Carol Ruth Silver

Carol Ruth Silver (born October 1, 1938)[page needed ] is an American lawyer and civil rights activist. She was a Freedom Rider, arrested and incarcerated for 40 days in Mississippi.[page needed ][page needed ] She was among those on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors allegedly targeted by Dan White in the Moscone–Milk assassinations, but escaped assassination because she was not in her office at the time of the murders.

Silver grew up in a Jewish family in Worcester, Massachusetts. She attended the University of Chicago, earning a bachelor's degree in 1960 and a J.D. degree in 1964. She was a fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Silver moved to California and served on the faculties of Golden Gate University School of Law, Lone Mountain College (now part of the University of San Francisco), and San Francisco State. She served with the California Rural Legal Assistance program.

In 1961, she was a Freedom Rider during the Civil Rights Movement, civil rights activists who rode buses into the South to challenge ongoing racial segregation by deliberately violating the laws for separate waiting rooms at interstate bus stations. She recalled in 2011,

Silver was sentenced to six months in jail but was released after serving 40 days. In 2011, on the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Riders, she appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show to talk about the experience. In 2014, she published a book, Freedom Rider Diary: Smuggled Notes from Parchman Prison.

Silver began her political career in 1970, running for city auditor in Berkeley. She then moved to San Francisco and ran for the city's Board of Supervisors. Silver's 1977 election was part of a shift toward diversity on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors; she was described as "the board's first unwed mother".[10]

In 1984, former city supervisor Dan White reportedly confessed to San Francisco Police Department homicide detective Frank Falzon, six years after he shot and killed San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, that the murders were premeditated. Falzon said White told him he planned to kill not just Milk and Moscone, but also Silver and state assemblyman Willie Brown. White had been acquitted of first-degree murder and convicted of voluntary manslaughter after his attorneys argued he had diminished capacity at the time of the murders, using what became known as the "Twinkie defense". White served five years in prison for the two murders.

In 1998, Falzon quoted White as having told him:

Falzon indicated that he had believed White's initial claim, saying

White reportedly blamed all four for refusing to allow him to be reappointed to the board, days after he had resigned. Silver was in her law office during the time of the shootings, while Brown, the future mayor, had just left the building.[11]

During White's trial in 1979, Silver testified for the prosecution, stating she did not believe his claim of being mentally ill.[12] Silver maintained her stance following White's acquittal, saying:

During the White Night riots that erupted in the city following the news of White's acquittal, Silver was injured when struck by a flying object. In 1998, Silver further elaborated on her view of White's crimes:

In 1985, after Bernhard Goetz shot and wounded four attackers on a New York City Subway train, Silver wrote in The Wall Street Journal:

San Francisco Police Chief Con Murphy responded to Silver's views on guns:

In an interview, Silver said that every citizen who feels threatened by crime should have a gun in his or her home or office, and that many San Franciscans should have guns because police will not protect them.[15]

In her book Self Defense Handgun Ownership and the Independence of Women in a Violent Sexist Society (edited by Don B. Kates Jr.), Silver argued that, by carrying guns, women advance the cause of women's rights:

Silver served three terms on the Board of Supervisors, stepping down in 1989. She ran in the Democratic primary for California's 1st congressional district, in 1996,[17] but lost to Michela Alioto (who then lost to incumbent Frank Riggs).[18] Silver ran in the 2000 District 6 supervisorial race, coming in fourth.

Silver then retired from politics and continued her philanthropic work, which had included founding San Francisco's Chinese American International School in 1982, the first and most modeled Mandarin Chinese immersion program in the United States.[citation needed ] In the summer of 2002 she traveled to Afghanistan to explore ways that American citizens could extend a hand of friendship to the Afghan people, and she has founded or co-founded three organizations dedicated in different ways to supporting and promoting education in Afghanistan, particularly of women and girls.[citation needed ]

In 2007, Silver was appointed director of the San Francisco Sheriff's Department's Office of Prisoner Legal Services. She resigned the position in 2009, stating her reluctance to work in a system that supported the war on drugs. She wrote in her resignation letter:

Silver played a small part as Thelma, a speechwriter, in the 2008 Academy Award-winning film Milk, a biographical film of her late friend and coworker. She herself was portrayed by actress Wendy King.[20]