Ann Arbor Argus
Encyclopedia
Ann Arbor Argus was a radical, counterculture biweekly underground newspaper
published in Ann Arbor, Michigan
starting Jan. 24, 1969 and lasting until mid-1971. It was founded and edited by underground journalist Ken Kelley (1949-2008), a 19 year old University of Michigan student who lived at the Trans-Love Energies commune off campus. The paper was started by Kelley and a friend out of his apartment, but soon moved into well-furnished office space provided by the Episcopal Church half a block from the university campus in the basement of Canterbury House, a church-run coffee-house. The Argus was closely connected to John Sinclair
's radical White Panther Party
and the SDS
. It was a member of the Underground Press Service and the Liberation News Service
. It had no connection to the earlier 19th century Ann Arbor newspaper of the same name. Circulation in 1969 was reported at 14,000 copies.
Underground press
The underground press were the independently published and distributed underground papers associated with the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and other western nations....
published in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2010 census places the population at 113,934, making it the sixth largest city in Michigan. The Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 344,791 as of 2010...
starting Jan. 24, 1969 and lasting until mid-1971. It was founded and edited by underground journalist Ken Kelley (1949-2008), a 19 year old University of Michigan student who lived at the Trans-Love Energies commune off campus. The paper was started by Kelley and a friend out of his apartment, but soon moved into well-furnished office space provided by the Episcopal Church half a block from the university campus in the basement of Canterbury House, a church-run coffee-house. The Argus was closely connected to John Sinclair
John Sinclair (poet)
John Sinclair is a Detroit poet, one-time manager of the band MC5, and leader of the White Panther Party — a militantly anti-racist countercultural group of white socialists seeking to assist the Black Panthers in the Civil Rights movement — from November 1968 to July 1969...
's radical White Panther Party
White Panther Party
The White Panthers were a far-left, anti-racist, White American political collective founded in 1968 by Lawrence Plamondon, Leni Sinclair, and John Sinclair. It was started in response to an interview where Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, was asked what white people could do...
and the SDS
Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
. It was a member of the Underground Press Service and the Liberation News Service
Liberation News Service
Liberation News Service was a New Left, Underground press news service which published news bulletins from 1967 to 1981.-History:The Liberation News Service was co-founded in the summer of 1967 by Ray Mungo and Marshall Bloom after the two of them were separated from the United States Student...
. It had no connection to the earlier 19th century Ann Arbor newspaper of the same name. Circulation in 1969 was reported at 14,000 copies.