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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations
The Graduate School
2004
Activism amid a Chaotic Era: The
Underground Press of the 1960S
Hope Nelson
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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
ACTIVISM AMID A CHAOTIC ERA:
THE UNDERGROUND PRESS OF THE 1960S
By
HOPE NELSON
A Thesis submitted to the
Program in American and Florida Studies
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
Degree Awarded:
Spring Semester, 2004
The members of the Committee approve the Thesis of Hope Nelson defended on
March 31, 2004.
_______________________
Neil Jumonville
Professor Directing Thesis
_______________________
John Fenstermaker
Committee Member
_______________________
Deborah Coxwell-Teague
Committee Member
The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named
committee members.
ii
For my parents, Gil and Brenda Nelson, who taught me the value of education and
the importance of the 1960s in the context of American history and culture.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have greatly appreciated the opportunity to work with Dr. Neil Jumonville, Dr.
John Fenstermaker, and Dr. Deborah Coxwell-Teague on this manuscript. Their
guidance has helped me nurture my love of history and writing, and I am very
thankful for their assistance in this project.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract
.................................................................................................
vi
INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................
1
1. SHIFTS IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT ........................................
8
2. SHIFTS IN SENTIMENT TOWARD GOVERNMENT AND WAR ..........
24
3. THE GROWTH OF THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT..................................
40
CONCLUSION
............................................................................................
54
REFERENCES
............................................................................................
56
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...........................................................................
59
v
ABSTRACT
This thesis addresses the major activist and radical issues of the 1960s and early
1970s and illustrates the myriad shifts that take place within each of these social
movements as depicted in the alternative press of the era. These movements serve as
reflections of the shift of the collective American character throughout the 1960s, and
while they propel America to adjust to new mindsets, they also reflect the desires – and
fears – of a nation thrust into a chaotic postwar period. But despite their differences in
goals and ideologies, the major movements of the era – the struggles for civil rights,
women’s rights, and peace in the face of war – bring with them many similarities, more
than many historians are wont to depict. So often, such historians focus solely on one of
the activist movements of the 1960s, seemingly overlooking other events of the decades
that could perhaps be catalysts or results of a particular movement’s actions. But the
groups that formed and the events that took place within the decade did so with a high
degree of interconnectedness, even in ways that are not readily apparent initially. This
mentality is illustrated quite clearly within the alternative newspapers of the era.
Specifically, the bylines and subjects showing up in a forum for one activist movement
often echo those from other publications and other movements. More generally, the
motives, tactics, and even slogans made successful by one movement often were
employed by activists in other realms, adding much to the collective ideological shifts of
the era.
Through the alternative press, it is easy to see the tendencies toward chaos even
within the movements themselves; rarely does a neat and tidy chronology of progression
exist. These newspapers chronicled the transformations taking place with the times –
indeed, a shift from semantics to activism, from a more passive ideology to one that was
vibrant with action. But such shifts are not easily decipherable and are nestled among
shades of gray rather than being decidedly black and white. And it is those gray areas,
those areas of confusion, tension, frustration, and joy, that this thesis analyzes.
vi
INTRODUCTION
The histories and chronologies of the various social movements of the 1960s are
not as easily laid out as many history textbooks and, for that matter, in-depth analyses are
wont to depict. Rather, the shifts in ideology, from one of ideas to one of action, are
interlaced, ever-growing, without a solid division marking where one leaves off and
another begins. This almost chaotic sense of mixed ideas, of points of view that rival
each other even within various movements or activist groups, lends itself to the chaos
America was experiencing within the 1960s – an America that was struggling to work its
way through the rapidly changing mentalities that were permeating every facet of life,
from social relations to foreign relations and back again. Though members of the various
activist groups – be they the Students for a Democratic Society or the Black Panthers –
were the spokespeople for these changes, they too were oftentimes unsure how to enact
their views, how to come to some sort of unity within their own circles. Thus, this
uncertainty – which was easily warranted in such tumultuous times – exuded from the
inside out, from the organizations striving for social change to the realms of American
life that would feel its effects. The underground newspapers of this period, those
disseminated by the groups’ members themselves, offer an in-depth look into the hearts
and minds of the activists and provide a thorough chronology for the social and
organizational changes that took place in the 1960s.
With their uncertainty in mind, it is no wonder that the social movements these
organizations were striving to propel were many times chaotic in their decisions, their
actions, and their ideological shifts. It is no wonder that their movement from words,
expounding upon the state of the world from within the confines of their group meetings,
to blatant, direct action is not clear-cut. These movements were not tackling easy issues,
and often dissention from within their respective camps forced many heated debates and
postponed many decisions. In this light, it is easy to see exactly why the various
ideologies these groups espoused were intertwined and why they certainly couldn’t be
separated with a high degree of distinction. They were struggling within themselves to
come to some sort of consensus and were finding that, as in the greater expanse of
America, such a consensus was invisible if not absent.
The dawn of the 1960s was a tumultuous time in America – much more so than
the middle-class American suburbanites could easily see. Following World War II and
the suburban boom of the 1950s, unrest in various social groups was rampant.
Interestingly, the war itself precipitated many of these feelings. Women, who had
worked so diligently in the factories and in commercial jobs while the men were away at
war, began to question their role as domestic workers and were beginning to press for
1
jobs that did not involve solely raising children or cooking dinner. Blacks who had
fought in the war, who had defended their white comrades and done the bidding of a
white president, serving on an equal level as their fellow soldiers and wearing the same
military uniform as the rest of the Americans, came home to a nation that was still
grappling with segregated schools, “White Only” establishments, and separate restrooms,
water fountains, and train cars. Upon their homecoming after the war, black men in
America found themselves vying for the least desirable jobs for the least amount of
money to support their families. When they tried to cash in on the suburban boom in the
1950s, they were shunned by their white neighbors and forced to withdraw. Like white
women, black women and men began to see their predicament in a new light and began
to unite in a renewed fight for the equality they had longed for all their lives.1
Also, World War II had an effect on the way Americans viewed the prospect of
war itself. By the time the United States was entrenched in another conflict, one in
Vietnam, the popular sentiment about the issue of war had shifted significantly. No
longer was the fervor of patriotism that was so apparent in the last World War a sign of
the times. Instead, cynicism and criticism took its place among many Americans, and
many people began to vocally announce their dissent and make continued pleas for peace
and change. While war had always been bloody and unpleasant, the American mindset
by the 1960s had changed significantly on the subject of fighting – and, for that matter,
the government behind the fighting – and the true chaos of war began to shine through,
within communities and social groups and within the soldiers themselves.
This thesis addresses each of these issues in turn and depicts the myriad shifts and
changes that take place within each of these social movements. But these movements are
not isolated within themselves. To be sure, each one had an effect on the workings of
society, but they hold more meaning than even that. These movements are explicit
reflections on the shift of the collective American character throughout the 1960s, and
while they do propel Americans as a whole to adjust to new mindsets, they also reflect
the desires – and fears – of a nation thrust into a postwar era that was not nearly as neat
and tidy as had been expected. Following half a century of technological innovations and
nation-changing shifts from agrarianism to industry, from man to machines, from
affluence to depression to affluence again, the American mindset was wary of more
change but, maintaining the Manifest Destiny mentality of yesteryear, was wary of
stagnation, of staying still in an increasingly mobile society.
