Monday, November 17, 2008

Actions Spoke Louder than Words: The Courage of Zoia Horn

As the first librarian to actually be jailed because of her beliefs in intellectual freedom, Zoia Horn is in an elite group among library workers. Horn recalled the events culminating in her 20-day stint in the Dauphin County Jail during her presentation, “From the Harrisburg Seven to the PATRIOT Act,” held in the Knight Library Browsing Room on Thursday, June 30. According to Horn, the FBI contacted her in January 1971. They were seeking evidence of a plot allegedly conceived by Philip Berrigan. Berrigan, a Catholic priest and anti-war activist, was serving a sentence in a nearby federal prison for burning draft files at the time. According to prosecutors, Berrigan (from his jail cell) and six others, known as the Harrisburg Seven, were planning to blow up heating tunnels beneath Washington, D.C., and to kidnap Henry Kissinger, President Richard Nixon's national security adviser.