Marshall's high school years were spent in two worlds. The world of high school and all the activities (he was the News Editor for the school newspaper THE SURVEYOR) and studies with which he was involved and his outside love of AZA, the Jewish youth organization of B'nai B'rith. Both of these worlds consumed his organizational time and energies. He traveled to board meetings locally and away and held numerous offices during 1960, 1961, and 1962. He was a natural born leader and held the attention and respect of everyone. He was bright beyond his years. He was a National Merit Finalist.
Marshall's mind was the intellectual equivalent of Wayne Gretzky's hockey sense. He was always steps ahead of everyone else in understanding and recognizing the next step that needed to be taken. Friends and acquaintances would argue with him all the time over his political choices. He was a strong Goldwater advocate and staunch Republican in high school. That makes his transformation into a radical all the more amazing. By the time he graduated Amherst and went to the London School of Economics, he was beyond liberal.
A surviving myth exists that Marshall was one of the leaders of the group that used to go into Mr. MacIntosh's Chemistry lab before school at GW. On George Washington's birthday, a group of boys dressed as Washington, or, perhaps, Lincoln. By the start of school they were all staggering around drunk. They had built a still in the chemistry lab.
Friends were aware of Marshall's wicked sense of humor that cut through people. He was not cruel. He just stretched reality to the absurd. He made others laugh. He was so well read, especially philosophy and political science. His bedroom was filled with books. It looked like a college professor's office. Marshall noticed little things about people and events that most people missed. He was just a sponge for knowledge but to his friends, he was unable to organize all he knew into some kind of operating paradigm until some time just before or right after he graduated from Amherst. That's when he began to see the world differently and became more anti establishment. He was part of the organizers of a riot or protest at London School of Economics during his time there.
Marshall Bloom (Amherst College 1966), journalist, editor and key agent in the development of the alternative press in the United States in the 1960s, was born in 1944 in Denver, Colorado. As a child he was an accomplished student and was active in B'nai B'rith, school newspapers and other organizations. He entered Amherst College in 1962, majoring in American Studies and becoming involved in numerous campus activities, among them FORUM (the student lecture committee) and The Amherst Student. Under Bloom's leadership as Chairman of the Student in 1965, the newspaper dramatically increased its coverage of national issues. At graduation Bloom was awarded the Samuel Bowles Prize for proficiency in journalism. Bloom's affinity for social protest and controversy was evident in the 1966 Commencement ceremony, at which Bloom was one of 19 graduating seniors who walked out to protest the College's decision to award an honorary degree to Robert McNamara, then Secretary of Defense, for his role in the continuing Vietnam War.
Bloom's college years saw an awakening of his interest in the civil rights movement. He participated in marches in the South in 1964 and 1965, and was arrested. In 1965 he joined student editors from the Harvard Crimson to found the Southern Courier, an independent newspaper based in Selma that emphasized coverage of civil rights and black Southern life, issues largely ignored by the mainstream (white) Southern press. Bloom worked as staff writer and Montgomery, Alabama bureau chief in the summer of 1965. In his senior year at Amherst he wrote his thesis on the life of southern Jews in Selma, Alabama.
After graduating from Amherst Bloom attended the London School of Economics to study sociology for one year. He gained notoriety on both sides of the Atlantic for his involvement in student protests against the School's appointment of Walter Adams, then head of University College of Rhodesia, as its next director. The Socialist Society at LSE, in particular, was harshly critical of his appointment because of his role in promulgating the Rhodesian government's apartheid policy. Bloom, then president of the Graduate Students' Association, organized a meeting to protest this decision on January 31, 1967. LSE administrators banned the meeting on short notice, but it took place anyway; a university porter trying to maintain order in the crowded hall died of a heart attack. For their involvement in this tragic incident, Bloom and another student were suspended.
Bloom's diaries during 1969 indicate that he was privately quite troubled about many things: debts, civil relationships and the sharing of labor among those on the Montague farm, the viability of the farm as an experiment in living, religious doubts, disagreements with his father, the Vietnam War, and the threat of Selective Service. (In October 1969, Bloom had received a notice from the Selective Service to report for a physical examination; this may have been only his most recent of a series of encounters with the military draft.)
Bloom unexpectedly took his life by carbon monoxide poisoning in his parked car on a wooded road in nearby Leverett, Massachusetts. Bloom did not leave a suicide note, only a sheet of typewritten instructions that served as his Last Will and Testament. In subsequent years, several writers have pointed to the death of Marshall Bloom as a sign of the "failure" of the radical counterculture, while others simply were saddened by the passing of a talented and very charismatic but increasingly troubled man. It would be only speculation what personal and other social demons lead to his death. He died November 1, 1969. He is buried at Mt Nebo Cemetery, Denver, Colorado.
