at several universities, including an official guest of the African American Studies Department at Duke University in 2003, where she was presented as a human rights activist by Duke faculty^[19] Currently a Senior Editor with POZ Magazine in New York City, much of her writing has to do with supporting AIDS healthcare providers and empowering patients through publications. Whitehorn is a member of the NY State taskforce on political prisoners, a group dedicated to supporting New York State political prisoners from the black liberation movement and anti-imperialist solidarity movement.^[20]

Laura Whitehorn appears in the documentary films, OUT: The Making of a Revolutionary, directed by Sonja DeVries,^[21] and The Weather Underground , (2002), directed by Sam Green and Bill Siegel, which includes a cast of former Weather Underground Organization members; Bill Ayers, Kathleen Cleaver, Bernardine Dohrn, Brian Flanagan, David Gilbert, Todd Gitlin, Naomi Jaffe, and Mark Rudd.^[18]

Notes

References

• Anarchist Black Cross Federation, http://burn.ucsd.eduwww.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/profiles/whitehorn

• FBI Files. FBI files: Weather Underground Organization (Weatherman) Information from the Statistical Section of the Records Division of the Chicago Police Department and Weatherman Underground Historical Files.

• Serrie, Jonathan. {http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,76547,00.html] Students 'Duke It Out' with Controversial Speaker Fox News, January 27, 2003.

• Whitehorn, Laura. (2003). Fighting to Get Them Out. Article in Social Justice,San Francisco; 2003. Vol. 30, Iss. 2; pg. 51. www.proquest.umi.com.

• Whitehorn, Laura. (1996 and 1997). Enemies of the State. Interview with Meg Starr. Abraham Guillen Press and Arm The Spirit. 2002.

• Whitehorn, Laura. (1997) Surviving Solitary. http://womenandprison.org/violence/laura-whitehorn.html.

• Women’s School (Cambridge, Mass.) records. (1971-1992). Archives and Special Collections, Northeastern University Libraries. www.lib.neu.edu/archives/collect/findaids.