Finally Got The News!- Author Event with Brad Duncan
Collector and author Brad Duncan will be joining us to talk about archiving and collecting radical history, as well presenting a wide sampling of original rare printed items from the 70s for guests to explore and engage with. Come learn about how radicals in the 1970s used printed media to address issues that are still with us today.
Finally Got the News uncovers the hidden legacy of the radical Left of the 1970s, a decade when vibrant social movements challenged racism, imperialism, patriarchy and capitalism itself. It combines written contributions from movement participants with original printed materials—from pamphlets to posters, flyers to newspapers—to tell this politically rich and little-known story.
The dawn of the 1970s saw an absolute explosion of interest in revolutionary ideas and activism. Young people radicalized by the antiwar movement became anti-imperialists, veterans of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements increasingly identified with communism and Pan-Africanism, and women were organizing for autonomy and liberation. While these movements may have different roots, there was also an incredible overlapping and intermingling of activists and ideologies.
These diverse movements used printed materials as organizing tools in every political activity, creating a sprawling and remarkable array of printing styles, techniques, and formats. Through the lens of printed materials we can see the real nuts and bolts of revolutionary organizing in an era when thousands of young revolutionaries were attempting to put their beliefs into practice in workplaces and neighborhoods across the U.S.
Brad Duncan is an activist and a union library worker who has been collecting printed materials related to social protest for twenty years. His work as a collector focuses on the radical movements and liberation struggles of the sixties and seventies, some of which can be seen on his popular blog, The R. F. Kampfer Revolutionary Literature Archive. In 2014 his archive was the focus of an exhibition titled “Power to the Vanguard: Original Printed Materials from Revolutionary Movements Around the World, 1963–1987” at Trinosophes in Detroit, Michigan.