# David Gilbert (activist)
**David Gilbert** (born 1944) is an American radical leftist organizer, a founding member of Columbia University's chapter of [Students for a Democratic Society](https://www.edgepedia.org/students-for-a-democratic-society) (SDS), a member of the [Weather Underground](https://www.edgepedia.org/weather-underground), and, from 1981 until 2021, a New York prisoner serving a sentence of 75 years to life for his role in an armored car robbery[1](https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2010096028.html). As an unarmed getaway driver in the October 20, 1981 Brink's robbery near [Nyack, New York](https://www.edgepedia.org/nyack-new-york), in which a Brink's guard and two police officers were killed, he was convicted of felony murder under New York's felony-murder law[2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045). His sentence was commuted by Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2021, and he was released on parole that November after 40 years in prison[3](https://apnews.com/article/new-york-robbery-43ffa7173437758df2677ba496b702bc) • [4](https://www.democracynow.org/2021/10/27/headlines/ex_member_of_weather_underground_david_gilbert_granted_parole_after_4_decades_in_prison).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born | 1944[1](https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2010096028.html) |
| Early activism | Founder of Columbia University's SDS chapter; chaired the Columbia Independent Committee on Vietnam, formed in 1965[2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045) • [5](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/23/nyregion/david-j-gilbert-s-trail-activist-and-a-fugitive.html) |
| Weather Underground | Joined in 1970; acted as a regional leader though not on the Weather Bureau[2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045) • [6](https://prisonersolidarity.com/prisoner/david-gilbert) |
| 1981 conviction | Three counts of felony murder for the Nyack Brink's robbery that killed three men; sentenced in 1983 to 75 years to life[3](https://apnews.com/article/new-york-robbery-43ffa7173437758df2677ba496b702bc) • [6](https://prisonersolidarity.com/prisoner/david-gilbert) |
| Prison work | Co-founded HIV/AIDS peer education programs at Auburn Correctional Facility (1987) and Great Meadows Prison[2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045) • [6](https://prisonersolidarity.com/prisoner/david-gilbert) |
| Writings | *No Surrender* (2004), a collection of essays; *Love and Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground and Beyond* (2012), a memoir[2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045) |
| Release | Sentence commuted by Governor Cuomo in 2021; parole approved October 2021; released November 30, 2021 after 40 years[3](https://apnews.com/article/new-york-robbery-43ffa7173437758df2677ba496b702bc) • [4](https://www.democracynow.org/2021/10/27/headlines/ex_member_of_weather_underground_david_gilbert_granted_parole_after_4_decades_in_prison) |
## Early life and education
Gilbert graduated in 1966 from Columbia College, where he majored in philosophy, and attended the New School for Social Research the following year[5](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/23/nyregion/david-j-gilbert-s-trail-activist-and-a-fugitive.html). At Columbia he was a founder of the university's SDS chapter, and his organizing for civil rights and against the [Vietnam War](https://www.edgepedia.org/vietnam-war) in the first half of the 1960s helped lay the foundation for the student strike at Columbia in the spring of 1968[2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045).
His antiwar activity began early. As a junior in 1965 he chaired the Columbia University Independent Committee on Vietnam, a body the FBI and New York police recorded in their files on him[5](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/23/nyregion/david-j-gilbert-s-trail-activist-and-a-fugitive.html). He also co-authored what a scholarly interview describes as the first pamphlet within the 1960s student movement to explain the Vietnam War and American foreign policy in terms of imperialism[2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045). Earlier in his undergraduate years he was one of 50 students disciplined for a campus protest that forced the cancellation of an NROTC ceremony[5](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/23/nyregion/david-j-gilbert-s-trail-activist-and-a-fugitive.html).
## Weather Underground years
In 1970 Gilbert joined the Weather Underground[2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045). The group claimed responsibility for roughly two dozen bombings of empty government and corporate buildings between 1970 and 1976[2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045). According to a prisoner advocacy reference, Gilbert was not a member of the group's coordinating committee, the Weather Bureau, but acted as a regional leader[6](https://prisonersolidarity.com/prisoner/david-gilbert).
He spent much of this period as a fugitive. In 1971 he was charged in Denver with assault on a peace officer and arson, and he became a fugitive; by the time he was charged in the Brink's holdup, the federal fugitive warrant was no longer in effect[5](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/23/nyregion/david-j-gilbert-s-trail-activist-and-a-fugitive.html).
## The 1981 Brink's robbery and convictions
On October 20, 1981, Gilbert and other former Weather Underground members joined [Black Liberation Army](https://www.edgepedia.org/black-liberation-army) militants in an armored car robbery near the [Hudson River](https://www.edgepedia.org/hudson-river) community of Nyack[3](https://apnews.com/article/new-york-robbery-43ffa7173437758df2677ba496b702bc). The robbery, carried out by members of the Black Liberation Army with the May 19 [Coalition](https://www.edgepedia.org/coalition), ended in a shootout in which Brink's guard Peter Paige and Nyack police Sergeant Edward O'Grady and Officer Waverly Brown were killed; the holdup netted $1.6 million[3](https://apnews.com/article/new-york-robbery-43ffa7173437758df2677ba496b702bc) • [7](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/from-weather-underground-activist-to-life-in-prison/).
