OB Rag

Last updated
OB Rag - early March 1974 - Vol 4 No 8 Vol4no8.jpg
OB Rag - early March 1974 - Vol 4 No 8

The OB Rag (originally the OB People's Rag) was an underground newspaper published between 1970 and 1975 [1] in the Neighborhood of Ocean Beach, San Diego, California, United States. The O in the title is also a peace symbol. Other San Diego underground newspapers that dealt with similar issues include the San Diego Free Press and The San Diego Door .

Contents

The original staff was a small collection of activists who lived in a collective house on Etiwanda St in Northeast Ocean Beach. Most of the original group were recent graduates of the University of California and veterans of the anti-war movement expressing Vietnam War opposition. The collective published Volume 1 Number 1 in September 1970. [2] A major early issue for the OB Rag was the fight to save Collier Park on land that had been donated to the City by David Charles Collier. A riot in Collier Park on March 28, 1971 was covered in detail by the Rag. [3]

Beginning in 1972 OB Rag staff and local radical worked from 'The Red House' [4] on 5113 Cape May. The house was the target of paramilitary vigilantes calling themselves the Secret Army Organization (SAO) who allegedly fired shots into the house. The OB Rag was subjected to arrests by local police, [5] and harassment and spying by the FBI. Shots were fired into an activist house at 2014 1/2 Abbott St in Ocean Beach, by the San Diego Police. [6]

Revival

The OB Rag was revived twenty-six years later with paper editions published in Ocean Beach between 2001 and 2003 by members of the Ocean Beach Grassroots Organization (OBGO). [7] The OB Rag has been online at OBRag.org since 2007. In June 2011 members of the OB Rag helped relaunch the San Diego Free Press as an online publication. [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weather Underground</span> American far-left militant organization, 1969–77

The Weather Underground was a far-left militant organization first active in 1969, founded on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally known as the Weathermen, the group was organized as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) national leadership. Officially known as the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) beginning in 1970, the group's express political goal was to create a revolutionary party to overthrow the United States government, which WUO believed to be imperialist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mission Beach, San Diego</span> Community of San Diego in California

Mission Beach is a community built on a sandbar between the Pacific Ocean and Mission Bay. It is part of the city of San Diego, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Underground press</span> Publications produced without the official approval of a dominant group.

The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of a dominant group. In specific recent Asian, American and Western European context, the term "underground press" has most frequently been employed to refer to the independently published and distributed underground papers associated with the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s in India and Bangladesh in Asia, in the United States and Canada in North America, and the United Kingdom and other western nations. It can also refer to the newspapers produced independently in repressive regimes. In German occupied Europe, for example, a thriving underground press operated, usually in association with the Resistance. Other notable examples include the samizdat and bibuła, which operated in the Soviet Union and Poland respectively, during the Cold War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ocean Beach, San Diego</span> Community of San Diego in California

Ocean Beach is a beachfront neighborhood of San Diego, California.

The Underground Press Syndicate (UPS), later known as the Alternative Press Syndicate (APS), was a network of countercultural newspapers and magazines that operated from 1966 into the late 1970s. As it evolved, the Underground Press Syndicate created an Underground Press Service, and later its own magazine. For many years the Underground Press Syndicate was run by Tom Forcade, who later founded High Times magazine.

<i>Los Angeles Free Press</i> Defunct American underground newspaper

The Los Angeles Free Press, also called the "Freep", is often cited as the first, and certainly was the largest, of the underground newspapers of the 1960s. The Freep was founded in 1964 by Art Kunkin, who served as its publisher until 1971 and continued on as its editor-in-chief through June 1973. The paper closed in 1978. It was unsuccessfully revived a number of times afterward.

<i>The San Diego Door</i>

The San Diego Door, was an underground newspaper that thrived from January 1968 to August 1974 in San Diego and San Diego County, Southern California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jon Elliott</span>

Jon Elliott is an American liberal talk radio personality, formerly featured on Air America Radio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Point Loma, San Diego</span> Community within San Diego in California

Point Loma is a seaside community within the city of San Diego, California. Geographically it is a hilly peninsula that is bordered on the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, the east by the San Diego Bay and Old Town, and the north by the San Diego River. Together with the Silver Strand / Coronado peninsula, the Point Loma peninsula defines San Diego Bay and separates it from the Pacific Ocean. The term "Point Loma" is used to describe both the neighborhood and the peninsula.

