In 1983, Susan Rosenberg was a member of the May 19th Communist Organization (M19CO), a left-wing terrorist group.

On November 7, 1983: At 22:58, ten minutes after a warning call, a bomb went off on the second floor of the Capitol Building’s north wing, leaving a fifteen-foot crater, shredding a picture of John C. Calhoun, and in total doing about a million-dollars’ worth of damage. In the message claiming responsibility, M19 made clear they had considered a lethal attack but had decided against it on this occasion.

M19 has staged many other attacks:

• January 28, 1983: At 22:30, a bomb was detonated in the women’s bathroom on the second floor of the FBI’s New York office on Staten Island
• August 18, 1983: At four minutes past midnight, Building 196 at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., was blown up after a warning call eight minutes earlier.
• April 6, 1984: Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) was bombed at 1:45 AM after a five-minute warning. The M19 communiqué said it was because the Israelis had supplied weapons to the governments of Guatemala and South Africa, and attacked Nixon, Reagan, Jerry Falwell, and New York mayor Ed Koch.
• April 20, 1984: About 2 AM, the officer’s club at the Navy Yard was blown up, “retaliation” for the OCEAN VENTURE 84 exercises that were partly meant as psychological warfare against the Communist insurgency in El Salvador and the Soviet-dependent Sandinista dictatorship in Nicaragua that supported it. M19 believed the exercises were a preparatory move for a full-scale invasion of Central America. “Their officer’s club is gone, let them hide in their homes”, the post-attack communique said.
• September 26, 1984: At 00:23, after a call fifteen minutes earlier, the South African government’s Consulate in Midtown, New York, was blown up with the most powerful bomb of M19’s. The statement to The Associated Press said the attack was “in solidarity with resistance to South African human rights violations. Down with apartheid.”

Arrested in November 1984 for possession of over 750 lbs of explosives, after three years underground following the Brink’s robbery, Rosenberg was convicted in March 1985 by a federal jury in New Jersey and given a 58-year-sentence.

Susan Rosenberg’s sentence was commuted by President Bill Clinton on January 20, 2001, his last day in office. 

Susan Rosenberg was on the board of a non-profit that is tied to Black Lives Matter’s fundraising operations