On March 22 my friend Sparrow and I began a 24-day fast for the forest. I fasted inside the Humboldt County Jail while serving a sentence for hugging a tree during the March 20 `03 Freshwater uprising. My co-defendant Sparrow fasted outside, keeping a bi-weekly vigil in front of the Eureka Courthouse and jail. We decided to fast for several reasons:
1. To call attention to the continued destruction of the old growth forest in Humboldt County.
2. To keep the original action alive and to keep speaking out about the issues which caused the protest.
3. To follow the dictates of our hearts and to alert our communities in a non-violent way to the disaster befalling our beloved forest at the hands of the Maxxam Corporation.
My jail sentence stemmed from the large protest that erupted in Freshwater on March 17. As U.S. troops prepared to invade Iraq on that morning, Maxxam/Pacific Lumber invaded with its own private contracted climbers, flanked by scores of pepper spray wielding County Sheriffs, to extract the treesitters from several dozen ancient redwood trees. Sparrow and I had locked ourselves to a small redwood tree growing at the base of the massive 1,200-year-old redwood tree called "Jerry" in support of treesitter Remedy, who had defended "Jerry" for three days shy of a year. We had hoped to buy a little time between Remedy's extraction and the tree's execution.
At my trial last June, the jury found me innocent of trespass when the prosecutor failed to prove that the tree where I was arrested actually belonged to Maxxam/PL. I was, however, convicted of resisting arrest. We filed an appeal challenging the prosecutors' use of illegal means to obtain the conviction, but after 6 months the appeals process bogged down and it was dropped from the court calendar.
Inspired by Susan Moloney's 52-day fast for old growth protection on the Capital steps in Sacramento in 2002, I realized that fasting in jail could provide a good forum for our message.
From the beginning, our fast made waves, both inside and outside of the jail. We explained our intentions at a press conference in front of the courthouse on the day I turned myself in. The Humboldt County Correctional facility is not exactly Abu Ghraib, but it is not a fun place either. When I told one officer of my intention to fast while incarcerated, he warned me that I could be put in the "hole", a windowless isolation cell with a single round hole in the center of a sloped concrete floor where a prisoner can be held handcuffed and naked for indefinite lengths of time.
Fortunately, I was in the general population wing, with about forty other inmates. We bunked by two's, three's and four's in eight by ten quads separated by waist high concrete barriers, arranged in two tiers around the walls of a day use area. It was hard at first to adjust to the constant artificial lighting on the concrete , steel and plastic, and to the noise, forced air and lingering smell of disinfectant. But the longer I fasted, the more focused my energy became. Giving away my food at mealtimes won me instant friends and opened the door to discussion of my "fast for the forest". Though few of the women knew much about Iraq, they all were familiar with Humboldt's timber wars. Most were sympathetic to the cause and agreed that old growth should be saved. After a short time I no longer needed to explain my fast as my cellmates took it upon themselves to inform newcomers about its purpose. All of the women expressed concern for my health and compassion for me during my fast.
After twelve days I was eligible to work in the kitchen where my strength and resolve to fast would presumably be tested. Rumor had it that I would either break my fast, or collapse from starvation: However neither of these things happened. But the jail's Jewish cook, who knew that " like Charles Hurwitz" I was also Jewish, insisted that I take a symbolic bite of Matzo, the traditional Passover bread of affliction. It was an offer I could not refuse as one fellow Jew to another.
On Passover evening some inmates woke me excitedly to hear the muffled sounds of drumming and the accordion music of a Klezmer band (a traditional Jewish band) coming from the street in front of the jail. A crowd of activists and supporters organized by Petrolia resident Ellen Taylor had gathered along with local Rabbi Lester Scharnberg to celebrate Passover and to support "our fast for the forest". The Rabbi sang a spirited blessing and the drumming and chanting floated up through the ventilation shafts. The on-duty officers watched the rally on closed circuit television, and for a moment everyone smiled, sharing the spotlight of awareness of something bigger than themselves, of the forest and the people beyond the walls.
Unlike most of the other people in jail, Sparrow and I received a great deal of support from the community, including letters, phone calls, gifts and contributions. I had many visitors during my stay, and many people stopped to offer their thanks and support to Sparrow as she sat outside the jail. The night before my release at 1:30 a.m. a young woman snuck out of lockdown in order to hug me goodbye. "Thank you for saving our Redwoods" she whispered.
