Happy Birthday to Us

Today is our 33rd anniversary. We started in two small rooms at 250 West 57th Street on this day in 1982, when I was 29 years old. We then opened our DC office six months later. Our first clients were Mother Jones, the Sierra Club Book Division (for a book on hazardous waste), the Village Voice and the 10th anniversary celebration of Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen. Shortly thereafter we ran a campaign on food system sustainability for Rodale Press and went to work for the movement to freeze all nuclear weapons production, funded primarily by members of the Rockefeller family.

On this anniversary I fondly commemorate my mentor and lawyer, David Lubell, who pushed me to take the plunge and start a progressive PR company. I was so nervous, I tried to rent out our second room immediately (it proved unnecessary). David also represented in his career Martin Luther King, James Baldwin, the Black Panther Party, Students for a Democratic Society, Malcolm X, and many other social change organizations. He was also a leading entertainment industry lawyer including a pioneer of helping progressive documentaries go mainstream. While at Harvard Law, he was almost expelled for refusing to name names to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee.

David passed away just a few years ago. Thank you, David, and thank you all for carrying on in his amazing tradition.