Gatewood Galbraith: The People's Champion (1947-2012)

Gatewood: a true American hero and inspiration.

Gatewood Galbraith

(PORTLAND, Ore.) - Kentucky Freedom Fighter Gatewood Galbraith has died at 64 years old. Galbraith spent his lifetime learning and working within the political and legal system. He graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1974 and from the University Of Kentucky College Of Law in 1977 and became "The People's Champion".

In the early 1990's, Galbraith and Willie Nelson took an historic trip across Kentucky in Galbraith’s red Mercedes Benz Station Wagon that they ran with hemp bio-diesel in order to make a positive impact on and spread the word about the potential of the United States’ bio-diesel industry.

The trip inspired Nelson's own bio-diesel company. "He's smart and funny and he speaks the truth. He's a champion for the farmers and the working men and women of the world," Nelson once said of Galbraith.

Galbraith had been dubbed a perennial candidate for governor of Kentucky as an outspoken proponent of education as well as privacy rights and other civil liberties.

His action items included restoring to the people the integrity, honesty and trust in the government by ceasing the politics of retribution and beginning an era for politics of achievement by allowing the people a chance to do right. He also had planned to restore hemp as a cash crop for the citizens of Kentucky.

Galbraith explained himself as free from any party affiliations, and described himself as free from hidden agenda.

"Only an Independent who doesn't care who gets credit for doing what's right for the people of the state of Kentucky stands the best chance of untying the Gordian Knot and letting both parties operate in the fashion that the well intentioned membership want to work. We're asking you to vote for an Independent who wants to work with you to get the job done," Galbraith told Hemp News last year.

His pledge was to end the "synthetic subversion" in his state. Explaining his view of Kentucky's current "electile dysfunction," Galbraith addressed the U. S. Governments nanny-state thought-mind (whom we elected) whose goal is to protect us from ourselves, the concept of sovereign human beings and rediscovering the American Revolution with our voices and our votes.

"I'm going to reconstruct Kentucky's government…and we're going to rediscover whether America still has a pulse. I believe that people will come from all over America and around the world [to Kentucky] to see what it's like to live free," Galbraith said during his 2011 campaign.

Galbraith wrote a powerful book titled "The Last Free Man in America Meets the Synthetic Subversion". The book was his exploration of what went wrong it our history with hemp, and how the farmer was taken out of the fuel equation when petroleum fuel products emerged. Until the end, he spoke his mind about industrial corruption and discovering there is more than one reality in life.

Over the years, Galbraith expressed his concern over the wave of political party partisanship, what being an Independent candidate means in relation to that partisanship and how that reflected in the momentum of his campaigning.

"All we want to do is what’s right for the people," he proclaimed about his 2011 gubernatorial run with mate Dea Riley.

Gatewood speaks at Seattle Hempfest 2010

Riley said she had a great admiration for Galbraith, reports Dylan Lovan at the Washington Examiner. It wasn't widely known, but Galbraith would spend every Sunday seeking out and helping the homeless in and around Lexington.

"That was his church," Riley said. "That's what he did every Sunday and no one really knew about that."

"Gatewood Galbraith taught us in his eloquent oratory, his insightful writings and his active participation in the political process about the meaning of freedom, the suppression of hemp and the synthetic subversion of our economy. I have lost a friend and mentor. He is greatly missed," said Paul Stanford of the Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp (CRRH).

"If you don’t know who he is you should take time to learn. He was a real life hero. Batman and Superman are fictitious characters. Gatewood was the real deal," stated activist Jet Baker.

NORML Founder Keith Stroup said, “Gatewood was someone who placed a high priority on the legalization of cannabis, and firmly believed industrial hemp — including hemp based ethanol — could help save the planet. In his several campaigns for public office in Kentucky, he was fearless in his pro-hemp advocacy. He will be missed by all of us who care about legalizing marijuana.”

It is this writer's belief that Galbraith's enthusiasm will never die. He was a true visionary and full of forward-thinking plans. Bottom-line, his mission was for the betterment of Kentucky and the United States; please honor his memory with your continued political and social activism.

God Bless you Gatewood! The Hemp News family will carry the torch!

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Transcript of Gatewood’s 2010 Seattle Hempfest tribute to Jack Herer: http://hemp.org/news/content/gatewood-galbraith-tribute-jack-herer

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