Widen the prison gates : writing from jails, April, 1970 - December, 1972 /
Berrigan, Philip.
Widen the prison gates : writing from jails, April, 1970 - December, 1972 / [by] Phillip Berrigan - New York, NY : Simon and Schuster, [1973] - 261 pages ; 21 cm.
This book has no table of contents.
Phillip Berrigan, fugitive from justice, was apprehended by the FBI in April 1970 in a parish house in New York City as he was preparing to address a peace rally at St. Gregory's Church. He was, along with his brother Daniel, under a six year sentence for pouring homemade napalm on draft files in Catonsville, Maryland, having already served time for pouring blood on files in Baltimore City. Daniel eluded the FBI for several months more, but Phillip went straight to jail, and this book tells what he did and saw in the two and a half years he s[ent in several prisons. In Lewisburg Penitentiary he was spied on by an FBI informer, and on the evidence of letters between him and Sister Elizabeth McAlister they and five others were charged with conspiracy to kidnap Henry Kissinger and blow up heating systems in Washington, D.C., as well as draft interference -changes that carried potential life sentences. Berrigan was dragged into an unwelcome spotlight and subjected to innuendos about his personal life and his realtionships. There was the enormous task of preparing a common defense and then a lengthy trial, which was eventually to exonerate the defendantas. Meanwhile, inside, Berrigan joined the struggle for inmates' rights with strikes and fasts. He fought both the terrible boredom and helplessness of life in jail and the various hypocrisies of Church and State. Philp Berrigan spent these years coming to fresh terms with his brother and his intimate friends: as a man, as a celibate priest, as a Christian, as an apostle of nonviolence. The journals and letters that tell the story of these years are frank and deeply persoal. They commence with the night he wasa arrested and end as he and Elizabeth McAlister, now married, carry on the work of the movement in Baltimore, where it all began. Behind all the headlines, here in Berrigan himself - funny, earthly, shrewd, loving, deeply spritual, tough as nails, dedidated proponent of nonviolence. And he is here as a human being who is alternately buoyed, bored, angry, resigned, bitter, jealous, generous, and hopeful. In this revealing book, Philip Berringan holds the mirror up to the terrible contradictions in all our public and private lives." --
0671216376 0671216384 (pbk.)
73013118
Berrigan, Philip.
Protest movements
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Peace movements
BX 4705 .B3846 / A34 1973
364/.6/0924 B
Widen the prison gates : writing from jails, April, 1970 - December, 1972 / [by] Phillip Berrigan - New York, NY : Simon and Schuster, [1973] - 261 pages ; 21 cm.
This book has no table of contents.
Phillip Berrigan, fugitive from justice, was apprehended by the FBI in April 1970 in a parish house in New York City as he was preparing to address a peace rally at St. Gregory's Church. He was, along with his brother Daniel, under a six year sentence for pouring homemade napalm on draft files in Catonsville, Maryland, having already served time for pouring blood on files in Baltimore City. Daniel eluded the FBI for several months more, but Phillip went straight to jail, and this book tells what he did and saw in the two and a half years he s[ent in several prisons. In Lewisburg Penitentiary he was spied on by an FBI informer, and on the evidence of letters between him and Sister Elizabeth McAlister they and five others were charged with conspiracy to kidnap Henry Kissinger and blow up heating systems in Washington, D.C., as well as draft interference -changes that carried potential life sentences. Berrigan was dragged into an unwelcome spotlight and subjected to innuendos about his personal life and his realtionships. There was the enormous task of preparing a common defense and then a lengthy trial, which was eventually to exonerate the defendantas. Meanwhile, inside, Berrigan joined the struggle for inmates' rights with strikes and fasts. He fought both the terrible boredom and helplessness of life in jail and the various hypocrisies of Church and State. Philp Berrigan spent these years coming to fresh terms with his brother and his intimate friends: as a man, as a celibate priest, as a Christian, as an apostle of nonviolence. The journals and letters that tell the story of these years are frank and deeply persoal. They commence with the night he wasa arrested and end as he and Elizabeth McAlister, now married, carry on the work of the movement in Baltimore, where it all began. Behind all the headlines, here in Berrigan himself - funny, earthly, shrewd, loving, deeply spritual, tough as nails, dedidated proponent of nonviolence. And he is here as a human being who is alternately buoyed, bored, angry, resigned, bitter, jealous, generous, and hopeful. In this revealing book, Philip Berringan holds the mirror up to the terrible contradictions in all our public and private lives." --
0671216376 0671216384 (pbk.)
73013118
Berrigan, Philip.
Protest movements
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Peace movements
BX 4705 .B3846 / A34 1973
364/.6/0924 B