Thus, Americans strove to adjust to the many life-altering ideological shifts that
were cropping up in the 1960s. They felt the push to progress, but the pull to keep them
in the comfort zone that was so cherished following World War II. They felt the call to
continue down a path of positive progress, of greatness, of serving as the beacon of
democratic change, but also were swayed by die-hard social values and beliefs that had
been with them for decades – indeed, centuries. The alternating levels of support and
resistance that emanated from the mouths and minds – and sometimes the hands – of the
American people showed the alternating hope and fear they were experiencing after midcentury.
The activist groups that were struggling to have their voices heard were exposed
to this success and resistance first-hand. In writing and in action, in criticism and abuse,
1
Spigel, 16-17, 141.
2
these groups felt the brunt of America’s varying feelings and did not escape their highest
highs and lowest lows. Certainly, groups such as SDS and the Black Panthers were not
immune to either the peaks or the valleys of such American sentiments. But they were
shaped by them, too, were given more of a backbone with every voice of confidence or
every act of violence that came with Americans’ strong feelings in an age of confusion.
This backbone, in turn, provided these groups and communities with more strength, with
more fuel for the ideological fires that blazed within them, thereby leading to a stronger
movement and a more effective outcome.
The alternative newspapers of the time were as varied as the social groups that
were publishing them. Indeed, many were lighthearted, fun-loving, and short-lived
ditties poking fun at society, musical groups, books, movies, or various college
professors. “This emphasis stressed the complete preeminence of the individual in social
encounter. Groups – of any kind – had to be watched carefully lest they ‘lay trips’ on
people that took them away from their ‘true’ selves.”2 But many others served to bring a
new, oftentimes dissenting, worldview to the eyes of readers across the city, state, or
nation, depending on the circulation. “The men and women who devoted their time and
energy to publishing dissident journals were people convinced of both the righteousness
of their cause and the power of the press. They were malcontents who wanted change
and idealists who believed change was possible.”3
Many of these newspapers focused on the broad expanse of national and world
events, printing columns and stories on everything from the Vietnam War to civil rights
to the debut of the Beatles movie Help!. In fact, in the period from 1967 to 1969,
“(p)olitical values ... increased from 23.2 percent (of papers studied) ... to 38.5 percent in
1970-72.”4 Newspapers such as
Free Student tackled various student movements,
including the events and protests involving Students for a Democratic Society, while
attempting to provide a source of information on various current events that were
unrelated, such as the actions of J. Edgar Hoover, the latest in Vietnam, and an
explanation (written by LeRoi Jones) of the “New Thing” in music – new jazz.5 While
some publications such as Free Student were fairly successful in their venture, many did
not fare as well and instead ended up appearing chaotic, at times even nonsensical.
Along with these broad-scoped newspapers, many of the activist groups of the
1960s had their own publications, as well as unaffiliated newspapers that voiced support
and offered readers a taste of what was happening within the respective movements. The
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s The Movement, a mid-’60s paper called
Harambee, and The Black Panther were part of a veritable canon of publications
chronicling the events surrounding the civil rights movement; newspapers such as Ain’t I
A Woman? and Off Our Backs took the place of the SDS newspaper New Left Notes in
tackling the women’s liberation movement; and periodicals such as Liberation, which
began in 1956, Despite Everything, The Partisan, and The Ally served as a voice for both
war protesters and the active-duty GIs who were engaged in training for the conflict
itself. Diverse in viewpoints, worldviews, ideologies, and calls to action, as well as in
subject matter and writing talent – not to mention sustainability as viable forums – these
2
Spates, 878.
Kessler, 156.
4
Spates, 877.
5
Free Student, volume unknown, issue 1, p. 13.
3
3
newspapers serve today as relics of times past, of life in the trenches during a time of
tumult, new rules, and forays into uncharted ways of life. Indeed, these newspapers were
at Ground Zero of each of their respective movements, of the decade itself, and their
vantage point allows for both raw and honest journalism, which serves as great historical
tool. These writers told their stories as they were – with very little flair, very little
fanfare. And their words, however grammatically challenged at times, ring true even – or
perhaps especially – at the dawn of a new millennium.
While many newspapers concentrated solely on chronicling one particular
movement or ideology and others focused on the lighter side of life, aiming directly at the
reader’s funny bone, still others offered a broader viewpoint, encompassing various
social movements and ideas of their generation and compiling them into a manageable
newspaper format. Publications such as the Peace and Freedom News took a wide-angle
view of the movements in equality and justice throughout the decade, chronicling topics
ranging from race to Vietnam to SDS. Newspapers such as alice., which began
publication in 1968, took a different stance and instead focused on the promotion of
education and progressivism within the university community, where many of the student
activists of the 1960s attended school, however briefly. Publications such as these
provide even more of a well-roundedness to the underground newspaper scene of the
1960s and, with that, the social movements of the time itself. The informative nature of
many of these newspapers demonstrates that the young people who came of age in the
shadow of the New Left, while still youthful and oftentimes naive and inexperienced, had
a very good grasp on the ideologies surrounding the movements of their time and the
individual events and actions each group was taking. Indeed, the well-informed articles
and issues these periodicals put forth to their readers demonstrate a high level of
interconnectivity within the student movements and in their link with the larger student
and activist communities.
When reading the newspapers that chronicled the goings-on of the 1960s, one
must keep in mind that many of these writers and editors were quite young – indeed,
many were college-age – and, as such, they maintained a certain quixotic naiveté that is
so stereotypically prevalent among the younger generation (regardless of what decade or
era that generation comes of age in). But by publishing their works, by allowing their
words to be read by their audiences, these young radicals were filling an important gap in
chronicling American history and pushing for societal change. And, by doing so, they
satiated an ever-more-pressing need in a malleable culture: Their underground or
alternative newspapers filled a void that mainstream publications left gaping. “Many
talented crusaders fought for reform, but mainstream journalism rarely battled for
fundamental change,” wrote Abe Peck in Uncovering the Sixties. “‘The news consumer
is encouraged to sympathize or to rejoice, but not to organize politically,’ press analyst
Gaye Tuchman would write. ‘News presentations soothe the news consumer even as
they reify social forces.’”6
Aside from their alternative medium, the radicals-turned-publishers had another
advantage over mainstream media in their quest for social activism and change – their
age, their youth. In an area where experience and ethical competence are highly revered,
where professionalism is key and unbiased reporting a necessity, the young writers who
6
Peck, 24.
4
came of age in the 1960s created a new journalistic style, fusing activist literature with
hard reporting, providing accounts that were unbiased in their reporting but slanted in
terms of their subjects, offering a unique view of the nation, the world, and the issues
coming to light within it. “Journalism, [poet and EVO staff member Allan] Katzman
thought, was ‘a dead form. Because we didn’t know anything about journalism, we had a
big advantage.’”7 Katzman echoed many other young publishers when he articulated his
reasons for joining the journalism world:
In this age, we have gone beyond nationalism. The world has gotten so small that
the only way to survive is on an international basis. A man can’t run away
anymore. The nuclear umbrella stretches from one point of the earth to any other.
