Biography
Margaret Knapke crossed the line at Fort Benning, Georgia during an SOA Watch vigil to close the U.S. Army School of the Americas / WHINSEC. Sentenced to 3 months.
Each year on the November anniversary of the assassination of six Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her daughter at the University of Central America in San Salvador in 1989, peace activists gather at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, site of the U.S. Army School of the Americas / Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), to commemorate the dead and to call for the school's closure. Hundreds have crossed the line onto the base over four decades of vigils; many have served federal sentences ranging from 30 days to a year for trespass.
Birth-year sources
- SOA Watch prisoners-of-conscience chronology — identifies Margaret Knapke as 47 among the November 1999 Fort Benning defendants, supporting 1952 as her birth year.
- Wright State University oral-history catalog — independently identifies Knapke as a Dayton human-rights and peace activist involved with SOA Watch.
