The Rise and Fall
of Activist Entrepreneurs
By Joshua Clark Davis
Ron and Jay Thelin found taking LSD
for the first time absolutely transformative.
LSD, the brothers believed, could “change
the consciousness” of the nation and
inspire Americans to reject the aggression
they thought had driven the country to war
with Vietnam. As Jay explained, “We can
no longer identify with the kinds of activi-
ties that the older generation are engaged
in… They have led to a monstrous war in
Vietnam, for example. And that’s why it’s
all related — the psychedelics and the war,
the protesting, the gap in the generations.”
In January 1966, the Thelins opened
the Psychedelic Shop in San Francisco’s
Haight-Ashbury district with the primary
hope that they could “provide materials
that would allow you to have a good trip”
and safely experiment with acid. The Psy-
chedelic Shop sold pamphlets and books
on LSD, as well as religious texts from
Asia, brightly-colored posters, beaded
necklaces and smoking papers. When Cal-
ifornia’s legislature voted to outlaw LSD,
Ron co-organized the Love Pageant Rally,
which drew hundreds of people to protest
the move by dropping acid in unison in
Golden Gate Park.
Yet the more the Thelins’ shop attracted
customers, the less the Thelins seemed to
care about making money. After a year in
business, they replaced a large portion of
merchandise with a meditation room. The
store welcomed anyone in the Haight to
spend as much time as he or she wanted
in the store’s Calm Center without having
to make a purchase.
The Psychedelic Shop was not alone
in blending business goals with political
objectives. In the summer of 1968, veteran
members of the Student Nonviolent Coor-
dinating Committee (SNCC) opened the
Drum and Spear Bookstore in Washing-
ton, DC, specializing in works by writers
of African descent. In addition to its brick-
and-mortar store, Drum and Spear ran a
brisk mail-order distribution business for
other black booksellers and by 1969 even
launched its own publishing company,
with headquarters in Washington, DC,
and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Drum and
Spear was commercially ambitious, yet it
was operated by a non-profit organiza-
tion, Afro-American Resources, Inc.
“We don’t define profit in terms of
money,” said SNCC activist and store
co-founder Charlie Cobb. “The profit is
the patronage of the community, which
allows the store to self-support.” Most
critically, Drum and Spear aimed to pro-
vide its customers with “access to the
right kind of information about the black
movements, people and their history.”
In 1972, Coletta Reid and Casey Czarnik
launched Diana Press, a print shop in
Baltimore with the primary goal of “free-
ing women entirely from male printing
establishments.” Reid and Czarnik joined
forces with several other women active
in local lesbian-feminist groups to form
a collective to operate the press. Each
woman in the multiracial collective earned
$100 for a month’s work and reinvested
most of that salary back into the business.
As one staffer recalled, the press “didn’t
worry about making money, or our profit
margin.” Within a few years, Diana Press
had become one of the leading publishers
in the women’s movement. “Although we
are committed to remaining financially