Susan Rosenberg - Activism and Imprisonment

Activism and Imprisonment

In an interview with the radio show Democracy Now, Rosenberg said that she was "totally and profoundly influenced by the revolutionary movements of the '60s and '70s." She became active in feminist causes, and worked in support of the Puerto Rican independence movement and the fight against the FBI's COINTELPRO program. She also joined the May 19th Communist Organization, which worked in support of the Black Liberation Army, the Weather Underground and other revolutionary organizations. Rosenberg was charged with a role in the 1983 bombing of the United States Capitol Building, the U.S. Naval War College and the New York Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, but the charges were dropped as part of a plea deal by other members of her group.

A statement that her compatriots issued, on the occasion of the Capitol bombing, said, "We purposely aimed our attack at the institutions of imperialist rule rather than at individual members of the ruling class. We did not choose to kill any of them this time. But their lives are not sacred."

When she was convicted of explosive possession in 1984, she received a 58-year-sentence, which was sixteen times the national average for such offenses. Her lawyers contend that, had the case not been politically charged, Rosenberg would have received a five-year sentence.

Rosenberg was one of the first two inmates of the High Security Unit (HSU), a high-security isolation unit in the basement of the Federal Correctional Institution (currently the Federal Medical Center) in Lexington, Kentucky. Allegations were made that the unit was an experimental underground political prison that practiced isolation and sensory deprivation . The women were subject to 24-hour camera surveillance and constant strip searches, and were only given limited access to visitors or to exercise. After touring the unit, the American Civil Liberties Union denounced it as a "living tomb," and Amnesty International called it "deliberately and gratuitously oppressive." After a lawsuit was brought by the ACLU and other organizations, the unit was ordered closed by a federal judge in 1988 and the prisoners transferred to regular cells.

Rosenberg was transferred to various prisons around the country, in Florida, California and, finally, in Danbury, Connecticut. While in prison, she devoted herself to writing and to activism around AIDS, and obtained a Master's degree from Antioch College. Speaking at a 2007 forum, Rosenberg said that writing "became the mechanism by which to save my own sanity." She added that she began writing partly because the intense isolation of prison was threatening to cut her off completely from the "real world," and that she did not want to lose her connection to that world.