In a statement, Boudin said, “My mother battled cancer for seven years in her unwaveringly optimistic and courageous way. She made it long enough to meet her grandson and welcome my father from prison after 40 years.

Kathy Boudin was released from prison in 2003 and later earned her doctorate and became a professor of social work at Columbia University, specializing in criminal justice reform.

Kathy Boudin, along with Chesa’s father, David Gilbert, were members of the radical left-wing – and sometimes violent – organization Weather Underground, an activist group that coalesced around Black Power causes and opposition to Vietnam War.

On October 20, 1981, the couple joined members of the Black Liberation Army in the botched robbery of a Brink’s armored truck in New York City. A Washington Post article at the time described the crime as part of an effort to create a new “New Africa Republic” in the southern United States.

Other members of the group shot and killed a Brink guard, Peter Paige, before killing two Nyack, NY police officers, Waverly Brown and Edward O’Grady.

Gilbert and Kathy Boudin, acting as the unarmed driver and passenger in the getaway van, were each charged and convicted under New York’s felony murder law, which allows all participants in a crime causing death to be charged with murder, even though they were not directly responsible for the murders.

Chesa Boudin, who was 14 months old at the time of the fatal robbery and ended up with a babysitter, was raised in Chicago by Weather Underground executives Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers.

While Kathy Boudin reached a plea deal that got her paroled in 2003, Gilbert refused the lawyer, took the case to trial, and was sentenced to 75 years to life in prison.

During her parole hearing, Kathy Boudin told the commissioners that she had a “completely distorted and disturbed view” when she agreed to participate in the robbery, according to a 2003 New York Times article. Her actions, she said, were motivated by guilt at being white and from a privileged background, and because she felt she had not done enough to help support poor black neighborhoods. .

Kathy Boudin told commissioners she accepted full responsibility for the deaths.

“I think I was completely out of touch with ways to help communities and people. I think that was completely wrong,” Kathy Boudin said in a WNYC interview shortly before her parole.

Kathy Boudin was a fugitive when she was arrested for the Brinks robbery. She had fled an explosion in 1970 at a Manhattan townhouse where the Weathermen were making bombs. The daughter of leftist civil liberties lawyer Leonard Boudin, Kathy Boudin had grown up in a home where law and politics were debated.

While incarcerated, she taught literacy programs, helped raise funds for college programs in the prison, worked with HIV-positive fellow inmates, and earned her master’s degree in adult education.

“She always ended phone calls with a laugh, a habit learned during the 22 years of her incarceration, when she wanted to leave everyone she spoke with, especially me, with joy and hope,” Chesa Boudin said. “She lived redemption, constantly finding ways to give back to those around her.”

Supporters pleaded for her release, saying she had expressed remorse and worked to give back to society. Letty Cottin Pogrebin, founding editor of Ms. magazine, told the New York Times in 2003 when Kathy Boudin was released that “she paid a very high price for a very stupid decision when she was young and idealistic. , and she was deeply remorseful. … She suffered enormously and was a model prisoner.

But others, including law enforcement groups and relatives of those killed, have fought his release over the years.

Former State Assemblyman Alexander Gromack, a Republican from Rockland County, said in 2001 after being denied parole: “Although she may not have pressed the trigger itself, the blood of these three men still stains his hands.”

Upon her release, Kathy Boudin took a job at St. Luke’s Hospital HIV/AIDS Center where she helped create programs for women.

Gilbert was granted clemency last year by outgoing New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and was paroled from prison in November.

Kathy Boudin and Gilbert reunited immediately after Gilbert’s release, Chesa Boudin said.

“My dad was here with her every day,” Chesa Boudin said.

After more than two decades of incarceration, Kathy Boudin became co-director and co-founder of the Center for Justice at Columbia University, where her work focused on the criminal justice system and the damage caused by mass incarceration. .

At a rally in San Francisco on Sunday, longtime political activist Angela Davis called Kathy Boudin “one of my oldest friends.”

Davis said the two have worked against the prison industrial complex since Kathy herself was released from prison.

“I think it was in a symbolic way that she decided to leave that day,” Davis said, referring to May Day.

Geraldine Downey, director of Columbia’s Center for Justice, said seven formerly incarcerated students will celebrate their graduations this month “as a fitting tribute to Kathy’s efforts to ensure access to college for those with criminal convictions.” .

“His influence will be felt for years to come in our work and the endeavors of so many others,” Downey said in a statement.

Chesa Boudin, who faces a potential recall on June 7, has often spoken about how her experience growing up with incarcerated parents shaped her view of the criminal justice system. He pledged to work to end mass incarceration and divert more people to treatment programs. Opponents argued that he had been too lenient and had mismanaged the district attorney’s office.

“My earliest memories are walking through the prison gates to visit my parents,” Boudin said in a 2019 interview with the Chronicle. “It’s something that has dramatically and profoundly shaped every moment of my life.”

Megan Cassidy is a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected]: @meganrcassidy