Bari was a gifted and inspiring speaker who was widely regarded as the principal leader of the Earth First! movement in Northern California. She led Earth First! in her region to embrace the use of nonviolent direct action and to renounce the use of tree-spiking, or any other tactic that could lead to injuries to timber and mill workers. Coming from a labor organizing background, she was quick to point out that it was not the workers but the giant corporations who should be the target of environmental reformers.
While a student at the University of Maryland, she "majored in anti-Vietnam War rioting," as she put it. After dropping out of college she got a job as a blue-collar worker and quickly got involved in union organizing.
After meeting her husband-to-be Mike Sweeney on the East Coast, she moved to California in 1979, where they married and lived in Sonoma County, an hour's drive north of San Francisco. She turned her attention to U.S. support for repressive regimes in Central America, working with Pledge of Resistance. Several years later, after the couple had moved further north to Mendocino County, they divorced amicably, sharing the care of their two daughters.
Bari's most significant focus, the redwoods, began when she was working as a carpenter, building a luxury country house for an urban executive. She got curious about the beautiful fine-grained redwood boards she was hammering nails into. She was outraged when she learned they came from 1000 to 2000 year old trees, and she decided to work to preserve the remaining old-growth redwood forests. In 1988 she became the contact person for Earth First! in Mendocino County.
In a 1992 Ms. Magazine article, Bari pointed out that Earth First! had been founded by a group of five men. She wrote, "I was attracted to Earth First! because they were the only ones willing to put their bodies in front of the bulldozers and the chainsaws to save the trees. They were also funny, irreverent, and they played music. But it was the philosophy of Earth First! that ultimately won me over. This philosophy, known as biocentrism or deep ecology, states that the Earth is not just here for human consumption. All species have a right to exist for their own sake, and humans must learn to live in balance with the needs of nature, instead of trying to mold nature to fit the wants of humans."
Bari continued her labor activism when she joined an effort to support workers doused with toxic PCBs in a 1989 Georgia-Pacific sawmill accident in Fort Bragg, California. The company told the workers and the press the spill was just mineral oil, but testing showed it was laden with PCBs. Bari helped others organize the injured workers into Local #1 of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W. or Wobblies) and gave technical support for their successful case in U.S. Labor Court.
When Bari and a friend were driving in Oakland, California, on May 1990, a powerful bomb exploded under her driver's seat, nearly killing her. Oakland Police and FBI terrorist squad members were quickly on the scene and within three hours placed Bari and Cherney under arrest. Police told the press that the two were the only suspects, and that they were eco-terrorists injured by the accidental explosion of a bomb they were knowingly transporting. Their bail was set at $100,000 each, even though Bari was in intensive care.
Among the traits often cited in describing Bari were determination, intelligence, and her ever-present sense of humor. When someone remarked about her ability to continue her activism despite her injuries, she quipped, "They bombed the wrong end of me." Though handicapped by paralysis in her right foot and constant pain from her injuries, Bari continued to organize non-violent direct action protests after the bombing.
Judi Bari died in 1997 of breast cancer.