Simply and Beautifully Woman

 

The Walk to Prison and Beyond

 

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Summer Series #2 The Bad, June, 16, 2011

A New Summer Series #2 The Bad
The Walk to Prison and Beyond

Greetings!   

   

 

 

I was ushered to a seat in the cafeteria. My visits before to a prison were similar to this arrangement, so I was comfortable waiting in this 'look alike' visiting room.   

 

 

What would she look like?  Would my "idea" of her in my imagination be the same as the Judy I was about to meet?  

 

 

A congenial lady, who graciously was saying hello to those she passed as she entered the room, was introduced to me by means of the guard pointing his finger in my direction so that Judy would know who her visitor was.    

 

As I quickly got up and moved toward her, I smiled broadly and said, "Hi Judy! My name is Sharon Morris, the mother of Father Jonathan Morris who interviewed you for the book he is writing  on gratitude." Yes, she remembered him. Her manner was welcoming to this complete stranger, unexpected, new to the eye. A warm smile quickly 

 

appeared on her face and put me at ease. I went on to explain that Fr. Jonathan was unable to come. He had sent me for some information he needed. He also thought that I would really like meeting her! My talking was very rapid, being a  bit nervous...but at least all of the words came out and our introductions were made!   

 

 

Here she is thirty years ago!  A young cold heart...accused and unremorseful...  

 

 

 

Judy Allice Clark  

 

 

New York Times cover picture

 

 

 

 

  

From Wikipedia: Judy Clark was born on November 23, 1949. She grew up in a Jewish family with her older brother and parents, Ruth Clark and Joe Clark. Her parents were members of the American Communist Party for many years. As an infant, Clark lived in the Soviet Union from 1950 to 1953. After the family returned home to the U.S., her parents withdrew from the Communist Party, disillusioned. 

 

 

 

 Judith Alice "Judy" Clark was a radicalpolitical activist in the 1960s and '70s. She became a prominent member of the Weather Underground Organization and participated in much of its political agitation and criminal activities. Still pursued by police after the WUO's dissolution in the mid-1970s, Clark continued her course independently through the rest of the decade, working frequently with other radical and extremist groups including the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army  

 

 

 

From the New York Times Magazine, Jan 12, 2012: On Oct. 20, 1981, a band of militant zealots armed with automatic weapons tried to rob a Brink's truck in a shopping mall in Nanuet in Rockland County, N.Y. Before it was over, two armored-car guards were shot and two police officers - one black and one white - were gunned down at a roadblock. The crime was one of the last spasms of '60s-style, left-wing violence. To the militants, it was an "expropriation" for something they called the Republic of New Afrika, a place that existed mainly in their fevered dreams.   

 

 

Judith Clark was one of four people arrested that day for armed robbery and murder. She was 31, a veteran of the white left who traveled the radical arc from student protest to the Weathermen to the fringes beyond. A new single mother, she kissed her infant daughter goodbye that morning, promising to be home soon.    

 

No one ever accused Clark of holding or firing a gun that deadly afternoon.  

 

THIS IS THE BAD: THE GOOD IS TO COME.

 

 

 

I'll write again Thursday.

Sharon

 

 

 

 

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