Our Choking Times Archives
About this collection
Our Choking Times began in 1970 as the African-American students' newspaper. It was published until 1982 when its name changed to Spectrum and then Dimensions. Dimensions was published until the mid-1990s.
This collection represents the copies held at the University Archives and is not a complete run. This collection contains 124 issues comprising 1,403 pages and 3,601 articles.
About Our Choking Times
Our Choking Times sought to provide a community forum and address frustrations of Black students across the university. The first issue’s manifesto set the tone for the paper’s activist ethos, holding Ohio State accountable for its lack of black professors and students, its lip service to diversity, and later, its investment in companies doing business with apartheid-era South Africa. Many of the issues the student-writers addressed, such as Columbus police offers shooting unarmed black citizens, continue to be serious problems today.
Beyond its critical commentary, Our Choking Times offered a much-needed communal media space as the only publication written by Black students for Black students. The paper published poetry and cartoons, as well as music, theatre and literary criticism. It gave Black students an outlet for expression.
To read more about the publication, see the story in the Carmen Collection: https://carmencollection.osu.edu/story/outlet-black-student-self-expression
Copyright Notice
The online archive of the Ohio State University’s student newspaper, Our Choking Times is available for research and educational purposes only. Copyright and other restrictions may apply. Users are responsible for obtaining the necessary permissions to reprint, reproduce or make other uses of this material.
