Groundwork magazine – Successor to Direct Action
Download all issues of Groundwork & Green Letter – individual issues below
GroundWork was a successor to Direct Action newspaper – for which the novel Direct Action was named. Direct Action newspaper – issues 1-25 – appeared from 1982 through Fall 1986. We are currently working to scan and make those issues available.
After a three year hiatus (which saw the inception of the book Direct Action), several former DA collective members joined a San Francisco-based collective publishing a magazine then known as Green Letter (you’ll also find downloads of GL below).
Loosely affiliated with the pre-Green Party grassroots Greens’ movement, GL covered various aspects of non-electoral organizing.
In 1992, with the Greens morphing into an electoral party, the Green Letter collective made a decision to rename our magazine GroundWork and publish as an independent grassroots voice.
In those pre-internet day, when news from outside your home region was dependent on word of mouth and the occasional traveling slide show, GroundWork probably set records (rivaled only by Earth First! Journal) for publishing the most photographs of direct action protests.
Circulation peaked at about 8000 copies, about half of which were paid subscriptions. Subscribers clustered in the Northeast, Northern Midwest, and West Coast, but were found in almost every US state and Canadian province as well as across Europe.
In 1998, facing red ink and a looming internet, GroundWork folded its activist coverage into the newly-formed Reclaiming Quarterly, which linked Neo-Pagan practice and grassroots activism. RQ continues to publish an online edition that includes the voices (and camera-work) of several former Direct Action and GroundWork journalists.
Below are the seven issues of GroundWork as well as the later Green Letter issues.
Back Issues of GroundWork – 1992-98
Each of these approximately annual issues offered in-depth coverage of the theme as well as many pages of general grassroots reporting. The two issues on Nuclear Waste were the most comprehensive report available on this secretive and ever-shifting topic in the 1990s.
The GW Bulletins were periodic updates for our subscribers, and are packed with grassroots updates from this period.
All issues of Groundwork & Green Letter – PDFs
GroundWork Issue #1 (1992) – 500 Years of Resistance
GroundWork Issue #2 (1992) – Health & Organizing
GroundWork Issue #3 (1993) – Nuclear Waste Part 1
GroundWork Issue #4 (1994) – Nuclear Waste Part 2
GroundWork Issue #5 (1995) – Grassroots Dialog
GroundWork Issue #6 (1996) – Defending Our Forests
GroundWork Issue #7 (1998) – Grassroots Overview
GroundWork Bulletins (1995-2000) – Periodic Updates
Reclaiming Quarterly – successor to GroundWork
WeaveAndSpin.org – successor to RQ
Green Letter – previous incarnation of GroundWork
In 1989, several former DA collective members joined a San Francisco-based collective publishing a magazine then known as Green Letter – you’ll find downloads of GL below.
Loosely affiliated with the pre-Green Party grassroots Greens’ movement, GL covered various aspects of non-electoral organizing. Beginning in 1989 each issue had a “theme,” a set of articles around a particular topic. These focused theme sections continued in GroundWork and later in Reclaiming Quarterly.
In Spring 1991 GL featured national coverage of protests against the first Gulf War – probably the most comprehensive reporting on that wide-spread but short-lived movement. From that point forward, Green Letter focused increasingly on direct action.
In 1992, with the Greens morphing into an electoral party, the Green Letter collective made a decision to rename our magazine GroundWork and publish as an independent grassroots voice.
Here are the later issues of Green Letter.
All issues of Green Letter & GroundWork – PDFs
Green Letter 5.4 (Winter 1989) – Ecological Economics
Green Letter 6.1 (Spring 1990) – What Is Progress?
Green Letter 6.2 (Summer 1990) – Movement Building Part 1
Green Letter 6.3 (Fall 1990) – Movement Building Part 2
Green Letter 6.4 (Spring 1991) – War & Resistance
Green Letter 7.1 (Summer 1991) – Energy Policy & Alternatives
Green Letter 7.2 (Fall 1991) – Waste Not, Want Not
GroundWork Issue #1 (1992) – 500 Years of Resistance
Reclaiming Quarterly – successor to GroundWork
WeaveAndSpin.org – successor to RQ
***