Black & Red No. 6
Date
March 22nd, 1969
Credits
- Black & Red 35
- Roger Gregoire Author
- Roger Gregoire Editor
- Ursula Knelsel Author
- Ursula Knelsel Editor
- Linda Lanphear 6 Author
- Linda Lanphear 6 Editor
- Bob Maier 6 Author
- Bob Maier 6 Editor
- Fredy Perlman 43 Author
- Fredy Perlman 43 Editor
- Lorraine Perlman 29 Author
- Lorraine Perlman 29 Editor
- Roger Gregoire Layout Designer
- Fredy Perlman 43 Layout Designer
- Lorraine Perlman 29 Layout Designer
- Roger Gregoire Layout Designer
Format
- Magazine 652
Type of Work
- Finished work 5482
Printers
Publishers
- Black & Red 35
Techniques
- staple bound 76
Dimensions
8 × 5 in
Printed Pages
84
Locations Made
"Black & Red no. 6—the first issue to include multiple color printing, with red, black, brown, purple, and blue ink—is devoted to critiquing the university institution and specifically WMU. It includes several pieces that would later be printed as individual pamphlets, including Linda Lanphear’s “How I Became an Outside Agitator” and “Initiation Rites for Students and Professors.”Much of the issue describes attempts to mobilize activists on campus and to draw students’ attention to what the authors saw as the repressive structures inherent in university education. They repeatedly decry the way grades are used as a means of control. They describe an incident where students in a class are called upon to expel another disruptive student for preventing the professor from giving a lecture which will be the subject of a future exam.Color printing is used to distinguish between blocks of texts, especially in a section titled “The University Attacks with Harassment and Terror!” which chronicles the back and forth between Linda Lanphear and Bob Maier—both students at WMU—and the administration. Lanphear is singled out for disrupting classes and called in to meet with the Assistant Dean of Students.9 The letters she receives from the administration are reproduced in brown ink. Her letter in response is printed in red, a note from the editors of Black & Red is in black ink, followed by a letter of support from Maier in purple.10There is an interesting discussion in this issue of attempts to use wall posters as a method of communication. The authors were trying, in particular, to find ways to communicate with college students—an educated, but passive, audience that found political analysis to be tedious “homework,” but accepted the “spectacular imagery of commodity propaganda as entertain-ment.” In other words, an audience that was not interested in theory, but might be moved by things that looked like television, comics, or magazines. This prompted a set of leaflets that were designed using pop culture imagery and thought bubbles which were posted on public walls. The editors reflect on the successes and failures of this approach." The Detroit Printing Co-op by Danielle Aubert.
Front cover.
Interior front cover.
8-9.
12-13.
34-35.
36-37.
54-55.