Martha Leslie Allen began working full time with the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press at the end of 1975. The previous year she had put together the first Directory of Women's Media and Index of Media Report to Women. Fourteen more annual editions of the Directory would follow in the seventies and eighties, and resumed again annually in 2002.

From 1969 to 1975 Martha had been living in the South, working in the civil rights, peace, and women's movement, first in Louisville, KY, and then in Memphis, TN. She worked for the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF) and later for Operation Freedom. Though active in several other progressive causes, media democracy issues became her primary focus.

In 1973, she founded and led the Women's Media Project in Memphis, TN. That group negotiated with broadcasters for improved programming and coverage of women and improved employment of women at all levels. They were successful in reaching agreements with all three of the commercial television stations and several radio stations. Martha edited the Women's Media Project Newsletter. She also spent some time producing a weekly alternative news and information program on WLYX Radio, Southwestern University, in Memphis. She joined a group of women working to develop a women's cable channel. In the process of learning to use video equipment capable of providing programming for the channel, she began expanding her media efforts.

In 1975 Martha moved to Washington, DC, to work full-time with WIFP. From 1976 to 1983 she worked as the Associate Editor of Media Report to Women. In 1978, she began serving as the Associate Director of WIFP, and became the Director in 1985. Between 1978 and 1984, Martha worked on the coordination of seven annual conferences, held at the National Press Club, on "Planning a National and International communications System for Women." The 1982 conference was co-sponsored with the International Women's Tribune Centre and was attended by 124 media and media-concerned women from 32 countries.

During this time Martha attended graduate school at Howard University. Her Master's thesis was on "Black Women Journalists and the Black Press in the South at the Turn of the Century" (1978). Martha's Ph.D. dissertation, "The Development of Communication Networks Among Women, 1963-1983" (1988), is available from University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, MI (order no. 8835389). Between 1979 and 1982, Martha served on the Editorial Board of The Potomac Review, Journal of History and Politics, in Washington, DC. She edited and published The Celibate Woman Journal between 1982 and 1988. She also edited the 1983 issue of The Artemis Path, A Journal of Self-Transformation.

In July, 1985, Martha worked on coordination of Dateline Nairobi: Women's View, a satellite teleconference between delegates to the UN Decade for Women World Conference of Women in Nairobi, Kenya, and women assembled in three U.S. cities. In November of 1987, she traveled to Japan, sponsored by the National Women's Education Centre, speaking about women's issues and communication networks. She also spoke in Nagoya and Kitakyushu on that tour.

Martha became the Director of WIFP in 1985, continuing to work very closely with her mother, Dr. Donna Allen, the Institute's Founder and President. In 1988 Martha obtained her Ph.D. from Howard University in Washington. Continuing to focus on the importance of women's media, in 1989, Martha spoke to the Washington, DC Chapter, of Women in Communications, at the National Press Club on "Women's Media, Forging Ties with Women Working in the Mass Media: The Key to Women's Progress." In February, 1990, Martha contributed an article to the twentieth anniversary issue of off our backs, entitled "Women's Media: The Way to Revolution."

In 1990, having edited 15 annual editions of the Directory of Women's Media, Martha transferred it to the National Council for Research on Women in New York. (The Council published two more editions of the Directory of Women's Media, the second in 1994). Martha then conceived of, and launched, a booklet series on the theoretical and practical communications philosophy of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press.

In 1991, Martha traveled to France and Spain to participate in media conferences. In Paris the conference was on "Media Accountability Systems" and in Madrid the conference discussed media responsibility issues in the U.S. and how they might apply to the situation in Spain ("Prensa y Responsibilidad Social: Situación actual en Estados Unidos y posibles aplicaciones en España").

In April, 1993, Martha went back to Memphis to participate in a Symposium at the National Civil Rights Museum on "The Role of Media in the Civil Rights Movement." She spoke on a panel entitled "Creating a Democratic Mass Media: Opening Communication Channels To and For the Public," chaired by Julian Bond.

In 1999 Martha became the President of WIFP upon the death of the Founder and President, Dr. Donna Allen. Martha also continues as its Director.

As the need for another edition of the Directory of Women's Media became evident (none had been published since 1994), beginning in 2000 Martha once again began editing a directory of women's periodicals, publishers, media organizations, and other media categories. It became available online in 2001 -- at no cost to those accessing the information. The first new print edition came out in January 2002 and new editions continue to be released annually.

At the "Dr. Donna Allen Memorial Symposium" held at the Freedom Forum August 3-4, 2001, Martha presented a paper on Donna Allen's Life and Work. An adaptation and excerpts from this presentation focusing on Donna's work before founding WIFP is available on the website. Martha participates in other conferences. In May, 2002, for instance, she was a presenter at the Visions In Feminism conference on a panel entitled "Our Voices, Our Media: Women's Media & Feminism" held at the University of Maryland. And in January, 2004, she spoke to thousands at an Iranian solidarity event at the Washington Convention Center about Zahra Kazemi, a photojournalist who was tortured and killed by the Iranian regime. In May, 2004, Martha participated in a symposium in France on Islamic Fundamentalism and Women at the invitation of the National Committee of Women for Democratic Iran and the Women's Committee of the National Counsil of Resistance of Iran. She is currently on the advisory board of the Women's Forum Against Fundamentalism in Iran.

Martha spoke about media democracy issues on a panel at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) conference in San Antonio, TX, in August 2005. She also attended conferences related to media democracy such as the National Conference for Media Reform (St. Louis, MO in 2005 & Memphis, TN in 2007) and the "Women, Action & the Media" Conference (Cambridge, MA in 2006).

Martha is the web editor of the WIFP website. She also edits the quarterly online e-newsletter, Voices for Media Democracy, available on the website. She and her staff of interns put together an annual print publication, Voices for Media Democracy.

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