Darryl Cherney
Key Player

Earth First! activist; executive director, Environmentally Sound PromotionsDarryl Cherney is an activist, singer, and songwriter for the militant Earth First! movement. Cherney rose to prominence in 1990 when a pipe bomb exploded in the car he and Judi Bari were driving to meet convicted arsonist Rodney Coronado. (Ironically, Cherney argues that “we need to ban the private car.”)

More than 10 years later, shortly after Coronado’s parole expired, Cherney and Coronado were leading a tree-sitting together. Cherney pleaded with the papers that Coronado was a “thoughtful, caring person whose only role locally was to help plan strategy.” On a June 3, 1990 broadcast of CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” Cherney declared: “If I knew I had a fatal disease, I would definitely do something like strap dynamite to myself and take out Grand Canyon Dam, or maybe the Maxxam Building in Los Angeles after it’s closed up for the night.”