Selected Images
This photograph depicts an anti-Vietnam War demonstration that took place in Los Angeles, California in 1968. The Los Angeles Free Press was staunchly against the Vietnam War and often supported and covered demonstrations in the Los Angeles area.
This is the front cover of the second issue of the Los Angeles Free Press. Art Kunkin addresses the need for a liberal Los Angeles newspaper while the headline story covers the CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) picket of Bank of America over discrimination practices.
This photograph depicts a Chicano demonstration against police brutality in the East Los Angeles area. The Los Angeles Free Press often supported and covered the Chicano Movement extensively during the 1960s and 1970s.
This issue of the Los Angeles Free Press covered the Watts Rebellion of 1965 and the frustrations of the black community that led up to the rebellion, contrasting the Los Angeles Times condemnation of the rebellion. The paper's coverage of the event lead to a paper's rise in popularity. [Note: The article contains outdated language based on its time.]
This photograph was taken at a Los Angeles Free Press-sponsored music festival held at Echo Park. Due to permit issues, the Los Angeles Police Department arrived to disperse the gathering. Art Kunkin is seen being arrested by the police while onstage after calming the crowd.
This front cover is from the issue of the Los Angeles Free Press in which the paper released the name of 88 narcotic agents. Kunkin and the staff challenged the aggressive war on drugs and what was seen as unlawful arrests. This article led to two lawsuits which financially hindered the paper.
Collection Description
The Los Angeles Free Press, often called the "Freep" by its readers, was founded in 1964 by Arthur Glick "Art" Kunkin. Prior, Kunkin was an active labor organizer and resident editor of the Johnson-Forest Tendency until 1958 and briefly served as chairman of the Los Angeles Local Branch of the Socialist Party in 1959.
Plans for the Los Angeles Free Press began in 1964 with a goal of catering to "liberal-intellectuals" in the Los Angeles area and with a focus on city issues and politics. In May 1964, Art Kunkin sold the first issue of the newspaper at the KPFK Renaissance Pleasure Faire. After a successful trial run, Kunkin secured the funds to publish the Los Angeles Free Press weekly for almost a decade, going from an 8-page tabloid to a 55-page weekly newspaper in six years. The Los Angeles Free Press was an influential periodical of its day as one of the first members of the Underground Press Syndicate, an alternative media equivalent to the associated press. Kunkin and the Freep have been recognized as helping hundreds of other national and international underground periodicals and covering topics including police brutality, women's liberation, the Chicano movement, gay liberation, and mystic and esoteric areas.
The Arthur Kunkin / Los Angeles Free Press Collection documents the life of Art Kunkin from his time as a socialist organizer to his role as publisher and editor of the Los Angeles Free Press and to his later life as a new age practitioner. The surviving Los Angeles Free Press administrative and business records document 1960s journalism, the counterculture, anti-war activism, civil rights, revolutionary politics, and the expression of personal freedom.
The Arthur Kunkin / Los Angeles Free Press collection was acquired by the Gerth Archives and Special Collections in 2021. Prior to the archive's acquisition, the collection was in a storage shed in Joshua Tree, packed so tightly and just secure enough to be saved from complete deterioration.
The collection is still being processed and will be made accessible in Spring 2024.
Selected Books
The following are a selection of books that discuss the Los Angeles Free Press and underground press. To search for more books in the library and for helpful tips on how to navigate our database, follow our OneSearch guide.
A Trumpet to Arms: Alternative Media in America by Call Number: SpCol P92.U5 A68 1981Publication Date: 1981
Undergrounds: A Union List of Alternative Periodical in Libraries of the United States and Canada by Call Number: SpCol PN4749 .Z9 D27 1974Publication Date: 1974
Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties by Call Number: SpCol F869.L857 D385 2020Publication Date: 2020
Paper Revolutionaries by Call Number: SpCol PN4888 .U5 L4 1972ISBN: 0671211439Publication Date: 1972
Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America by Call Number: SpCol PN4888.U5 M35 2011Publication Date: 2011
Uncovering the Sixties: THe Life and Times of the Underground Press by Call Number: SpCol PN4888.U5 P43 1985ISBN: 0394527933Publication Date: 1985
Well Met: Renaissance Faires and the American Counterculture by Call Number: GT4603 .R83 2012ISBN: 9780814771389Publication Date: 2012
Related Resources
- "American Socialist" publicationThis collection contains Vol.1, No. 1-12 (1954) of the "American Socialist", the journal of the Socialist Union. Topics include but are not limited to: the Cold War, McCarthyism, labor unions, and the first Indochina war.
- The Black Panther NewspapersThis collection contains over 400 newspaper issues from 1967 to 1980, organized by the Black Panther Party(BPP). The newspaper covers a variety of topics, from community to global events. It was also used to distribute information of the BPP's ideologies and their support for different groups fighting oppression.
- Chicano Publications [Kaye Briegel] CollectionThe Kaye Briegel Chicano Publication Collection contains newspapers, newsletters, magazines, and other publications related to Chicano communities.
- Holt Labor Library CollectionsThe Holt Labor Library was a library in San Francisco from 1992 to 2019 that collected and made accessible primary and secondary source material related to labor history and the history of the radical left, with an emphasis on the activities of American Trotskyist political organizations. The Library also collected materials related to various anti-war movements, the women's movement, gay liberation, the African American Civil Rights Movement, among other social justice causes.
- Jeannie Morgan Papers
- LA as Subject CollectionBrowse the collection on the CSUDH Digital Collections page.
- Political Newspaper CollectionThis collection consists of approximately thirty alternative and underground newspaper and journal titles whose primary focus is from an ethnic, leftist, socialist, or communist perspective. This collection also consists of other publications, leaflets, flyers, clippings, and articles relating to topics such as the anti-war movement, the Black movement, the labor movement, student movements, and other topics.
External Related Resources
Below are relevant and helpful resources from other institutions.
- Independent VoicesIndependent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
- Underground Press History and Geography -Mapping American Social Movements ProjectPart of a larger ongoing project at the University of Michigan to collect and visualize data on social movements, this project maps undeground/alternative periodical across the nation and maintains a database of 2,600+ underground/alternative periodicals.
- Marxist Internet ArchiveA volunteer run website providing access to a wide array of Marxist and Leftist writings, including publications, pamphlets, and biographies. Material from the Johson-Forest Tendency (that Kunkin was involved from 1948-1958) with have been digitized and made available online.
- Freep Zine #1Produced by Alan Nakagawa and in collaboration with the Gerth Archives & Special Collections, this zine highlights the first year of processing for the Los Angeles Free Press and the oral history conducted so far.