The L.A. Free Press Made An Impact...

Brenda Barnes:
On My Career As A Civil Rights Attorney....
“When the LAFP was being published in L.A. in the 60's and early 70's, I was not a political person. I had graduated from Berkeley during the Free Speech Movement years but amazingly, looking back on it, I came out as apolitical as I went in. I stayed apolitical after moving to LA. I do not remember ever reading a single article in the Free Press. However, the LAFP was really important to me in those years in two ways I was totally unaware of at the time.
The first was it was giving a voice to and keeping the community of activists awake, aware and alive. When I later learned politics had caused the injustice of separate and unequal minority schools where I had been teaching, those activists were ready and able to help me work for change. We did that in the courts, as I had become a lawyer by the time of the 1978 school desegregation case. They raised money. I was their voice to Judge Egly and the mainstream reporters who sat in the courtroom for six months.
The second area of importance of the LAFP to me came out of that trial. This changed my perception of the press forever. Seeing how different the stories in the LA Times and on TV sound bite news stories every night were from what was actually happening every day radicalized me. I knew then either the press was stupid or it had been bought off, or both.
By the late 90's I had not trusted a newspaper or TV news program for over 20 years. Then I met Art Kunkin. He showed me the Free Press archives. His was a press reporting the truth in the 60's and 70's about Vietnam, Nixon and the racism, fascism and futility of the 'War on Drugs." I just had not known about that press.
Therefore, when he recently said he was starting up the Free Press again, I was happy to help. We have needed the Free Press since the 70's when government agents illegally using the FBI and IRS succeeded in silencing it. We really need it now when again the press in the US is either stupid or bought off, or both. We need an effective voice for truth.
At the same time, we all need to be careful. These are dangerous times. The political machine is more vicious than ever, trying to silence effective truthful voices. Good luck and take care, Art. Brenda Barnes- An Attorney who fought for integration