James Kilgore
James William Kilgore (born July 30, 1947, aka John Pape) is a convicted American felon and former fugitive for his activities in the 1970s with the Symbionese Liberation Army, a left-wing terrorist organization in California. After years of research and writing, he later became a research scholar and ultimately worked at the University of Illinois' Center for African Studies in Champaign–Urbana.
James Kilgore | |
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| Born | James William Kilgore July 30, 1947 Portland, Oregon, U.S. |
| Other names | John Pape Charles William Pape |
| Education | University of California, Santa Barbara (BA) Deakin University (MA, PhD) |
| Occupations |
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| Employer | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign |
| Known for | Involvement with Symbionese Liberation Army |
| Criminal charge(s) | Second degree murder Passport fraud Possession of an explosive device |
| Criminal penalty | 6 year state term in High Desert State Prison--later paroled 4 year 6 month federal term in USP Lompoc |
| Criminal status | Released and served |
After the arrest of the core SLA members in 1975, Kilgore fled a criminal indictment. He lived as a fugitive for 27 years, working in Zimbabwe, Australia, and South Africa. During his time as a fugitive, Kilgore wrote a number of books and articles under the pseudonym John Pape. He developed a career as an educator, researcher, and far-left radical activist, before being arrested in Cape Town, South Africa, in November 2002. He was extradited to the United States, where he was convicted and subsequently served six and a half years in prisons in California on charges of participation in SLA criminal activities. During his incarceration, he wrote several novels. The first of these, We Are All Zimbabweans Now (2009), was published a month after his release by Umuzi Publishers of Cape Town. In 2015, he published a non-fiction book, Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time.