What do I propose to do about it? I propose to put out a newspaper.8
In 1966, the Underground Press Syndicate, a service that allowed for the free
exchange of articles and subscriptions among alterative newspapers, published a
statement of purpose:
• “To warn the ‘civilized world’ of its impending collapse” through
“communications among aware communities outside the establishment”
and by forcing mass media to pay attention to it;
• “To note and chronicle events leading to the collapse”;
• “To advise intelligently to prevent rapid collapse and make transition
possible”;
• “To prepare American people for the wilderness”;
• “To fight a holding action in the dying cities.”9
Thus, the up-and-coming writers and editors of the late 1950s and 1960s brought
a new worldview, certainly a product of the Cold War era, among other things, to the
roundtable of thought. Instead of merely reporting on what had happened, giving readers
a glimpse into all the corners of the world, focusing on the more mundane and superficial
angles that their mainstream brethren were writing about, they tackled one tough issue
after another, often changing their angles and ideas as times changed, watching one
publication sink while another rose to take its place in the progression of issues and
thought. And while each newspaper tells the stories of its era, each also chronicles the
transformations taking place with the times – indeed, a shift from semantics to activism,
from a more passive ideology to one that was certainly vibrant with action. But such
shifts are not easily decipherable and are nestled among shades of gray rather than
decidedly black-and-white.
Also, each social movement ebbed, flowed, and peaked at a different time,
thereby adding to the confusion and complication for editors and staffs who struggled to
stay on top of the changing social issues.10 While the civil rights movement was in full
swing, the women’s movement was barely awakening; and while the antiwar and
government-watchdog publications had an early strength, they eased off for several years
7
Peck, 33.
Peck, 35.
9
Peck, 45.
10
Scholar James L. Spates of Hobart and William Smith Colleges has asserted that the shift in newspaper
angles was the result of “the net effect of the hippie exodus” and that “this shift led to a direct focus on the
processual elements of politics.” (880) This view is much too simplistic. Indeed, many publications
shifted their stance much earlier than the “hippie exodus,” and many papers’ political views and editorial
decisions in fact had nothing to do with “hippies” at all.
8
5
until Vietnam became too big to ignore any longer. In the beginning, “the first wave of
underground papers were radical or outré, not revolutionary.”11 By the end of the ’60s,
however, such publications were powerhouses of change, serving as the informational
(and often promotional) arm of its chosen revolution.
Indeed, each movement did undergo a significant shift in ideology – often two or
three times – that changed the way the activists thought, wrote, and behaved. The
transformation of newspaper copy – and newspapers themselves – serves as a testament
to this fact. But the nuances of each shift, while oftentimes elusive, are fascinating to
chronicle. And the newspapers themselves are extremely interesting relics of a time gone
by, almost serving as an artistic form in and of themselves:
Ethel Romm, a more mainstream reporter, wrote in Editor and Publisher that the
Oracle and similar papers ‘make a standard newspaper look, to me at least, about
as exciting as the telephone white pages.’ Seen today, the graphics are about as
current as cave paintings – and as accurate a manifestation of folk art, in a style
that might be called Neo-American Psychedelic.12
To be sure, the “first wave” of newspapers is actually a potential misnomer. To
use the term “first wave” implies that there was a categorically separate second wave,
third wave, and the like. In actuality, however, the first wave of one style of newspaper,
focusing on one particular issue, might perhaps be published alongside the second wave
of another underground journalistic form, one that had been in print longer and was
tackling its topics in a different way. For example, by the time newspapers focusing on
women’s liberation were in print, the civil-rights movement was already in its third
ideological shift, and the publications serving the antiwar community had undergone a
resurgence and was on a second wave of style. Rather, one must analyze these
newspapers within the context of their counterparts in one particular movement –
whatever that might be – in order to gain some sort of overview of the shifts of
alternative journalism in that similarly chaotic decade. To compare the publications of
one particular year, rather than in a more subject-oriented manner, would yield an extra
layer of unnecessary confusion. Instead, it is much more feasible to compare similar
shifts within various movements on various timetables. For instance, the first
publications chronicling the civil-rights movement, such as the newspaper published by
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, were printed in the early 1960s, but the
first newspapers dedicated to the women’s movement were not printed until several years
later. To consider the SNCC newspaper and others like it part of the “first wave” or
“second wave” of alternative publications would imply that the women’s newspapers
would be in at least the fourth wave. Intuitively, this makes no sense. Rather, if one
views these newspapers less on a fixed timescale and more on a subjective parallel, one
can draw more effective conclusions and chart the growth of these movements more
fully.
But not every newspaper was a successful mouthpiece for a particular movement.
Indeed, the same youthfulness that gave these writers and editors an upper hand over the
mainstream media also occasionally served as a significant disadvantage when it came to
the implementation of their ideas. The student radicals of the era often tried to take on
too much at once, as illustrated by the SDS’ Port Huron Statement of 1962 and, for that
11
12
Peck, 38.
Peck, 37.
6
matter, the UPS mission statement of 1967, thereby alienating any would-be supporters
who were turned off by such lofty aspirations. Most of the papers examined in this thesis
are guilty of this trait at one time or another, and how this problem hinders or otherwise
harms each movement is unique to each publication and will be analyzed as such.
But despite those faults – or maybe because of them – the newspapers of the
1960s have in later years become a viable portal into the tenuous, chaotic, and
complicated years that constituted the decade. Through them, the viewpoints of the
radicals who made the decade synonymous with the word “counterculture,” the radicals
who indeed changed societal views and mindsets through their protests and calls to
action, shine through clearly, in their pureness and their naiveté, their candidness and
their foresight. The reporters, editors, designers, and artists who sent their own thoughts
and ideas to press with every newspaper edition created a complicated web of cultural
and historical data that can forever be unraveled and offered their insights of life “in the
trenches” to generations of Americans who now live in the society they helped shape.
Their ideologies gave way from passivity to activism in various ways and time frames,
but each has made a distinctive mark on American culture – and American history. How
they get from Point A to Point B is a remarkable journey that is certainly worth delving
into more deeply.
7
CHAPTER ONE: SHIFTS IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
The civil-rights movement is arguably the premier revolution encapsulated by the
1960s, and the number of alternative newspapers dedicated to the topic within that decade
duly represents that status. From legal avenues to direct activism, from pushes for peace
to urgings of violent rebellion, the publications appearing throughout the ’60s provide a
deep, detailed chronicle of the ideological shifts that abounded amid the growth of the
civil-rights movement.
On the surface, the movement’s coming-of-age seems fairly straightforward, a
mere progression from all-inclusive nonviolence to hard-line acts of rebellion against the
white establishment. But the publications of the era depict a more complicated situation.
While it is easy to say that first came nonviolence (citing the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee for good measure), then more violence (citing the actions of the
Black Panthers), that is only half of the story. Rather, instead of dueling groups and
dueling ideologies, those involved in the civil-rights movement often battled among
themselves and their own social and activist circles for a solid conclusion to the
quandaries facing their African-American status and culture: Should they battle for civil
rights? Social rights? A blend of the two? And how?