**Felony murder liability.** Gilbert served as an unarmed getaway driver, present, as he put it in a scholarly interview, as a white ally[2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045) • [3](https://apnews.com/article/new-york-robbery-43ffa7173437758df2677ba496b702bc). Gilbert was charged with robbery and murder under New York's felony-murder law despite not firing the shots that killed the three men[2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045) • [3](https://apnews.com/article/new-york-robbery-43ffa7173437758df2677ba496b702bc). He was charged alongside [Kathy Boudin](https://www.edgepedia.org/kathy-boudin), Judith A. Clark, and Samuel Brown[5](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/23/nyregion/david-j-gilbert-s-trail-activist-and-a-fugitive.html).
At the trial, Gilbert, Judith Clark, and Kuwasi Balagoon represented themselves, presenting themselves as anti-racist freedom fighters engaged in a necessary struggle against US imperialism[7](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/from-weather-underground-activist-to-life-in-prison/). In 1983 Gilbert was sentenced to 75 years to life for three counts of felony murder[6](https://prisonersolidarity.com/prisoner/david-gilbert).
## Imprisonment and prison activism
In 1987 he co-founded an inmate peer education program on HIV and AIDS at Auburn Correctional Facility, and after a transfer to Great Meadows Prison in Comstock he helped start a similar project there[6](https://prisonersolidarity.com/prisoner/david-gilbert). A scholarly interview describes this as the first comprehensive peer education program in New York prisons dealing with HIV/AIDS prevention[2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045).
He also wrote extensively from prison. His published books are *No Surrender: Writings from an Anti-Imperialist Political Prisoner* (2004), a collection of essays and book reviews, and the memoir *Love and Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground and Beyond* (2012)[2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045).
## Clemency, parole, and release
Gilbert became eligible for parole when his sentence was commuted by Governor Andrew Cuomo[3](https://apnews.com/article/new-york-robbery-43ffa7173437758df2677ba496b702bc). A parole board panel approved his release in October 2021 after a 4.5-hour hearing, 40 years after the robbery[3](https://apnews.com/article/new-york-robbery-43ffa7173437758df2677ba496b702bc). At the hearing Gilbert described his path from nonviolent 1960s activist to would-be revolutionary[3](https://apnews.com/article/new-york-robbery-43ffa7173437758df2677ba496b702bc). He was scheduled for release on November 30, 2021[4](https://www.democracynow.org/2021/10/27/headlines/ex_member_of_weather_underground_david_gilbert_granted_parole_after_4_decades_in_prison).
## Comparison with other radical-era cases
Gilbert's case sits within a cluster of prosecutions arising from the 1981 robbery and from the longer radical era. The robbery itself was a joint operation of Black Liberation Army militants and the May 19 Coalition, with former Weather Underground members including Gilbert participating[3](https://apnews.com/article/new-york-robbery-43ffa7173437758df2677ba496b702bc) • [7](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/from-weather-underground-activist-to-life-in-prison/).
Sentencing outcomes among the defendants differed sharply. Gilbert, convicted after trial on three counts of felony murder, received the maximum sentence of 75 years to life; he attributed the difference in outcomes to Kathy Boudin's being in a strong legal position to make a plea bargain after the trial[6](https://prisonersolidarity.com/prisoner/david-gilbert). His co-defendants at trial included Judith Clark and Kuwasi Balagoon, who like Gilbert represented themselves[7](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/from-weather-underground-activist-to-life-in-prison/).
His case also differs from that of Weather Underground members who were never charged in the Brink's events: Gilbert had been a fugitive since 1971 on Denver charges, but it was the Nyack robbery that brought him into custody, and he remained imprisoned for four decades afterward[5](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/23/nyregion/david-j-gilbert-s-trail-activist-and-a-fugitive.html) • [8](https://search.freedomarchives.org/collections/53).
## Legacy and significance
Gilbert's standing rests on three threads that run through his life. As a founder of Columbia's SDS chapter and an early antiwar organizer, he belongs to the prehistory of the 1968 Columbia student strike[2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045). As a defendant, his case illustrates New York's felony murder doctrine, under which an unarmed participant in a robbery was sentenced to 75 years to life[2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045). And as a prisoner of more than 30 years who built HIV/AIDS peer education programs and published a memoir and essays, he is part of the scholarly record on political imprisonment and mass incarceration in the United States[2](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045).
## References
1. [Gilbert, David, 1944- , Library of Congress authority record](https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2010096028.html)
2. [Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, and mass incarceration: an interview with David Gilbert, The Sixties](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2012.746045)
3. [At parole hearing, David Gilbert described radical journey, Associated Press](https://apnews.com/article/new-york-robbery-43ffa7173437758df2677ba496b702bc)
4. [Ex-Member of Weather Underground David Gilbert Granted Parole After 4 Decades in Prison, Democracy Now!](https://www.democracynow.org/2021/10/27/headlines/ex_member_of_weather_underground_david_gilbert_granted_parole_after_4_decades_in_prison)
5. [David J. Gilbert's Trail: Activist and a Fugitive, The New York Times (1981)](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/23/nyregion/david-j-gilbert-s-trail-activist-and-a-fugitive.html)
6. [David Gilbert, Prisoner Solidarity reference page](https://prisonersolidarity.com/prisoner/david-gilbert)
7. [From Weather Underground activist to life in prison, openDemocracy](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/from-weather-underground-activist-to-life-in-prison/)
8. [David Gilbert, Freedom Archives Search](https://search.freedomarchives.org/collections/53)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Law and justice › Criminal law and penal justice › Offenders and criminal suspects (biographies) › Terrorists and political offenders*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 17, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 12, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license