Via White Crane Institute // ALLEN YOUNG

This Day in Gay History

June 30

Born

Journalist and Activist Allen Young

1941 -

ALLEN YOUNG is an American journalist, author, editor and publisher who is also a social, political and environmental activist. He was born on this date. He was a red diaper baby. He graduated from Fallsburg Central High School and received his undergraduate degree in 1962 from Columbia University. Following an M.A. in 1963 from Stanford in Hispanic American and Luso-Brazilian Studies, he earned an M.S. in 1964 from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. After receiving a Fulbright Award in 1964, Young spent three years in Brazil, Chile and other Latin American countries, contributing numerous articles to  The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor and other periodicals and other periodicals.

Young returned to the United States in June 1967 and worked briefly for The Washington Post before resigning in the fall of that year to become a full-time anti-Vietnam War movement activist and staff member of the Liberation News Service. 

Young, Marshall Bloom, Ray Mungo and others worked in the office at 3 Thomas Circle 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, Young was part of the Columbian University protests of 1968 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. In February and March 1969 Young went to Cuba, where he was instrumental in the organization of the Venceremos Brigade. 

Young became disillusioned with the Castro regime after observing the lack of civil liberties and other freedoms, and especially the government's anti-gay policies. After th Mariel boatlift he wrote Gays Under the Cuban Revolution, breaking with those New Leftists who continued to defend the Cuban Revolution.

After the Stonewall Riots in New York City, Young became involved in the Gay Liberation Front. 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, which first appeared in Gay Sunshine is often reprinted and translated.

Young has edited four books with Karla Jay including the ground breaking anthology Out of the Closets.  His autobiography "Left, Gay & Green: A Writer's Life" is published and available on Amazon.com.