Allen Young (born June 30, 1941) is an American journalist, author, editor and publisher who is also a social, political and environmental activist.

Early life

Allen Young, born in

Liberty, New York Liberty is a town in Sullivan County, New York, United States. The population was 9,885 at the 2010 census. The town contains a village also named Liberty. The village is bisected by New York State Route 52 (NY 52) and NY 55, and is ...

, on June 30, 1941, to Rae (Goldfarb) Young and Louis Young. His parents, both secular Jews, spent their youth in New York City, then relocated to the hamlet of Glen Wild (estimated pop. 100) in

Fallsburg Fallsburg is a town in Sullivan County, New York, United States. The town is in the eastern part of the county. The population was 14,192 at the 2020 census. (It is not to be confused with the hamlet of Fallsburg which bears a similar name and ...

in the foothills of the Catskills, and started a poultry farm, also providing accommodations for summer tourists in this region known as the

Borscht Belt The Borscht Belt, or Jewish Alps, is a colloquial term for the mostly defunct summer resorts of the Catskill Mountains in parts of Sullivan, Orange, and Ulster counties in the U.S. state of New York, straddling both Upstate New York and the nort ...

. He was a

red diaper baby A red diaper baby is a child of parents who were members of the United States Communist Party (CPUSA) or were close to the party or sympathetic to its aims. History In their book '' Red Diapers: Growing Up in the Communist Left'', Judy Kaplan and ...

. He graduated from Fallsburg Central High School and received his undergraduate degree in 1962 from Columbia College, Columbia University. Following an

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

in 1963 from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in Hispanic American and

Luso-Brazilian Portuguese Brazilians ( pt, luso-brasileiros) are Brazilians, Brazilians whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in Portugal. Most of the Portuguese people, Portuguese who arrived throughout the centuries in Brazil sought economic opportunit ...

Studies, he earned an

M.S. A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

in 1964 from the

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City. Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism s ...

. After receiving a

Fulbright Award The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

in 1964, Young spent three years in Brazil, Chile and other Latin American countries, contributing numerous articles to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

The Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...

'' and other periodicals.

Activism

Liberation News Service and protest

Young returned to the United States in June 1967 and worked briefly for ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' before resigning in the fall of that year to become a full-time

anti-Vietnam War movement Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War (before) or anti-Vietnam War movement (present) began with demonstrations in 1965 against the escalating role of the United States in the Vietnam War and grew into a broad social mov ...

activist and staff member of the

Liberation News Service Liberation News Service (LNS) was a New Left, anti-war underground press news agency that distributed news bulletins and photographs to hundreds of subscribing underground, alternative and radical newspapers from 1967 to 1981. Considered the "Asso ...

. Young, Marshall Bloom,

Ray Mungo Raymond Mungo (born 1946) is an American author, co-author, or editor of more than a dozen books. He writes about business, economics, and financial matters as well as cultural issues. In the 1960s, he attended Boston University, where he served ...

and others worked in the office at 3

Thomas Circle Thomas Circle is a traffic circle in Northwest Washington, D.C., in the United States. It is located at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue NW, Vermont Avenue NW, 14th Street NW, and M Street NW. It is named for George Henry Thomas, a Un ...

producing the news packets that were sent to the hundreds of underground newspapers bi-weekly or tri-weekly. A member of the

Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...

he was part of the

Columbia University protests of 1968 In 1968, a series of protests at Columbia University in New York City were one among the various student demonstrations that occurred around the globe in that year. The Columbia protests erupted over the spring of that year after students disc ...

and was among more than 700 arrested. When the Liberation News Service split in two in August 1968 Young became a recognized leader of the New York office.

Venceremos Brigade

In February and March 1969 Young went to Cuba, where he was instrumental in the organization of the

Venceremos Brigade The Venceremos Brigade is an international organization founded in 1969 by members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and officials of the Republic of Cuba. It was formed as a coalition of young people to show solidarity with the Cub ...