Contributors:
Steve Weinreich (GW 1962), Stephen Myers (GW 1963), and excerpts of the Bloom Papers from Amherst College Archives.
Marshall's mind was the intellectual equivalent of Wayne Gretzky's hockey sense. He was always steps ahead of everyone else in understanding and recognizing the next step that needed to be taken. Friends and acquaintances would argue with him all the time over his political choices. He was a strong Goldwater advocate and staunch Republican in high school. That makes his transformation into a radical all the more amazing. By the time he graduated Amherst and went to the London School of Economics, he was beyond liberal.
A surviving myth exists that Marshall was one of the leaders of the group that used to go into Mr. MacIntosh's Chemistry lab before school at GW. On George Washington's birthday, a group of boys dressed as Washington, or, perhaps, Lincoln. By the start of school they were all staggering around drunk. They had built a still in the chemistry lab.
Friends were aware of Marshall's wicked sense of humor that cut through people. He was not cruel. He just stretched reality to the absurd. He made others laugh. He was so well read, especially philosophy and political science. His bedroom was filled with books. It looked like a college professor's office. Marshall noticed little things about people and events that most people missed. He was just a sponge for knowledge but to his friends, he was unable to organize all he knew into some kind of operating paradigm until some time just before or right after he graduated from Amherst. That's when he began to see the world differently and became more anti establishment. He was part of the organizers of a riot or protest at London School of Economics during his time there.
Marshall Bloom (Amherst College 1966), journalist, editor and key agent in the development of the alternative press in the United States in the 1960s, was born in 1944 in Denver, Colorado. As a child he was an accomplished student and was active in B'nai B'rith, school newspapers and other organizations. He entered Amherst College in 1962, majoring in American Studies and becoming involved in numerous campus activities, among them FORUM (the student lecture committee) and The Amherst Student. Under Bloom's leadership as Chairman of the Student in 1965, the newspaper dramatically increased its coverage of national issues. At graduation Bloom was awarded the Samuel Bowles Prize for proficiency in journalism. Bloom's affinity for social protest and controversy was evident in the 1966 Commencement ceremony, at which Bloom was one of 19 graduating seniors who walked out to protest the College's decision to award an honorary degree to Robert McNamara, then Secretary of Defense, for his role in the continuing Vietnam War.
Bloom's college years saw an awakening of his interest in the civil rights movement. He participated in marches in the South in 1964 and 1965, and was arrested. In 1965 he joined student editors from the Harvard Crimson to found the Southern Courier, an independent newspaper based in Selma that emphasized coverage of civil rights and black Southern life, issues largely ignored by the mainstream (white) Southern press. Bloom worked as staff writer and Montgomery, Alabama bureau chief in the summer of 1965. In his senior year at Amherst he wrote his thesis on the life of southern Jews in Selma, Alabama.
After graduating from Amherst Bloom attended the London School of Economics to study sociology for one year. He gained notoriety on both sides of the Atlantic for his involvement in student protests against the School's appointment of Walter Adams, then head of University College of Rhodesia, as its next director. The Socialist Society at LSE, in particular, was harshly critical of his appointment because of his role in promulgating the Rhodesian government's apartheid policy. Bloom, then president of the Graduate Students' Association, organized a meeting to protest this decision on January 31, 1967. LSE administrators banned the meeting on short notice, but it took place anyway; a university porter trying to maintain order in the crowded hall died of a heart attack. For their involvement in this tragic incident, Bloom and another student were suspended.
Bloom's diaries during 1969 indicate that he was privately quite troubled about many things: debts, civil relationships and the sharing of labor among those on the Montague farm, the viability of the farm as an experiment in living, religious doubts, disagreements with his father, the Vietnam War, and the threat of Selective Service. (In October 1969, Bloom had received a notice from the Selective Service to report for a physical examination; this may have been only his most recent of a series of encounters with the military draft.)
Bloom unexpectedly took his life by carbon monoxide poisoning in his parked car on a wooded road in nearby Leverett, Massachusetts. Bloom did not leave a suicide note, only a sheet of typewritten instructions that served as his Last Will and Testament. In subsequent years, several writers have pointed to the death of Marshall Bloom as a sign of the "failure" of the radical counterculture, while others simply were saddened by the passing of a talented and very charismatic but increasingly troubled man. It would be only speculation what personal and other social demons lead to his death. He died November 1, 1969. He is buried at Mt Nebo Cemetery, Denver, Colorado.
Contributors:
Steve Weinreich (GW 1962), Stephen Myers (GW 1963), and excerpts of the Bloom Papers from Amherst College Archives.
