December 1973 Guardian Newspaper Tour of China
About this collection
- Collection
- Extent
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5 digital objects.
- Description
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The December 1973 – January 1974 Guardian tour of China was a roughly 2-week visit for 22 Americans, organized by the Guardian Newspaper and tour company “Special Tours for Special People,” both New York City far-left organizations. The participants were mostly members of the “Guardian Sustainers” club, a premium subscription of sorts to the newspaper, although anyone who was interested and knew about it could apply, and the tours were openly advertised in the newspaper.
Gene Guerrero participated in the tour and wrote the diary. He typed up the notes into a Word document from his three notebooks in 2017. After he came back from the trip, he became active in the U.S. - China People’s Friendship Association – leading two USCPFA trips to China. - Creation Date
- Between December 1973 and January 1974
- Creator
- Biography
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Gene Guerrero was in the last all-white class at his Atlanta high school. In 1963, while a student at Emory University he became involved in civil rights – protesting segregation at Atlanta’s First Baptist Church where his own Baptist church had often played basketball, being arrested during a demonstration at a hamburger restaurant filled with robed Ku Klux Klansmen, forming Georgia Students for Human Rights to demonstrate support from the white community for civil rights, and participating in the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. In 1965 he helped organize the first protest and teach-in about the Viet Nam war in the deep South. As a conscientious objector he refused induction into the armed forces. He was a founder of the “underground” newspaper, The Great Speckled Bird, and served as Georgia state director of the American Civil Liberties. In 1989 he moved to Washington, DC where he lobbied Congress on civil liberties and criminal justice issues before retirement.
In late 1973 Guerrero visited China as part of one of the early trips to the PRC sponsored by The Guardian newspaper in New York. He became active in the U.S. - China People’s Friendship Association – leading two USCPFA trips to China. In 1976 when some of the first exchange scholars from China arrived at Georgia Tech following normalization of U.S. - China relations, Guerrero hosted two in his home and organized activities for the larger group. Formats
View formats within this collection
- Language
- English
- Related Resource
- Group photograph, 1973. December 1973 Guardian Newspaper Tour of China. UC San Diego Library. http://library.ucsd.edu/ark:/20775/bb0729601w
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