Earlier this month, sandwiched between story time and Tai Chi classes, the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) held an event that could fairly be described as a gathering of former domestic terrorists. “A Generation of Political Prisoner Support and Archiving Resistance” featured former Weather Underground member David Gilbert alongside former members of the Black Liberation Army, the Puerto Rican separatist terrorist group FALN, and various prisoner-support organizations with close ties to other militants. Together, the panelists reflected on their revolutionary struggles in America and how those lessons could be passed on to the next generation.
The date of the event, November 2, was no accident. It’s the anniversary of what panelists called the “liberation of Assata Shakur,” a militant member of the Black Liberation Army convicted for the 1973 murder of a New Jersey state trooper. By “liberation,” the panelists meant her escape from prison in 1979, which was followed by her flight to Communist Cuba, where she remained until her death last year.
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That the San Francisco Public Library, with support from the Friends & Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library, would host an event glorifying political violence and seeking to inspire imitators should be cause for concern. The panelists’ goal, underwritten by public subsidy, was clear from their words: preserving their movement’s legacy, raising money for other “political prisoners” still behind bars, and inspiring a new generation of militants.
The event featured the Certain Days Collective, a prison abolitionist organization that describes itself as “anti-imperialist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, feminist, queer- and trans-liberationist.” The CDC counts among its founders Gilbert and Herman Bell, the latter a former Black Liberation Army member convicted of murdering two NYPD officers in 1971, as well as voluntary manslaughter in the death of a San Francisco police sergeant in that same year.
After a brief land acknowledgment, SFPL librarian Charlie Harmon started the event with a discussion of items in SFPL’s collection relating to the speakers and explained how attendees could access their literary works. He then ceded the floor to moderator Josh Davidson, who identifies as “an anarchist and abolitionist.” Davidson’s résumé includes work with the Zinn Education Project, editing the book of a militant Antifa activist, membership in the Certain Days Collective, and an upcoming children’s book advocating prison abolition. Davidson then asked the panelists to introduce themselves. These included Gilbert and Laura Whitehorn, both former members of the Weather Underground; Bell; Claude Marks, another Weather Underground member who later became associated with the Puerto Rican separatist group FALN; and Dequi Kioni-Sadik, the widow of Sekou Odinga, who masterminded Shakur’s prison escape.
This rogue’s gallery was unsurprisingly chary about discussing their crimes. To his credit, Bell was the only speaker who didn’t shy away, though he framed his arrest as being “in connection with” the murder of the two NYPD officers. He did not discuss his time on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
Whitehorn did not mention her conviction and imprisonment for involvement in multiple bombings, including the U.S. Capitol, the National War College, and other sites. She described herself as a former political prisoner. Gilbert described being “in the underground resistance for ten years” rather than mentioning his role in the 1981 Brink’s robbery by Black Liberation Army members and former Weather Underground militants. That crime left three people dead, including two police officers and a security guard.
Marks’s most candid description of his past was that he spent “many years in clandestinity.” He did not discuss the plan to disrupt the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles violently in order to free FALN leader Oscar Lopez Rivera, plans that involved 37 pounds of what he and co-conspirators believed to be explosives. Nor did he mention FALN’s campaign of more than 100 bombings during the late 1970s and early 1980s, or his own stint on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.
After these modest introductions, the conversation turned to Shakur and her legacy. Whitehorn said that there had been “so much hatred and so much vilification of Black revolution,” but that “Assata’s Liberation” ushered in “the biggest narrative change ever” and was a “tremendous victory.” Whitehorn credits Shakur’s autobiography as a radicalizing text, especially for women in prison. Bell and Gilbert praised Shakur’s prison break, with Gilbert even wishing he had been there, describing it as “a beautiful example of what well thought out and carefully planned and brave clandestine action can do.”
For the panelists, the symbolic importance of Shakur’s escape was as a textbook example of the kinds of lessons these formerly imprisoned revolutionaries want to pass on to the next generation of radicals, and of the importance of projects like the Certain Days Collective.
The panel then turned its attention to the work of CDC. Gilbert explained that one of the group’s main objectives is to educate younger activists and sustain the “continuity of struggles.” As he put it, “that entails for us who were political prisoners a responsibility to pass on lessons, both about what we did right and what we did wrong.”
That work includes publication of CDC’s annual Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar. The project combines revolutionary history and political education and serves as a major fundraising tool for the organization. Bell, a co-founder of CDC alongside Gilbert, explained that proceeds from the calendar not only sustain the group but also allow it to support outside organizations.
