Washington Free Press
Encyclopedia
The Washington Free Press was a biweekly radical underground newspaper
published in Washington, DC, beginning in 1966, when it was founded by representatives of the five colleges in Washington as a community paper for local Movement people. It was an early member of the Underground Press Syndicate
. Starting in Dec. 1967 they shared a three-story house in northwest Washington with the Liberation News Service
, the Washington Draft Resistance Union, and a local chapter of the anti-draft group Resistance. A print shop was in the basement, and other activist groups used the space and got their mail there. The paper's original founders and editors included Michael Grossman, Arthur Grosman and former State Department employee William Blum
, but the staff went through many changes and by 1969 nobody on the paper was even acquainted with any of the original founders. The paper opposed the war in Vietnam and tended to follow the politics of SDS
. Washington Free Press reporters insisted on their place in the Washington press corps and demanded entry to briefings and other press events until they were admitted. Topics covered in the paper included the antiwar movement, welfare, police brutality, campus activism at the five colleges in the area, drugs, abortion, and the youth culture. In 1969 it had a reported circulation of 23,000 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 Washington, DC, beginning in 1966, when it was founded by representatives of the five colleges in Washington as a community paper for local Movement people. It was an early member of the Underground Press Syndicate
Underground Press Syndicate
The Underground Press Syndicate, commonly known as UPS, and later known as the Alternative Press Syndicate or APS, was a network of countercultural newspapers and magazines formed in mid-1966 by the publishers of five early underground papers: the East Village Other, the Los Angeles Free Press, the...
. Starting in Dec. 1967 they shared a three-story house in northwest Washington with 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...
, the Washington Draft Resistance Union, and a local chapter of the anti-draft group Resistance. A print shop was in the basement, and other activist groups used the space and got their mail there. The paper's original founders and editors included Michael Grossman, Arthur Grosman and former State Department employee William Blum
William Blum
William Blum is an American author, historian, and critic of United States foreign policy. He studied accounting in college. Later he had a low-level computer-related position at the United States Department of State in the mid-1960s. Initially an anti-communist with dreams of becoming a foreign...
, but the staff went through many changes and by 1969 nobody on the paper was even acquainted with any of the original founders. The paper opposed the war in Vietnam and tended to follow the politics of 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...
. Washington Free Press reporters insisted on their place in the Washington press corps and demanded entry to briefings and other press events until they were admitted. Topics covered in the paper included the antiwar movement, welfare, police brutality, campus activism at the five colleges in the area, drugs, abortion, and the youth culture. In 1969 it had a reported circulation of 23,000 copies.