Biography
Peter Gelderloos crossed the line at Fort Benning, Georgia during the November 2001 SOA Watch vigil to close the U.S. Army School of the Americas / WHINSEC. Sentenced to 6 months in federal custody.
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-date sources
In his first-person account in Earth First! Journal, Peter Gelderloos says he went directly into custody after trial on July 12 rather than self-surrendering later. He describes a month and a half in Georgia county jails, 20 days at the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, and transfer to a federal prison camp in western Maryland. The editorial note identifies his underlying protest as the November 2001 School of the Americas demonstration. The account does not name the Maryland camp or establish an actual final discharge day.
