Judy Gumbo, a prominent figure in the 1960s radical Youth International Party known as the Yippies, died on September 14 in Berkeley, California. She was 83. Gumbo’s daughter, Jessica Epstein, confirmed that her mother passed away from dementia while residing in a memory care facility.

Gumbo was a central participant in the countercultural protest movement that gained national attention during events such as the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The Yippies, combining political satire with street theater, opposed the Vietnam War and broader social injustices. Though less widely recognized than Yippie founders Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, Gumbo played a significant role in organizing and supporting the group’s activities.

In the lead-up to the Democratic convention, Gumbo and other Yippies including her future husband, Stew Albert, and folk singer Phil Ochs transported a 150-pound pig to the Civic Center Plaza in Chicago. They humorously nominated the pig, dubbed Pigasus, for president. The stunt ended with seven Yippies arrested and the pig confiscated. Gumbo, concerned about potential deportation to her native Canada if arrested, stayed back but raised funds to post bail for those detained.

Gumbo later described the violent clashes between police and protesters at the convention as a “live action antiwar documentary” and recalled the sense of empowerment she felt despite the dangers. During the 1969 federal trial of the Chicago 7—defendants charged with inciting the convention riot—she served as “conspiracy trial office manager,” handling administrative duties including distributing trial transcripts to the press.

In 1970, Gumbo traveled to Montreal to meet with a North Vietnamese delegation as part of peace activism connected to the Chicago 7 trial. She subsequently visited Hanoi with two other American activists, where she received a collection of letters from U.S. prisoners of war. The same year, she staged a protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Moscow dressed as Vietcong, drawing international media attention before being peacefully detained by Soviet police.

Born Judith Lee Clavir on June 25, 1943, in Toronto, Gumbo was raised in a politically leftist family. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in sociology in 1965 and relocated to Berkeley after being influenced by the free love movement. Her involvement with the Yippies led to extensive surveillance by the FBI, which regarded her as a threat to national security. The agency reportedly conducted multiple break-ins at her residence and installed tracking devices on her vehicles. Gumbo and Albert later sued the FBI and the Justice Department over these actions, receiving a $20,000 settlement in 1979.

Following the decline of the Yippies, Gumbo pursued an academic career, teaching sociology at several universities and earning a doctorate from the University of Toronto in 1975. She also worked as a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood in Oregon.

Gumbo was married three times, her second marriage to Stew Albert ended with his death in 2006. She married historian Arthur Eckstein in 2017. She is survived by Eckstein, her daughter Jessica Epstein, and a grandson.

Throughout her life, Gumbo remained a steadfast voice of resistance and activism, reflecting on the turbulent era she helped shape with a mixture of humor, defiance, and commitment to social change.