A community, underground paper (1970-1974) seeking out & disseminating to the public “news and opinions on social issues relating to the Fort Wayne community” & acting in a supporting role as a community organizing resource. Background on the Fort Wayne Free Press (1970-1974)
The origins of the Fort Wayne Free Press can be traced to IU-Purdue and several of its college students in late 1969 who w
ere talking about starting some sort of "underground" newspaper in Fort Wayne. George Relue, Torn Lewandowski, and, I believe, Jeff Wentz had been involved in circulating a little mimeographed sheet called "The Touch Stone" out at I.U.-P.U. Early in the winter of 1970, an eight-hour fundraising benefit was held out at the campus for the Students For a Free Society and this "Philadelphian" idea. Atlantis, the Feudal Lords, and the Choice of Colors were among the eight bands that played that day to raise a grand total of $800. However, shortly afterward, we launched our newspaper under the better name of The Fort Wayne Free Press, published bi-weekly by Babylon Publishers Inc, a non-profit organization. Back then, we described ourselves in our masthead as an “open collective of people working towards non-violent social change through active communication and community organization.” Our purpose was to seek out and disseminate to the public “news and opinions on social issues relating to the Fort Wayne community” and to act in a supporting role as a community organizing resource for individuals and groups in the community. Despite Fort Wayne having two daily newspapers and the weekly Frost-Illustrated, 4 local TV stations, and at least 7 radio stations back then, including WOWO, little to no local news was devoted to inner city issues, the Poverty Program, or the local peace movement. In the beginning, they called us "hot heads." When we wrote about the tear-gassing by police of black youth in the Inner City, they added "trouble makers" to the label. When it was white youth getting tear gassed at Foster Park, such accusations reached their peak with the City attorney telling the other media in town The Free Press had instigated the riot itself. We proved such charges were unfounded however and worked behind the scenes to help resolve the Foster Park incident. In doing so we gained much credibility. The credibility of the Free Press steadily grew in the community as we expanded our coverage to women's issues, equal rights, labor, politics, poetry, the criminal justice system, consumer advocacy, health care, gay pride, music, theatre, film, and the environment--along with articles on astrology, of course, and the essentials of making good yogurt. It was the Free Press that interviewed Rev. Langhinrichs upon his return from the Paris Peace talks, and our "Letters to Home" column featuring interviews with returning Vietnam Vets resulted in the formation of a local chapter of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Our involvement in the Mexican-American community led to the creation of a second newspaper, JOAQUIN, which appeared briefly both as an insert to our paper and as a separate paper. Our article on the income Allen County Sheriff Robert Bender recorded with the I.R.S. resulted in a civil suit against him and his eventual departure from the county. And we wrote about what the other news media wrote. On a local talk show WANE-TV General Manager Reed Chapman once called the Fort Wayne Free Press the most objective news media in town. It might have been an overstatement, but at the time it was an indication that the powers-that-be were beginning to take us seriously--or at least to read us. It was safe to say that the mayor, the Police Chief, the City Council, the students out at the campus, a few folks at the Urban League, and more than a few folks at Dave's Hot Dogs were dog-earring pages of The Free Press. We were making a fair number of rounds for an outfit with a circulation of less than two thousand newspapers every two weeks. Despite the fact that The Free Press never reached financial high ground, it continued to publish for several more years until the mid-seventies, when it finally ran out of its last resources. However, with the capability now of offering a digital archive of these transformative years for Fort Wayne in the late sixties and early seventies, the significant impacts of this small, homegrown newspaper will not be forgotten.
They next intended venture was to print something larger and call it "The Philadelphian," after a somewhat infamous W.C. Fields quote.