No account provides more information on this subject than the alternative
newspapers of the decade. From The Movement, formed in 1965, to The Black Liberator
in 1969, from Harambee with the motto “Let’s All Pull Together” to The Black Panther,
whose ideology was definitely one of separatism, the publications of the period serve as
an accurate, intimate account of the struggles not only for equality, but also for consensus
within the movement itself. These newspapers, as well as ones like them, serve as much
more than a mere informational tool – they also serve as a forum for dialogue, for debate,
and for the marketplace of ideas Thomas Jefferson envisioned centuries earlier. The fact
that they, too, grapple with what is appropriate, what is outdated, which activist
techniques and modes of operation work and which do not, is an important facet of the
movement that is often overlooked in favor of the humble beginnings and tenuous final
outcome of such a revolutionary time.
To be sure, by 1960 the racial tension in America had reached feverish
proportions. With the recent decision of Brown v. Board of Education, schools were in
the process of desegregation, and the notion of “separate but equal” was quickly
becoming an idea of the past. By the early ’60s, Americans were more keenly aware of
race issues than at any other time after Reconstruction, and white and black Americans
alike faced new challenges as a result. With the advent of television, images of white
America were beamed into the homes of African Americans, allowing many to actually
see for the first time, in idealized form, what they were missing in the face of poverty,
8
racism, and inequality.13 For white Americans’ part, their ignorance was quickly
dissipating as blacks gained more forms of civil equality and began making slow but
steady moves up the social ladder. Many, as the history books so readily depict, were in
deep disagreement with the integration laws and the actions – however half-hearted – of
President Dwight Eisenhower. But some, whose stories are not as often told, stood in
support of the new court decisions and volunteered to work shoulder-to-shoulder with
African Americans in order to help them – and their movement – succeed.
One such group was the Students for a Democratic Society. Led primarily by the
outspoken Tom Hayden, this group of young student radicals set out to tackle, with
varying degrees of success, the problems of racial inequality that were publicly barraging
America by the early 1960s. With their African American counterparts (as the majority
of SDS was indeed white), these young students traveled willingly to the heart of the
South to states such as Mississippi to help blacks register to vote and to aid impoverished
communities – black and white – in any way they could. The mentality that was born out
of these acts – the idea of nonviolence, of cohesiveness, of interracial communities – set
the stage for other, predominantly African-American, groups to embark on the same
kinds of projects.
Certainly, the acts of SDS did not exist in a vacuum. Many other groups and
individuals were also working to improve voter registration and assist those in need. But
the fact that a group of predominantly white, young students from many parts of the
country banded together to help African Americans gain a new sense of equality is
notable, especially so in the face of the completely anti-white ideologies of the black
liberationists and separatists who followed several years later.
It is interesting to note, however, that by the time their publication, New Left
Notes, came onto the scene in 1965, the organization seemed to be throwing much more
support and focus to the anti-war movement than the civil-rights movement. In fact, the
topic of civil rights is not mentioned in many of the group’s newspapers, though one
issue did provide readers with a lengthy feature on a meeting in Pensacola Beach on the
subject of “blackness,” rebutting a recent all-black meeting in New Orleans on the same
subject. Already, white SDS members were feeling ostracized and left out of the
movement, and this made at least some of them feel uncomfortable. In an article with
many typographical errors but a solid point, staff writer Ed Hamlett wrote: “When I heard
about the recent all-black meeting in New Orleans, I was not half joking when I
suggested that we whites must hold ‘sit-ins’ at the affair to protest and ‘obviously unjust
situatio[n].’ ... Furthermore, it must be [e]mphasized that many, many in Snick and in the
community do not hold with all or even part of these views. Others accept them as a
temporary tactic, some as a long-range strategy.” He goes on to ask, “Is there danger of
an ideology of Black Superiority developing from this?”14
Thus, it is easy to see that by even the mid-1960s, whites involved in civil rights
were beginning to find themselves on shaky ground. SDS, while it had done much more
than simply lend a hand for several years, was reaching a new barrier in the subject of
race – a shift from unity to separatism.
If the SDS was a mostly white organization, working arm-in-arm with African
Americans to make a difference, then the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
13
14
Spigel, 37.
New Left Notes, 1966, Volume 1, Issue 19, p. 7.
9
was its mirror image. Indeed, the actions of SDS and SNCC parallel each other
considerably in the ways in which they fight for civil rights and, following that, social
change. Both SDS and SNCC worked to be all-inclusive, to welcome members and/or
activists of both races, and both pushed the power of a political voice as an agent for civil
rights. But while SDS focused more on the social ramifications of helping the
impoverished in a communal, grassroots setting, SNCC took another approach. SNCC,
too, was a grassroots-oriented organization, but in a different way from SDS. While SDS
got straight to the heart of what they perceived to be the problems with society, trying to
remedy their clients’ needs in a one-on-one style, SNCC took a more public approach,
staging sit-ins (such as a restaurant sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960) and
protests to draw attention to their ideology. Their newspaper, The Movement, personifies
this level of civil activism in many of the stories it featured in each issue.
Unlike the NAACP, which continued to tackle court case after court case in
pursuit of civil rights, SNCC did not take a strict legal route. This deviation is important
to note in terms of the growth and progression of the civil-rights movement as a whole.
Though preaching an ideology of nonviolence that the NAACP also embodied, SNCC,
which, as its name implied, consisted of mainly young, college-age activists, showed
signs of disdain with the progress – or lack thereof – that the NAACP had garnered so
far. Denouncing a purely legal mindset, SNCC took to the streets in an effort to attain
civil rights in a more socially apparent manner.
[B]y October, 1960, SNCC’s members realized that they were more than a group
of ‘temporary’ protesters and demonstrators. They were, instead, the militant
leaders of a new movement. Theirs was the politics of direct action. They were
not guided by grand political theories, however, only by their tenacious belief in
the moral rightness of their cause. Their unofficial motto was Do What the Spirit
Say Do! Their official motto: We Shall Overcome!15
Though continuing to fight for legal rights, SNCC did so by openly challenging
the laws and mores that were readily followed in many parts of the country – but instead
of doing so in the courtroom, they did so in the streets, at lunch counters, and within
often-inhospitable communities. “The reason SNCC became a major civil rights
organization after the Freedom Rides is rather simple: it was the only action-oriented
civil rights organization in the South prepared to absorb the brash young militants who
joined the movement because of the Rides.”16 These challenges can be easily seen in The
Movement. For instance, in a supplement titled “Marching Through Selma,” writers
chronicled the African-American experience in Selma, Alabama, noting the voting
problems, white dominance, and the view of SNCC workers in a racially tormented
town.17 Clearly, the generation that was coming of age in the early 1960s was faced with
a new world, a changing view, a shifting ideology – and The Movement reflected this.
As early as 1966, the staff of The Movement was editorializing on the escalating
war in Vietnam. “More and more liberal supporters of the movement are becoming aware
that freedom and dignity are never given to a people, but are won by them in their own
struggles,” the unsigned editorial read. “...If we believe in democratic participation at
home, if we believe that genuine leadership of the poor comes from minority and poverty
15
Sellers, 44.
Sellers, 46.
17
The Movement, 1965, Volume I, Issue 4, p. 3.
