Philadelphia Free Press, Vol. 4, No. 5

An issue of Philadelphia’s most radical underground newspaper, which began in April 1968 at Temple Univ. as the Temple Free Press and changed names to the Philadelphia Free Press with the June 6, 1969 issue. The paper was founded to provide a voice for the most revolutionary students at Temple who found themselves censored by the administration. As Paul Lyons mentions in Divided We Fall: The Rise and Fall of the New Left in Philadelphia (2003), "those who dominated the "Free Press" escalated the rhetoric and began to argue for revolutionary Communism with a strong Third World flavor" (p. 105). The paper’s content reflected this assertion with extensive coverage of Third World Liberation and anti-imperialist movements, although local and national liberation struggles were no less covered and championed. The FreeP Collective as it became known drew the ire of the Philadelphia political establishment as it increasingly criticized Frank Rizzo, the Philadelphia Police Department, and the treatment of the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, anti-war activists and other militant New Left activists. The paper’s members were followed, harassed, raided and threatened with prison and worse and ultimately led to the deportation of Bill Biggins, a Canadian who was one of the paper’s founders and most vocal critics. The paper ceased publication in 1973. An important source of information on the radical Left in Philadelphia and throughout the broader New Left momement during the late 1960s/early 1970s. Issues rarely surface in the trade. This issue includes articles on an RCA strike in Philadelphia, the Bicentennial Corporation, police brutality, Soledad, centerfold articles on Bolivia and Cuba, reviews, adverts, etc. Tabloid format printed in color on newsprint, 12 p., illus. Folded, else a near fine copy.…