. Young became disillusioned with the

Castro regime The political career of Fidel Castro saw Cuba undergo significant economic, political, and social changes. In the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro and an associated group of revolutionaries toppled the ruling government of Fulgencio Batista, forcin ...

after observing the lack of civil liberties and other freedoms, and especially the government's anti-gay policies. After the

Mariel Boatlift The Mariel boatlift () was a mass emigration of Cubans who traveled from Cuba's Mariel Harbor to the United States between 15 April and 31 October 1980. The term "" (plural "Marielitos") is used to refer to these refugees in both Spanish and E ...

he wrote ''Gays Under the Cuban Revolution'', breaking with those

New Leftists The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, ...

who continued to defend the

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in cou ...

Gay Liberation movement

After the

Stonewall riots The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of Ju ...

in New York City, Young became involved in the

Gay Liberation Front Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was the name of several gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots. Similar organizations also formed in the UK and Canada. The GLF provided a ...

. During the second half of 1970 he lived in the Seventeenth Street collective with Carl Miller, Jim Fouratt, and Giles Kotcher where he was involved in producing ''Gay flames''. Young wrote frequently for the gay press, including '' The Advocate'', ''Come out!'', '' Fag Rag'', and Gay Community News among others. His 1972 interview with

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

, which first appeared in ''Gay Sunshine'' is often reprinted and translated. Young has edited four books with

Karla Jay Karla Jay (born February 22, 1947) is a distinguished professor emerita at Pace University, where she taught English and directed the women's and gender studies program between 1974 and 2009. A pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies, s ...

including the ground breaking anthology ''Out of the Closets''.

Continuing activism

Young moved to rural Massachusetts in 1973 to an 'intentional community'. Carrying a sign which read ''Royalston, Mass. population 973'' he attended the

National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights The first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights was a large political rally that took place in Washington, D.C. on October 14, 1979. The first such march on Washington, it drew between 75,000 and 125,000Ghaziani, Amin. 2008. ''T ...

. He was a reporter and assistant editor for the ''Athol Daily News'' from 1979 to 1989, and Director of Community Relations for the

Athol, Massachusetts Athol is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 11,945 at the 2020 census. History Originally called Pequoiag when settled by Native Americans, the area was subsequently settled by five families in Sept ...

Memorial Hospital, 1989 to 1999. He joined the

Montague Nuclear Power Plant The Montague Nuclear Power Plant was a proposed nuclear power plant to be located in Montague, Massachusetts. The plant was to consist of two 1150 MWe General Electric boiling water reactors. The project was proposed in 1973 and canceled in 1980, a ...

protests shortly after Sam Lovejoy's toppling of the weather tower in 1974. He has served on the board of directors of the

Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust, incorporated in 1986, is a non-profit organization whose mission is the conservation of woodland and agricultural land in north central and western Massachusetts. Based out of Athol, Massachusetts, the MGLCT is ...

, and in 2004 received the Writing and Society Award from the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...

English Department "honoring a distinguished career of commitment to the work of writing in the world." Since 2009, he has been writing a weekly column, entitled Inside/Outside, for the Athol Daily News.

Works and publications

* * * * * * * * *

Edited anthologies

* With Karla Jay. * With Karla Jay. * With Karla Jay. * *

References

External links

Young, Allen (1990) "Liberation News Service: A History"

Land protection

''Gay Sunshine interview with Allen Ginsberg''

Pride 2008 Gay Spirit Radio broadcast

Allen Young papers

with

Jonah Raskin Jonah Raskin (born January 3, 1942) is an American writer who left an East Coast university teaching position to participate in the 1970s radical counterculture as a freelance journalist, then returned to the academy in California in the 1980s to ...

Program of the 1979 National March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights

Rainbow History oral history

Liberation News Service archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Young, Allen 1941 births Living people American anti–Vietnam War activists American male journalists People from Fallsburg, New York LGBT rights activists from the United States Gay Liberation Front members American gay writers Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni LGBT Jews People from Liberty, New York Columbia College (New York) alumni Stanford University alumni 21st-century LGBT people