16
10
communities, how can we also think that we can bring freedom to a people at the end of a
napalm flame?”18
This interest in Vietnam served as more than a mere comparison of oppressed
people. It also served as a precursor to multiculturalism. Though the plight of African
Americans and the struggles of the Vietnamese were vastly different in many ways, black
newspapers began to see their similarities despite their cultural and political divergences
and embraced their likenesses. The Black Panthers who followed also took up this torch
and continued to cement a kindred attitude toward the Vietnamese. While the political
nature of this comparison cannot be overlooked, the blooming multicultural attitude taken
by the civil-rights activists is very important.
That said, a great deal of The Movement’s articles stemmed from the American
civil-rights movement itself. In a multipart series titled “What Happened to the
Mississippi Child Development Group?”, the staff sought to analyze the government’s
“War on Poverty” and detail why the group of was unable to survive.19 Another article
detailed the back-and-forth interview of SNCC founder Julian Bond during his time on
“Meet The Press.”20 And the cover story of another issue featured “A Night With the
Watts Community Alert Patrol.”21 These stories continued to offer a glimmer of hope
that with nonviolent actions and community involvement, race relations in America
would stand a chance of improving. This thought was soon to slowly fade away – if only
temporarily – and ideologies such as retaliation and self-defense, espoused by groups
such as the Black Panthers, began to take its place.
But between SNCC and the Black Panthers, between The Movement and The
Black Panther, many other publications, oftentimes ideological hybrids of varying civilrights mindsets, were available among various cities and social groups. One of these was
Harambee, which debuted in 1967 and arose from Los Angeles, California. A newspaper
chronicling the actions and injustices faced by African Americans in the face of an everchanging movement toward equality, Harambee contained more calls to direct, risky, and
potentially violent action than The Movement but did not quite reach the fervor of The
Black Panther, which debuted in the same year, and, in the face of such radicalism,
seemed somewhat docile. Harambee clearly served as an ideological steppingstone
between two major schools of thought, but perhaps not intentionally. Indeed, many of its
articles merely served as a chronicle of the events of the era – but, too, this newspaper
espoused the viewpoints of its staff through editorials, columns, and calls to action.
But because Harambee emerged when it did, its articles offered an uncanny
prediction for the changes that were to come in the following months and years, and its
staff was already able to take a look back at the early 1960s and analyze the movement’s
relevance thus far. In an article titled “Liberals Turn Backs on SNCC,” the staff reprinted
the conclusion of James Forman’s speech to the Black Caucus of the National
Conference on New Politics, which met on September 2, 1967, in Chicago. In his
speech, Forman addressed the role of SNCC in getting the movement off the ground but
also took a look at the group’s limitations as an organizational force and as a contributor
18
The Movement, 1966, Volume II, Issue 3, p. 2.
The Movement, 1966, Volume II, Issue 3, p. 7.
20
The Movement, 1966, Volume II, Issue 3, p. 8.
21
The Movement, 1966, Volume II, Issue 7, p. 1.
19
11
to the movement.22 Forman, executive secretary of SNCC from 1961 to 1966, addressed
the government’s alleged sabotage of the organization and articulated what he felt to be
SNCC’s continuing relevance in a changing movement. “History will bear out the fact
that SNCC has played a vanguard role in giving direction to white militants throughout
this country,” he said. “We must continue to do this and the circle of influence must be
broadened. We must say to all our black brothers, assume leadership.” Forman went on
to recognize and delineate the diverging schools of thought on how to best achieve
equality: “[T]here are two types of leadership: Reactionary and Revolutionary. We are
talking about revolutionary leadership and that only comes when people are committed to
changing the system of economics and the resulting political structures that have kept us
in bondage these many years.” He finished: “We must assume leadership in a
revolutionary fashion. We must not have black leadership that is striving to make black
men capitalist like our exploiters. Any leadership that does not recognize the legitimacy
of revolutionary armed struggle in Southern Africa, inside and outside the United States,
is a reactionary leadership and must be replaced.”23
This analysis of the role of SNCC stands in harsh contrast to the ideology
propelled by that same organization a mere five years prior. Forman, speaking on behalf
of SNCC, clearly articulated the frustration that was rending the former cohesive civilrights movement to shreds by the mid-1960s. No longer was SNCC an all-inclusive,
nonviolent group whose mission was to achieve economic parity and social equality amid
white society. Instead, SNCC had taken a different, more hostile tone by 1967, one that
clearly illustrated a revolutionary society that was fed up with the slow progress toward
true equality and a lack of true freedom – and one that, at the same time, showed the
depth in which “SNCC was wracked by massive internal problems. Dissension, hostility,
confusion and personal tragedy dominated the private SNCC.”24
The fact that Harambee chose to publish this speech – taking two issues to do so –
is a testament to the ideology espoused by the publication’s editorial staff, and
historically it serves as a precursor of events and ideologies to come. Forman’s
statements, combined with those in the rest of the newspaper, offered definitive evidence
of a looming shift from nonviolence to revolution at all costs.
In Volume II, Issue 2, published on December 28, 1967, Elaine Brown reports on
several upcoming conferences in an article titled “Black Youth Set for Chicago,” which
offered a look into how young people perceived their roles and responsibilities within a
changing revolution:
As a prelude to a National Black Youth Conference, proposed for 1968 in
Chicago, a Western Regional Black Youth Conference was held here in Los
Angeles, from November 23rd through the 25th. The locale of the three-day
Conference was the Second Baptist Church. The Conference was designed to set
up definite work programs and methods of bringing a solution to Black
oppression in America and the world. As it was a youth conference the
attendance was predominated by those under 25 years old. There were two
22
Harambee, 1967, Volume II, Issue 2, p. 6.
Harambee, 1967, Volume II, Issue 2, p. 6.
24
Sellers, 183.
23
12
themes around which the work proceeded: ‘The Ultimate Solution is Black
Revolution’ and ‘Liberation is Coming From a Black Thing.’25
The idea of revolution was rampant in Harambee’s pages. In a staff editorial, the
notions of liberation and what means were needed to achieve such freedom were
articulated succinctly:
In the beginning is the word and the word is revolution. The only solution to our
problems as Black People in a white country is revolution. Black People are
faced with two possibilities: either expanding programs for quick change of the
system (by any means necessary) or ruthless extermination by a maniacal,
genocidal, paranoid, preditory [sic.], colorless creature. We are at war in the
country with this country. The fight is a fight for liberation from a past of slavery,
a present of colonial racistic oppression, and no future at all.26
Though certainly not a mouthpiece of the Black Panthers – and certainly much
more tame than what was to follow in the pages of the latter’s own newspaper forum –
Harambee is a good example of the restlessness that was widespread by the mid-1960s,
the impatience with the nonviolence of groups such as SNCC and the legal actions of
organizations such as the NAACP.
