The First Amendment is under attack. The formidable frontal assault came quietly, stealthily into state legislatures across the nation. The attackers wielded pens proving mightier than swords and signed laws that punish the refusal to sign a pledge of allegiance — not the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States; rather, a pledge of deference to a foreign government and a promise not to boycott the nation that government represents.
What’s more American than a boycott, Alan Leveritt pondered when he spoke with Editor & Publisher during a vodcast with E&P Publisher Mike Blinder back in December 2021. Leveritt had penned a Nov. 22, 2021, op-ed for The New York Times about a legal case he’s been waging against an obscure Arkansas state law that suppresses free speech and requires people and businesses who contract with the state to sign away their rights to “boycott,” a subjective term.
Leveritt cited the Boston Tea Party and the centuries-old tradition of boycotts, using rhetoric and the power of the purse strings to influence people, companies and even government.
Leveritt comes from a family of Arkansas farmers. “We’re just white-trash farmers. I mean, that’s where we come from,” he explains in the new documentary film, “Boycott,” by Director Julia Bacha and the team at Just Vision, an award-winning production company.
Leveritt carries on that farming tradition today; in the film, he’s seen tending gardens and gathering eggs. But his day job — one that he’s held for nearly 50 years — is serving as publisher of the Arkansas Times, a free, local news source he co-founded in his 20s. Since the beginning, the venture has been entirely advertising-supported, and a significant amount of it comes from state agencies, including the state university system.
“I was raised conservative, and I started moving to the left over the years. As a recovering conservative, I want to be left alone, you know? Do your job. You get your business on merit, and you get paid for it, and you don’t pass some political litmus test. This is America,” he says in the film.
Hellbound and Down 