<i>Space City</i> (newspaper)

Space City! was an underground newspaper published in Houston, Texas from June 5, 1969 to August 3, 1972. The founders were Students for a Democratic Society veterans and former members of the staff of the Austin, Texas, underground newspaper, The Rag, one of the earliest and most influential of the Sixties underground papers. The original editorial collective was composed of Thorne Dreyer, who had been the founding "funnel" of The Rag in 1966; Victoria Smith, a former reporter for the St. Paul Dispatch; community organizers Cam Duncan and Sue Mithun Duncan; and radical journalists Dennis Fitzgerald and Judy Gitlin Fitzgerald.

The San Diego Free Press was an underground newspaper founded by philosophy students of Herbert Marcuse at the University of California, San Diego in November 1968, and published under that title biweekly until December 1969, when it became the weekly Street Journal starting with its 29th issue. The paper's contents were a mix of radical politics, alternative lifestyles, and the counterculture, reflecting in part Marcuse's Frankfurt School Marxist/Freudian ideas of cultural transformation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thorne Webb Dreyer</span> American journalist

Thorne Webb Dreyer is an American writer, editor, publisher, and political activist who played a major role in the 1960s-1970s counterculture, New Left, and underground press movements. Dreyer now lives in Austin, Texas, where he edits the progressive internet news magazine, The Rag Blog, hosts Rag Radio on KOOP 91.7-FM, and is a director of the New Journalism Project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Charles Collier</span> American lawyer

David Charles Collier, commonly known as D. C. Collier or as "Charlie" and sometimes given the honorary title of "Colonel", was an American real estate developer, civic leader, and philanthropist in San Diego, California during the early years of the 20th century. He is best known as the organizer and director of San Diego's Panama California Exposition (1915–16). He was also a prime developer of several areas of San Diego as well as La Mesa and Ramona. In his day he was described as "San Diego's foremost citizen."

Wonderland was a beachfront amusement park in the Ocean Beach neighborhood of San Diego, California from 1913 to 1916. It was the first amusement park in San Diego.

The 1970 San Diego State Aztecs football team represented San Diego State College during the 1970 NCAA University Division football season as a member of the Pacific Coast Athletic Association. The team was led by head coach Don Coryell, in his tenth year, and played home games at San Diego Stadium in San Diego, California. They finished the season as co-champions of the conference, with a record of nine wins and two losses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Movement for a Democratic Military</span> Influential antiwar and GI rights organization during the Vietnam War

The Movement for a Democratic Military (MDM) was an antiwar and GI rights organization during the Vietnam War. Initially formed in late 1969 as a merger of sailors from San Diego and marines from the Camp Pendleton Marine Base in Oceanside, CA, it rapidly spread to a number of other cities and bases in California and the mid-West, including San Francisco, Long Beach Naval Station, El Toro Marine Air Station, Fort Ord, Fort Carson and the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Heavily influenced by the Black Panther Party and the Black militancy of the times., it became one of the more radical GI organizations during that era and was investigated in 1971 by the House Committee on Internal Security (formerly HUAC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2020 San Diego mayoral election</span> 2020 United States mayoral election

The 2020 San Diego mayoral election was held on November 3, 2020, to elect the Mayor of San Diego. Incumbent Kevin Faulconer was ineligible to run for a third term due to term limits.

The Ocean Beach People’s Organic Food Market is a food cooperative located at 4765 Voltaire street in the Ocean Beach community of San Diego, California. It was previously called the Ocean Beach People’s Food Store. People’s started as a retail store at 4859 Voltaire Street, selling natural foods and household products. The current co-op is member-owned, but open to the public, and focuses on offering locally grown organic food.

References

  1. "About The O.B. People's Rag. (Ocean Beach, Calif.) 1970-1975". Library of Congress.
  2. "1st OB Rag History". OB Rag. 29 October 2007.
  3. "Collier Park". OB Rag.
  4. "Centennial Celebration od OB's Famous Red House". San Diego Free Press.
  5. "Berkeley Barb Nov 19-25 1971 - Screws Turn Screws in Dago". Independent Voices.
  6. "OB Under Siege". OB Rag. 22 February 2009.
  7. "How OBGO brought back the Rag and the "California Energy Crisis"". OB Rag. 10 June 2014.
  8. "About the San Diego Free Press". San Diego Free Press.