Several months before the birth of Harambee, The Black Panther debuted in 1967,
and the stories and calls to action and violence that were rampant within the publication’s
pages could easily serve as a tidy bookend juxtaposed with the pages of The Movement
that emerged less than a decade before. It is important to note, however, that the Black
Panthers are not as tidy of an “end” to the 1960s civil-rights movement as many
historians and civil-rights chronologies assert. In fact, in 1967 they were viewed by a
New York Times writer as insignificant to the revolution: “By any yardstick used by the
civil-rights movement, the Panther organization is not yet very important or effective,”
Sol Stern wrote. “The voice of the Panthers is a discordant one, full of the rhetoric of
revolutionary violence, and seemingly out of place in affluent America.”27
Rather, the Black Panthers were certainly a viable next step for a restless
movement – but they did not have the final say in terms of where the movement was to
go. Indeed, SNCC itself had made a significant shift from the inclusive nonviolence of
yesteryear to a more separatist outlook. With Stokely Carmichael taking the helm in
1966, SNCC’s mindset took a new turn and effectively ended the relationship black
members had held with their white counterparts.
Negroes in this country have never been allowed to organize themselves because
of white interference. As a result of this, the stereotype has been reinforced that
blacks cannot organize themselves. The white psychology that blacks have to be
watched, also reinforces this stereotype. Blacks, in fact, feel intimidated by the
presence of whites, because of their knowledge of the power that whites have over
their lives. One white person can come into a meeting of black people and change
the complexion of that meeting, whereas one black person would not change the
complexion of that meeting unless he was an obvious Uncle Tom. People would
immediately start talking about ‘brotherhood,’ ‘love,’ etc.; race would not be
25
Harambee, 1967, Volume II, Issue 2, p. 3.
Harambee, 1967, Volume II, Issue 2, p. 2.
27
Meier, Bracey, and Rudwick, 230.
26
13
discussed. ... A climate has to be created whereby blacks can express
themselves.28
In 1968, Carmichael was featured in an issue of The Black Panther. “Stokely is
moving to unify a nation of people, and he believes – and who could argue against it? –
that the white man intends to resort to genocide as a solution to the racial crisis in
America.”29 This analysis painted a clear picture of the 180-degree turn Carmichael –
and much of the movement – had made by the waning years of the 1960s. SNCC had
changed; the Black Panthers had gained a tangible and forceful population of followers
and members. But these shifts, while certainly ideologically important, do not lead up to
the end of the story as far as civil rights are concerned.
SNCC’s Movement was still alive and well, and many newspapers that emerged
in years to follow began to stray from the mindset of the Black Panthers and instead
worked to weave notions of liberation, self-defense, nonviolence, and adequate
legislation together in the hopes of forming a stronger movement. But even SNCC began
to view the movement itself with more frustration and came to the realization that
something new must be tried, that the old ways of protest were not working effectively.
In 1966, a Movement editorial read:
The fear and trembling unleashed by the word ‘power’ with the word ‘black’ in
front of it is a joy to watch. Not because we want to terrorize anyone; we don’t.
But all of a sudden a soft shroud of illusions has been whipped away from the
eyes of many liberals and middle-class folk; they are being made to see the harsh
angry energy flowing up from the ghettoes and rural South, and they are being
made to see that the recent civil rights acts and the war on poverty legislation
have not met the problems of black people in America, nor have they been able to
buy off the protest against injustice that is in the Negro community. Progress has
not been made.30
The Black Panther felt the same way. They, too, harbored frustration and
resentment about what they viewed as an impotent movement and struck out on their
own, forging their own path. It is important to note that while this shift is vital in
understanding the ideological shifts of the civil-rights revolution, the emergence of the
Black Panthers does not mark the ideological terminus for the 1960s civil-rights
movement. Rather, it is the next step, one that perhaps was impossible to avoid given the
temperament and tumult of the era.
That said, however, the Black Panthers did indeed serve as a marked shift in the
fight for civil rights. Rather than work with whites, the Panthers took a much more
defensive tone, piggybacking off of SNCC’s ideological shift a year prior, announcing
their motives in a manifesto of sorts that clearly articulated their demands and their
ideological shift from their predecessors.31 “We want freedom. We want power to
determine the destiny of our Black Community,” they wrote in their platform statement.
“We want full employment for our people ... we want decent housing ... we want
education ... we want all black men to be exempt from military service ...” and, perhaps
most importantly,
28
Bloom and Breines, 153.
The Black Panther, 1968, Volume II, Issue 2, p. 5.
30
The Movement, 1966, Volume II, Issue 7, p. 2.
31
Bloom and Breines, 164-167.
29
14
we want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of black
people ... [and] we want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and
peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations-supervised
plebiscite to be held throughout the black colony in which only black colonial
subjects will be allowed to participate, for the purpose of determining the will of
black people as to their national destiny.32
Rejecting the assistance of sympathetic whites and embracing the nationalist
movement espoused by Malcolm X before his death and the separatist movement that
was the next logical ideological step, the Black Panthers turned the corner in the fight for
equality, effectively turning away from the notion of “equality” in its common sense and
instead insisting on a new ideology of separate-but-equal, on creating an entirely black
community in order to be truly free. In a world where Malcolm X declared society must
choose between the ballot and the bullet, Panther leaders such as Eldridge Cleaver and
Bobby Seale grew up to believe the ballots had been thrown out and nothing but the
bullet remained. The restlessness felt in SNCC actions had boiled over, and feelings of
frustration, futility, and furor remained. “We want freedom now,” Malcolm X said in
1964, “but we’re not going to get it saying ‘We Shall Overcome.’ We’ve got to fight
until we overcome.”33 The Panthers took him at his word, creating a fierce separatist
group several years later that espoused those principles and then some – echoing what Sol
Stern said was “increasingly the voice of young ghetto blacks who in city after city this
summer [1967] have been confronting cops with bricks, bottles and bullets.”34
In the pages of The Black Panther, one finds time and again that emotions
teeming with rage outweighed feelings of hope. A year after the newspaper’s debut,
Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver’s comments following Martin Luther King Jr.’s death
impeccably illustrated this belief: “The assassin’s bullet not only killed Dr. King, it killed
a period of history. It killed a hope, and it killed a dream.”35 Violence, mostly white-onblack, ran rampant on nearly every page, and the newspaper’s writers often appeared to
be dealing with the outcomes of such actions, trying to stomach them and reconcile
themselves to such violence, as much as reporting on them outright. In 1968, an article
began:
The Minister of Information, Eldridge Cleaver, is behind bars for life as a result of
an attempted assassination on his life by the Oakland Police Department, the
Gestapo strongarm of the racist power structure. Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby
Hutton, and eight other brothers were ambushed by the Oakland pigs on April 6,
1968 ... a set-up to put Eldridge Cleaver in prison for life and to wipe out the
leadership of the Black Panther Party. As a result, Bobby Hutton is dead, brutally
murdered by a volley of pig bullets as he surrendered with his arms above his
head.36
Another example of this style of reporting, one which better depicts the
psychological impact on African Americans faced with firing guns and police violence, is
this “Credo for Rioters and Looters”:
32
Bloom and Breines, 164-166.
Bloom and Breines, 141.
34
Meier, Rudwick and Bracey, 230.
35
Bloom and Breines, 171.
36
The Black Panther, 1968, Volume II, Issue 2, p. 4.
