Biography
Berkeley graduate-theological-union student who reworked the original Pledge document for mass appeal and helped coordinate the October 9, 1984 first mass public signing at the San Francisco Federal Building. National coordinator of the Pledge of Resistance 1987–1990. Imprisoned for six weeks in June and July 1985 for protesting United States policies in Central America; his own account names Boron Federal Prison. Long-time Pace e Bene staff and DePaul University professor; chronicler of the Nevada Desert Experience.
Photo credit
Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service, Ken Butigan headshot. Cropped to portrait orientation.
1985 prison stay and official federal-custody endpoint
In his own published account, Butigan places his six-week imprisonment in June and July 1985 and names Boron Federal Prison. This corrects the prior Terminal Island reference. Admission is recorded at June month precision, with the first of the month only a storage placeholder. The official Bureau of Prisons locator, searched by register number 76660-011, visibly returned KEN BUTIGAN and Not in BOP Custody as of July 17, 1985. That verifies the federal-custody endpoint, not the end of supervision or any possible other custody. Exact arrest, sentencing and admission days remain unknown. Butigan's first-person account; Official federal locator, register 76660-011.
Separate 1983 Livermore detention
The April 17, 1983 Nuclear Resister names Butigan among four men kept in jail over the weekend following the Good Friday Livermore blockade. Good Friday that year was April 1, consistent with the report's Monday April 4 arraignment. The initial arrest and custody therefore have April 1 day precision; the arraignment is not substituted for an actual release date. The report does not specify his individual statutory charge or eventual discharge. Original named custody and arraignment report, printed page 5.
Earlier Livermore episodes from his own account
Butigan identifies March 1, 1982 as his first arrest at the Livermore South Gate blockade. His statement that most participants received a week in jail does not establish his individual sentence or admission and release dates. He also describes his June 1983 arrest and two-week detention in county-jail tents during resistance to proposed probation conditions. That episode is separate from April 1983 and is recorded with June month precision, not a fabricated individual day or calculated release. Ken Butigan, first-person Livermore retrospective.
