Earth First! Activist Dies of Cancer

Judi Bari, a fiery leader of the group Earth First! who was permanently injured in a mysterious 1990 car bomb blast on the eve of “Redwood Summer,” died Sunday after a long struggle with breast cancer. She was 47.

Bari died at her home, according to her longtime friend Betty Ball of the Mendocino Environmental Center.

Bari, who was accused but never charged in the car bombing just before weeks of planned Northern California anti-logging protests, revealed in November during her weekly “Punch and Judi” radio show that cancer had spread to her liver. In recent weeks, friends said, her health had declined precipitously.

News of her death prompted hundreds of phone calls to station KMUD in Garberville, where Bari produced her radio show.

KMUD news director Estelle Fennell, who covered Bari for years as a reporter, said Bari may be most remembered for bringing the concerns of labor to the environmental movement, her quick wit and humor, and her steady work to transform the violent image of Earth First!

“She categorically said [Earth First!)] would not be violent and would not do any of the ‘monkey-wrenching’ they had been known for earlier,” Fennell said.

Bari, a mother of two, devoted much of her life to activist causes. Her early years were spent as a union organizer and student of labor history. As a young worker, she organized a wildcat strike at a government bulk mailing complex in Maryland.

Raised in Baltimore, she moved to California in the early 1980s, and become known for her staunch, vocal opposition to logging practices along the lush coast north of San Francisco, home to some of the world’s oldest trees.

By helping to organize tree-sits, road blockades and other actions, Bari became the best-known leader of Earth First!, a radical, loosely knit group most recently involved in anti-logging demonstrations in Humboldt County’s Headwaters Forest.

In September, she was arrested in the Humboldt County town of Carlotta along with singer Bonnie Raitt. Two weeks after the arrest, she spoke at an anti-logging rally outside Pacific Lumber Co.

“There are thousands of brilliant activists, but Judi stood out. She had an astute strategic ability, and could draw people to the movement,” Ball said. “She was making herself known worldwide.”

Bari said late last year that she was most proud of bringing more women into the environmental movement.

“It use to be male-dominated, but not anymore,” she told the San Francisco Examiner. “It’s largely led by women now, women who are home-based and defending the place they love.”

Bari was thrust into a national spotlight on May 24, 1990, when a bomb exploded in her station wagon in Oakland. She and a fellow Earth First! organizer were on their way to recruit students for months of planned “Redwood Summer” demonstrations.

The explosion severely injured Bari, fracturing her pelvis, damaging her spine and paralyzing her foot. Police accused Bari in the bombing but prosecutors refused to file charges, citing lack of evidence.

Bari, meanwhile, maintained that the bomb was planted by the FBI and for years sought to prove that the agency was covering up its involvement. A civil lawsuit alleging Bari was falsely arrested by the FBI and Oakland police is pending.

“I want the truth about the FBI’s involvement,” she told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat in December. “If there was none, then I want to know who was responsible for bombing me.”

The trauma of that experience prepared her for what would come later, Bari said.

“I think that’s part of the reason I’m able to handle this cancer thing the way I am. I’ve been through worse,” she said.

Upon learning of her cancer in November, Bari said she would withdraw from activism to spend time with her daughters. Even so, she continued to produce her radio show and actively followed her case against the FBI, according to friends.

“I will reemerge as soon as I can,” she said at the time.