33
15
An anonymous cop in an anonymous city shoots to death an anonymous black
youth suspected of stealing a car, and riots, on the heels of the news, sweep the
nation. Widespread looting is reported in a dozen cities. Roving bands of black
youths set buildings on fire. Snipers, firing on policemen and firemen, are
reported in several cities. ‘Responsible Negro Leaders,’ given prime time on
radio and TV, appeal for calm; ‘Cool it, Baby,’ enjoin, but Baby isn’t listening to
them.37
Along with serving as an often raw, brutal chronicle of the events taking place
within the black community, often at the hands of militant whites, the many editions of
the Black Panther’s main form of information dissemination served as a treasure trove of
evidence for the progression from nonviolence to self-defense. Indeed, as early as its
debut issue, its writers were lambasting various bastions of nonviolence and figureheads
of the old guard in civil rights – CORE, SNCC, the SCLC, the NAACP, and other
preceding organizations all faced significant scrutiny from the Black Panthers, as did
predominantly white organizations that had previously reached out to assist in the
movement. “[C]ertain so-called radical groups from the white community have been
exposed through their actions as extremely dangerous infiltrators into the black
community,” one front-page article began. “The Communist Party, the Socialist Workers
Party, the CNP, and a host of others, pretend to be the friend of black people when in fact
they are opportunistic conspirators against the best interests of black people.”38 The
Panthers, too, were disapproving of the CORE mentality they deemed as useless and a
relic of a bygone era:
The recent CORE convention held in Oakland, California was a study in
confusion and a masterpiece in political manipulation and chicanery. Stagemanaged by the bufoon [sic.], Wilfred Ussery, national chairman of CORE, the
convention somehow managed to gather together on the same stage a curious
hodgepodge of fakes, phonies, frauds, bootlickers, CIA agents, tired Uncle Toms,
self-acclaimed messiahs, with a mild sprinkling of tried and proven soul brothers
who somehow got sucked into the quicksand of this open conspiracy against black
people. ... Some behind the scenes drama that has not heretofore been publicized
were the undercover negotiations which transpired between certain of these
lackeys and the leadership of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. These
dumb clucks had the audacity to approach the Black Panthers and ask them to
play the part of body guards.39
The NAACP was another group that was denigrated by the Party. “OLD TOMS
NEVER DIE UNLESS THEY’RE BLOWN AWAY,” reads one headline from 1967.
The story begins: “The NAACP once dominated the social, political, and economic
aspirations of Black people in America. ... There was a time, even, when the NAACP was
the most radical, best organized black political and diplomatic entity on the international
scene. But ... [t]he NAACP has always contained within itself the seeds of its own
destruction. The white liberals who helped found the organization always exercised a
37
The Black Panther, 1968, Volume II, Issue 2, p. 4.
The Black Panther, 1967, Volume I, Issue 5, p. 1.
39
The Black Panther, 1967, Volume I, Issue 5, p. 2.
38
16
restraining, moderating influence on policy. Yet the NAACP was looked upon by most
black people as the only possible source of salvation – outside of Jesus.”40
All the way through 1970, this newspaper remained a source of information for
members and onlookers of the Panthers and made the group’s methods and mindsets
crystal clear in both columns and editorials (such as “In Defense of Self-Defense” in
1967, which promoted the use of weapons and, in turn, removing said weapons from the
white community: “(The Party) teaches that in the final analysis the amount of guns and
defense weapons, such as handgrenades and bazookas, and other necessary equipment,
will be supplied by taking these weapons from the power structure, as exemplified by the
Viet Cong”41) and articles chronicling events and actions of the group (such as their “Free
Huey” campaign of 1968, which took members of the group to the United Nations to visit
“several delegations of revolutionary countries”42).
But in spite of the Panthers’ negative attitudes toward White America, in 1968
their staff issued an unsigned statement on page 10 of the September 14 issue that
pinpointed a subtle embrace – or at least acceptance – of one particular predominantly
white group: the hippies. In a “Warning to So-Called ‘Paper Panthers,’” the staff writes:
Black brothers stop vamping on the hippies. They are not your enemy. You [sic.]
enemy, right now, is the white racist pigs who support this corrupt system. ...
Your enemy is the fat capitalist who exploits your people daily. Your enemy is
the racist pigs who use Nazi-type tactics and force to intimidate black
expressionism. Your enemy is not the hippies. Your blind reactionary acts
endanger the BLACK PANTHER PARTY members and its revolutionary
movements. WE HAVE NO QUARREL WITH THE HIPPIES. LEAVE THEM
ALONE. Or – the BLACK PANTHER PARTY will deal with you!43
This hands-off approach toward another countercultural group, the hippies of the
late 1960s, at the outset stands in stark contrast to the Panthers’ attitude toward most
white people. But one reason for this contrast is that the young hippies of the era were
not “most white people,” and indeed were often degraded or ignored by the majority of
middle-class white America. Like the Panthers, they were fighting for equality; like the
Panthers, they voiced disdain for Vietnam. Perhaps their status as dissidents helped
solidify their mindset as far as the Black Panthers were concerned; perhaps the Panthers
considered them their kindred in a way that other whites could not be. At any rate, the
Panthers’ endorsement of the hippies and their warnings of nonviolence toward them
were still at arm’s length; to be sure, the hippies were not asked to join the revolutionary
fold the Panthers were trying to create. But the fact that the Panthers were at all willing
to give approval to their white sympathizers lends itself to an early notion of
multiculturalism, in a different form from the sort that civil-rights groups employed with
regard to their brethren in Vietnam. On the surface, the Panthers and the white hippies
could not be more different – in ideologies, in behavior, in social circles, in culture. But
their willingness to coexist, to help each other out when needed, certainly carried with it
undertones of a multiculturalist attitude in its infancy.
40
The Black Panther, 1967, Volume I, Issue 5, p. 7.
The Black Panther, 1967, Volume I, Issue 5, p. 5.
42
The Black Panther, 1968, Volume II, Issue 6, p. 3.
43
The Black Panther, 1968, Volume II, Issue 6, p. 10.
41
17
In fact, the Black Panther organization was well aware of its white counterpart,
the White Panther Party. A group of young, mostly hippie activists, these White Panthers
served as the complement to the original group despite not being “officially” permitted
into the Panthers’ inner circle. In an article in the White Panther newspaper, the Ann
Arbor Argus, Bobby Seale said in an interview:
See, we did not create the White Panthers at all, the White Panthers created
themselves. It’s more or less like, first the White Panthers created themselves,
and they had some kind of psychedelic program, and we ran them out of our
office, we didn’t have no time for it, see. Like you can blow all the dope you
want, if we blow it, we blow it, but the thing is, psychedelic programs ain’t gonna
solve the problems for black people. So what happened I think, what’s the guy’s
name – Sinclair? – [John] Sinclair, and one of the other guys got together and
really put some politics into it and it came down righteously revolutionary. So we
said to a White Panther, that’s absurd, but we’ll see what you can do with it. And
the cats turn out to be some beautiful cats, and so we shook their hands and ran on
and let them work in the white community.44
The Argus, debuting in January 1969, served as the “White Panther Community
News Service” and offered quite a different outlook on the civil-rights movement.
Several years after being excommunicated from the SNCC offices, sympathetic whites
were still going strong, trying to cultivate a sense of solidarity with the black
revolutionaries through their actions and their media outlets. The Argus served as an
intense, in-depth forum for news surrounding the Black Panther community, especially as
the publication grew, and never seemed to lament the fact that whites were not openly
welcome in the separatist movement. Those in the White Panther circles – those whites
who fought for the civil rights of African Americans despite a lack of first-hand input –
were subtly approved of by the Black Panthers in the pages of the organization’s
newspaper in the article imploring the community to not take out its frustration on the
“hippies” of America.
