Thursday 11 June 2020

don’t be a creep, buy a freep

Hyperallergic presents and nice retrospective and appreciation of the Los Angeles Free Press, a pioneering underground weekly, which during its initial run from the mid-1960s until 1978 was the only chronicle of social unrest, injustice and police violence as well as the environmental and anti-war movements—subjects that the mainstream press avoided—in the city and beyond. In a strong condemnation of police reaction during the Watts Rebellion of 1965, the paper editorialised, “Attempts to simply establish ‘law and order,’ to simply establish the pre-demonstration status quo, are doomed to failure.” For forcing the public to confront white supremacy and other discomforts, staff were constantly terrorised and under assault, including an office bombing in 1968. Revived with the same spirit fifteen years ago by its founder, radical socialist Art Kunkin (*1928 – †2019), its masthead (see also) reads Est’d 1964—Re-Incarnated by Necessity.