Early History
Bergman's grandmother was the first secretary-treasurer of the ILGWU local in New York; his grandfather was also a founder. His parents were both eastern European Jewish immigrants; his father coming from Hungary to Cuba to the United States. His mother was a member of the Poale Zion (labor Zionist organization).
He graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, with Honors, in Sociology and History, and was a graduate fellow in philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, where he studied under Herbert Marcuse. By 1969 he co-founded San Diego Free Press (later San Diego Street Journal), an alternative newspaper, with several fellow students. Bergman and fellow student Richard "Black Dick" Blackburn instigated the probe which later toppled the San Diego financial empire of C. Arnholt Smith, President and CEO of U.S. National Bank in San Diego. Bergman went on to contribute to Ramparts and San Francisco Examiner. He later worked as an associate editor at Rolling Stone.
In 1977, Bergman helped found the Center for Investigative Reporting. He was part of the reporting team that continued the work of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles, who was assassinated in 1976 while investigating land fraud committed by organized crime.
Read more about this topic: Lowell Bergman
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