Marshall's high school years were spent in two worlds. The world of high school and all the activities (he was the News Editor for the school newspaper THE SURVEYOR) and studies with which he was involved and his outside love of AZA, the Jewish youth organization of B'nai B'rith. Both of these worlds consumed his organizational time and energies. He traveled to board meetings locally and away and held numerous offices during 1960, 1961, and 1962. He was a natural born leader and held the attention and respect of everyone. He was bright beyond his years. He was a National Merit Finalist.
Marshall's mind was the intellectual equivalent of Wayne Gretzky's hockey sense. He was always steps ahead of everyone else in understanding and recognizing the next step that needed to be taken. Friends and acquaintances would argue with him all the time over his political choices. He was a strong Goldwater advocate and staunch Republican in high school. That makes his transformation into a radical all the more amazing. By the time he graduated Amherst and went to the London School of Economics, he was beyond liberal.
A surviving myth exists that Marshall was one of the leaders of the group that used to go into Mr. MacIntosh's Chemistry lab before school at GW. On George Washington's birthday, a group of boys dressed as Washington, or, perhaps, Lincoln. By the start of school they were all staggering around drunk. They had built a still in the chemistry lab.
Friends were aware of Marshall's wicked sense of humor that cut through people. He was not cruel. He just stretched reality to the absurd. He made others laugh. He was so well read, especially philosophy and political science. His bedroom was filled with books. It looked like a college professor's office. Marshall noticed little things about people and events that most people missed. He was just a sponge for knowledge but to his friends, he was unable to organize all he knew into some kind of operating paradigm until some time just before or right after he graduated from Amherst. That's when he began to see the world differently and became more anti establishment. He was part of the organizers of a riot or protest at London School of Economics during his time there.
Marshall Bloom (Amherst College 1966), journalist, editor and key agent in the development of the alternative press in the United States in the 1960s, was born in 1944 in Denver, Colorado. As a child he was an accomplished student and was active in B'nai B'rith, school newspapers and other organizations. He entered Amherst College in 1962, majoring in American Studies and becoming involved in numerous campus activities, among them FORUM (the student lecture committee) and The Amherst Student. Under Bloom's leadership as Chairman of the Student in 1965, the newspaper dramatically increased its coverage of national issues. At graduation Bloom was awarded the Samuel Bowles Prize for proficiency in journalism. Bloom's affinity for social protest and controversy was evident in the 1966 Commencement ceremony, at which Bloom was one of 19 graduating seniors who walked out to protest the College's decision to award an honorary degree to Robert McNamara, then Secretary of Defense, for his role in the continuing Vietnam War.
Bloom's college years saw an awakening of his interest in the civil rights movement. He participated in marches in the South in 1964 and 1965, and was arrested. In 1965 he joined student editors from the Harvard Crimson to found the Southern Courier, an independent newspaper based in Selma that emphasized coverage of civil rights and black Southern life, issues largely ignored by the mainstream (white) Southern press. Bloom worked as staff writer and Montgomery, Alabama bureau chief in the summer of 1965. In his senior year at Amherst he wrote his thesis on the life of southern Jews in Selma, Alabama.
After graduating from Amherst Bloom attended the London School of Economics to study sociology for one year. He gained notoriety on both sides of the Atlantic for his involvement in student protests against the School's appointment of Walter Adams, then head of University College of Rhodesia, as its next director. The Socialist Society at LSE, in particular, was harshly critical of his appointment because of his role in promulgating the Rhodesian government's apartheid policy. Bloom, then president of the Graduate Students' Association, organized a meeting to protest this decision on January 31, 1967. LSE administrators banned the meeting on short notice, but it took place anyway; a university porter trying to maintain order in the crowded hall died of a heart attack. For their involvement in this tragic incident, Bloom and another student were suspended.
Bloom's diaries during 1969 indicate that he was privately quite troubled about many things: debts, civil relationships and the sharing of labor among those on the Montague farm, the viability of the farm as an experiment in living, religious doubts, disagreements with his father, the Vietnam War, and the threat of Selective Service. (In October 1969, Bloom had received a notice from the Selective Service to report for a physical examination; this may have been only his most recent of a series of encounters with the military draft.)
Bloom unexpectedly took his life by carbon monoxide poisoning in his parked car on a wooded road in nearby Leverett, Massachusetts. Bloom did not leave a suicide note, only a sheet of typewritten instructions that served as his Last Will and Testament. In subsequent years, several writers have pointed to the death of Marshall Bloom as a sign of the "failure" of the radical counterculture, while others simply were saddened by the passing of a talented and very charismatic but increasingly troubled man. It would be only speculation what personal and other social demons lead to his death. He died November 1, 1969. He is buried at Mt Nebo Cemetery, Denver, Colorado.
