Jane Alpert - Life As A Radical Leftist

Life As A Radical Leftist

The New York Times wrote that, "Jane Lauren Alpert, who pleaded guilty May 4 to being part of a conspiracy to bomb Federal office buildings here last fall, was declared yesterday to have forfeited her $20,000 bail. The reason was that she violated the conditions of bail by not checking in with the United States Attorney's office this week."

As a fugitive, Alpert saw that the radical left was in decline and began to identify with radical feminism, once mailing a feminist manifesto to Ms. Magazine along with a set of her fingerprints. After four years of wandering the country working at low-level jobs under false names, she surrendered in November 1974 and was sentenced to 27 months in prison for the conspiracy conviction. In October 1977 she was sentenced to an additional four months imprisonment for contempt of court, for refusing to testify at the 1975 trial of Patricia Swinton, another defendant in the 1969 case.

Alpert attended Swarthmore College, graduating with honors in 1967 after developing an interest in radical politics. She did graduate work at Columbia University but quit after the 1968 student uprising. She wrote for Rat, a New York City underground newspaper, and had become involved with the Black Panther Party by the time she met Melville in 1968. Her autobiography Growing up Underground was published in 1981.