Whitehorn confirmed that her organization, Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP), receives financial support from CDC. “We come out of the revolutionary movement,” she declared, distancing RAPP from the nonprofit world. “We don’t take money from like the Ford Foundation and shit.” Ironically, RAPP operates under the fiscal sponsorship of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs, a nonprofit through which it solicits tax-deductible contributions.
RAPP is not the only organization receiving funds from CDC. The group publicly identifies other fiscal beneficiaries, including the Palestinian Youth Movement, the anarchist Puget Sound Prisoner Support, Coalition to Decarcerate Illinois, Appalachians Against Pipelines, Cascadia Forest Defenders, NorCal Resist, and other far-left groups.
CDC has a history of questionable sponsorship. In past years, it has listed Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association, a Palestinian prisoner support group, as beneficiaries. Addameer has since been listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and Israel.
Panelists also expressed support for Benjamin Song, who was sentenced to 100 years in prison in connection with the 2025 attack on an ICE detention facility in Texas that wounded a police officer. Moderator Josh Davidson shared that he had spoken with Song, who allegedly drew inspiration from the older revolutionaries’ experiences. Whitehorn explained that she and her fellow panelists are passing on knowledge and experience to younger activists.
In a similar vein, Marks described how the Freedom Archives, which he co-founded and directs, preserves radical history through recordings and other materials. He explained the power of playing speeches by Ho Chi Minh and Shakur. “These are the stories that the state would like to wipe out,” he told his municipal library audience.
Unfortunately, the Weather Underground, the Black Liberation Army, and FALN are not yet fully consigned to the dustbin of history. Former members have adapted and embraced new roles as movement elders and living repositories of activist knowledge. Whitehorn name-dropped Jill Soffiyah Elijah—an activist, lawyer, and now a member of Mayor Mamdani’s judicial advisory committee—as a frequent legal collaborator. These elders not only network with and provide support to militants and activists—such as Antifa arsonist Eric King, who served time for firebombing the congressional office of then Black Caucus leader Emanuel Cleaver, and the Antifa terrorists behind the 2025 ICE facility attack—but have also worked to keep the movement alive financially and in activist memory.
Throughout this investigative process, SFPL has maintained that it is complying with the public-records request but has declined to answer questions beyond that. The records produced make clear that the event was known throughout the system. In one example, Harmon sent an October 13 email to roughly a dozen librarians asking them to include the event in their respective newsletters and noting that it was “held on an important date for Assata Shakur.”
Public records also reveal that the library was pursuing two programs at once. Alongside the panel, Harmon planned a book talk with Josh Davidson, the event’s moderator, and Eric King, the Antifa firebomber, about King’s memoir, A Clean Hell: Anarchy and Abolition in America’s Most Notorious Dungeon, which Davidson edited. According to the emails, that plan stalled after a “curveball” emerged: “higher-ups” had determined that Harmon’s department could not fund a program about a book not included in its own collection. The Certain Days and Freedom Archives panel was unaffected and moved forward. Harmon wrote that he would see whether another department had funding for the King event once the new fiscal year began in July 2026, and he floated a separate children’s program with Davidson built around his forthcoming prison-abolition children’s book.
The question of whether the panelists were paid remains unresolved. Internal emails from May and June show Harmon repeatedly working to find money for presenters. He told Davidson he would look into “what my department can provide for an honorarium,” said the library could “pay something for a Zoom,” and explained that getting “the check to presenters before the program happens” would require W-9s and invoices. On May 28, he advised Davidson that it would be “prudent” for him and King to enter SFPL’s internal-presenter database, where speakers “set your prices so librarians contacting you henceforth would know up front how much they need to budget.” Davidson confirmed a week later that both had done so. Harmon also suggested that contacts at San Quentin, where he does outreach helping “incarcerated men and trans women pick out children’s books for their families,” could “help with funding any reentry-related programming.” The records produced do not show whether, or from what source, any honorarium was paid. When asked directly, SFPL’s Interim Director of Communications Jamie Wong said, “We will respond to your inquiry via the NextRequest portal, which covers these questions.” The request has since been closed. The Friends & Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
As political violence and public sympathy for it continue to rise, taxpayer-funded institutions and nonprofit organizations have an even greater obligation to exercise judgment about the kinds of events and speakers they choose to host. A public library is meant to facilitate access to education and community. That mission shouldn’t extend to convening terrorists, murderers, and other serious criminals to celebrate their past and mentor a new generation of political militants.