Contributors:
Steve Weinreich (GW 1962), Stephen Myers (GW 1963), and excerpts of the Bloom Papers from Amherst College Archives.
Marshall's mind was the intellectual equivalent of Wayne Gretzky's hockey sense. He was always steps ahead of everyone else in understanding and recognizing the next step that needed to be taken. Friends and acquaintances would argue with him all the time over his political choices. He was a strong Goldwater advocate and staunch Republican in high school. That makes his transformation into a radical all the more amazing. By the time he graduated Amherst and went to the London School of Economics, he was beyond liberal.
A surviving myth exists that Marshall was one of the leaders of the group that used to go into Mr. MacIntosh's Chemistry lab before school at GW. On George Washington's birthday, a group of boys dressed as Washington, or, perhaps, Lincoln. By the start of school they were all staggering around drunk. They had built a still in the chemistry lab.
Friends were aware of Marshall's wicked sense of humor that cut through people. He was not cruel. He just stretched reality to the absurd. He made others laugh. He was so well read, especially philosophy and political science. His bedroom was filled with books. It looked like a college professor's office. Marshall noticed little things about people and events that most people missed. He was just a sponge for knowledge but to his friends, he was unable to organize all he knew into some kind of operating paradigm until some time just before or right after he graduated from Amherst. That's when he began to see the world differently and became more anti establishment. He was part of the organizers of a riot or protest at London School of Economics during his time there.
Marshall Bloom (Amherst College 1966), journalist, editor and key agent in the development of the alternative press in the United States in the 1960s, was born in 1944 in Denver, Colorado. As a child he was an accomplished student and was active in B'nai B'rith, school newspapers and other organizations. He entered Amherst College in 1962, majoring in American Studies and becoming involved in numerous campus activities, among them FORUM (the student lecture committee) and The Amherst Student. Under Bloom's leadership as Chairman of the Student in 1965, the newspaper dramatically increased its coverage of national issues. At graduation Bloom was awarded the Samuel Bowles Prize for proficiency in journalism. Bloom's affinity for social protest and controversy was evident in the 1966 Commencement ceremony, at which Bloom was one of 19 graduating seniors who walked out to protest the College's decision to award an honorary degree to Robert McNamara, then Secretary of Defense, for his role in the continuing Vietnam War.
Bloom's college years saw an awakening of his interest in the civil rights movement. He participated in marches in the South in 1964 and 1965, and was arrested. In 1965 he joined student editors from the Harvard Crimson to found the Southern Courier, an independent newspaper based in Selma that emphasized coverage of civil rights and black Southern life, issues largely ignored by the mainstream (white) Southern press. Bloom worked as staff writer and Montgomery, Alabama bureau chief in the summer of 1965. In his senior year at Amherst he wrote his thesis on the life of southern Jews in Selma, Alabama.
After graduating from Amherst Bloom attended the London School of Economics to study sociology for one year. He gained notoriety on both sides of the Atlantic for his involvement in student protests against the School's appointment of Walter Adams, then head of University College of Rhodesia, as its next director. The Socialist Society at LSE, in particular, was harshly critical of his appointment because of his role in promulgating the Rhodesian government's apartheid policy. Bloom, then president of the Graduate Students' Association, organized a meeting to protest this decision on January 31, 1967. LSE administrators banned the meeting on short notice, but it took place anyway; a university porter trying to maintain order in the crowded hall died of a heart attack. For their involvement in this tragic incident, Bloom and another student were suspended.
Bloom's diaries during 1969 indicate that he was privately quite troubled about many things: debts, civil relationships and the sharing of labor among those on the Montague farm, the viability of the farm as an experiment in living, religious doubts, disagreements with his father, the Vietnam War, and the threat of Selective Service. (In October 1969, Bloom had received a notice from the Selective Service to report for a physical examination; this may have been only his most recent of a series of encounters with the military draft.)
Bloom unexpectedly took his life by carbon monoxide poisoning in his parked car on a wooded road in nearby Leverett, Massachusetts. Bloom did not leave a suicide note, only a sheet of typewritten instructions that served as his Last Will and Testament. In subsequent years, several writers have pointed to the death of Marshall Bloom as a sign of the "failure" of the radical counterculture, while others simply were saddened by the passing of a talented and very charismatic but increasingly troubled man. It would be only speculation what personal and other social demons lead to his death. He died November 1, 1969. He is buried at Mt Nebo Cemetery, Denver, Colorado.
Contributors:
Steve Weinreich (GW 1962), Stephen Myers (GW 1963), and excerpts of the Bloom Papers from Amherst College Archives.
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