What is Judi Bari Famous for?

Answer 1

Judi Bari is famous as a leading environmental activist against clear cutting of California's ancient redwood trees. In fact, she was so good and effective at organizing nonviolent opposition to "Liquidation Logging" of the redwood forests that in 1990 someone tried to kill her with a bomb hidden under the seat of her car.

Soon after Judi began driving her car on May 24, 1990, a motion sensing device triggered the bomb, and it almost killed Judi, blasting pieces of metal up through her car seat, causing major internal injuries requiring emergency surgery, breaking her pelvis in several places, and leaving her with a paralyzed leg and years of severe pain.

For a few months before the bombing attack, Judi, who was a leader of Earth First!, had been receiving phoned and written death threats from logging industry supporters.

But FBI and Oakland, CA, police, working together, ignored clear evidence that Judi was the target of attempted murder. Instead officials told the media that they suspected Judi and her passenger, Darryl Cherney, of being terrorists who were injured when a bomb they were carrying exploded accidentally.

The sensational false charges were spread worldwide by the media, and for several weeks officials kept the California media coverage going with a string of additional false charges and claims of incriminating evidence against Judi. But two months later, when it was time to show the claimed evidence to a judge and bring charges, the District Attorney said he would not ask any charges to be filed against Judi or her passenger due to lack of evidence.

Judi accused the FBI and police of trying to frame her as a criminal when they knew she was not only innocent but the victim of a brutal attack, and that the real bomber was going free. A year went by in which the police made no progress finding the real bomber, and they still told the media that Judi and her friend were the only suspects. So Judi sued the FBI and Oakland police in federal court. It was to become a landmark civil rights case after it finally reached trial in 2002.

The jury found that the FBI and police falsely arrested the pair and falsely accused them in the media in order to destroy their reputations as nonviolent organizers for the redwoods by falsely portraying them as bomb making "eco-terrorists."

The jury awarded Judi and Darryl $4.4 million in damages for violation of their rights under the U.S. Constitution. Fully 80% of the damages were for violating their First Amendment right to speak freely and to organize politically in defense of the forests.

Judi Bari died of cancer in 1997, five years before she was vindicated in court of the false accusations that were believed by millions. News of her innocence did not spread as fast or as far as the sensational false charges against her by the FBI. At the time of the bombing, Judi Bari was 40 years old and the single mother of two young girls. When she died, thousands of friends and admirers attended her memorial gatherings. As part of an agreement coming out of her lawsuit, the City Council declared May 24 every year as Judi Bari Day in the city of Oakland. Judi was born on November 7, 1949, in Baltimore, Maryland, and died on March 2, 1997 in her rural home near Willits, California.