The Argus, the voice of the White Panthers, viewed the civil-rights movement in
a different light from the mainline Panther organization. Their fight on behalf of
oppressed blacks was legit – the fervor in which the White Panthers supported their
African-American kinsmen is teeming with the immediacy and frustration felt by many
Americans as the 1960s neared a close – but the civil-rights issues were only part of what
the White Panthers were focused on. In the pages of Argus, readers will find everything
from excerpts of Jerry Rubin books45 to a report on the violence that erupted during the
free Rolling Stones concert in Altamont.46 This all-encompassing journalistic approach
served as a new step in the civil-rights movement – a step that blended the activism so
synonymous with groups such as SNCC, the NAACP, and the Black Panthers, groups
with a single common focus and goal (albeit in varying terms), with the hippies that
sought free love, rampant drug use, and good music near the end of the 1960s. Though
other activist groups did not follow the hippies’ lead, it is important to note that by the
end of the decade the civil-rights movement had undergone several more transformations
44
Ann Arbor Argus, 1969, undated volume, p. 17.
Ann Arbor Argus, 1969, undated volume, p. 6.
46
Ann Arbor Argus, 1969, undated volume, p. 15.
45
18
in several varying shades of skin color, returning in that aspect to the beginning of the
1960s, when whites and blacks worked together in groups such as SNCC.
In fact, the Argus did not appear to be affiliated with the White Panthers in its
debut. Rather, the editors write, the paper strove “to dig up stories and explore more
fully those that have been dug up.”47 In the first few issues, the masthead says nothing
about being the voice of the White Panther community and instead alludes to being
merely an “alternative to the Ann Arbor News – Michigan Daily, Detroit News – Free
Press ‘objectivity.’”48
But the Argus, in its later issues, provided readers with one of the few accounts of
whites who sympathized with the Black Panthers and were indeed approved by them.
Because of the lack of scholarship and historiographical information surrounding the
group, the White Panthers remain somewhat mysterious in their actions and ideas, but
their relevance to the movement’s shifts – and their representation via their newspaper –
are undisputable. The Argus and the group it represented served as a symbolic re-entry
of whites into a movement that had shunned them for several years; and the fact that the
Black Panthers were the ones who brought this particular group back into the fold to help
them out in the white community should not go unnoticed.
A year after the debut of The Black Panther, another newspaper sympathetic to
the black liberation cause hit the streets. Black Politics, a publication deriving from
Berkeley, California, offered a clear support for the ideology of the Panthers and the
liberation movement as a whole – though the staff did not seem to have any direct
connection with the Panthers themselves, save for the city their offices were located in.
Also, while the Panthers’ worldview typically spanned to Vietnam, the staff members of
Black Politics expanded their scope of reference, focusing not solely on Vietnamese or
African-American struggles but on other oppressed groups, often other populations
whose fate also lay directly at the hands of Americans. In their first issue, an unsigned
staff note read:
Black Politics is an independent journal whose purpose is to provide a forum for
vanguard theories and ideas that deal with currently crucial issues. We support
the liberation struggles of the oppressed masses of the world. We oppose the war
in Vietnam and uphold the right of the Vietnamese people to determine their own
destiny. We are a part of the Black liberation movement and believe that
freedom, justice and equality must be attained by those means that the oppressed
think necessary.49
This mission statement underscored a new branch of the push toward equality and
liberation – that of the liberation of the diverse masses, of the varying cultural groups
who languished under the thumb of white America. Though certainly centered on the
notion of civil rights and freedom for all blacks, newspapers such as Black Politics
increasingly became publicly aware of the plight of other groups in other countries that
faced similar woes at home and thought it important enough to put in their editorial mast
in a way that even the Black Panthers did not. This branch of unity, this creeping
knowledge of oneness within diversity, may perhaps propel the dawning light of
multiculturalism.
47
Ann Arbor Argus, 1969, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 2.
Ann Arbor Argus, 1969, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 2.
49
Black Politics, 1968, Volume I, Issue 1, p. i.
48
19
Also, the Black Politics staff brought with it less of a direct-action role and much
more of a shift back to an ideology without an active push behind it. Instead of
highlighting events and actions with the fervent urgency found on every page of The
Black Panther, Black Politics was full of analyses and recaps of the civil-rights
movement – notably the liberation wing of the movement – ranging from Malcolm X’s
speeches to an analysis of “the Massacre at Orangeburg,” where a trip to a segregated
bowling alley brought jail sentences and beatings upon many young African Americans.50
The staff also highlighted how black Americans’ ancestors lived in their native Africa
and provided accounts of those parts of history – a subject rarely touched directly upon
by the Black Panthers’ own newspaper.51 Black Politics included maps, statistics, and
rudimentary forms of what would now be known as “infographics,” chronicling
everything from the slave trade to the status of minorities in America to how many whites
and non-whites were executed during any given year. The staff also began to pay
particular attention to the goings-on surrounding Eugene McCarthy, “(d)ue to a new
interest ... on the part of the Black Community.”52 From Vietnam to Czechoslovakia,
from McCarthy to maps, Black Politics brought with it a new view of the civil-rights
movement, indicating more of an emphasis on world events and ideologies and less of an
emphasis on violence.
But in many ways, Black Politics echoed its revolutionary predecessors – the
Black Panthers, Malcolm X, and other more militant groups – in terms of civil-rights
ideology. Judging by the publication’s content, its staff condoned the use of weapons as
a means of self-defense and retaliation. In an early issue, an article by George Prosser
said: “Under the circumstances, the type of weapon which should be chosen is one which
will be suitable for a condition of guerrilla warfare against an alien, occupation army.
This weapon can only be a good rifle.”53 But unlike The Black Panther, this newspaper is
clearly a grassroots publication with a small staff (there appear to be seven members in
early 1968) that scraped together funding for an 8 1/2-by-11-inch page layout crudely
typeset.
Though Black Politics certainly did not have the same funding and resources as
its controversial predecessor, it espoused many of the same ideas as the Panthers and
promoted many of the Panther leaders but seemed to be doing so by itself, with little
direct Panther influence – though the Panthers did advertise their own newspaper in the
pages of Black Politics. In one issue, the staff endorsed Panther candidates for various
roles in the Oakland-San Francisco area government, including Huey Newton (16th
Assembly District), Bobby Seale (17th Assembly District), Kathleen Cleaver (18th
Assembly District) and Eldridge Cleaver as a write-in for president of the United States.54
The Black Panther Party truly represents our basic needs and aspirations; it is the
vanguard party of the Afro-american nation. And it needs your votes. Vote for
all candidates who represent the Black Panther Party in your respective areas.
Vote for the Party as a gesture of protest against the white and Uncle Tom
50
Black Politics, 1968, Volume I, Issue 3, p. 1.
Black Politics, 1968, Volume I, Issue 3, p. 11.
52
Black Politics, 1968, Volume I, Issue 8, p. 28.
53
Black Politics, 1968, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 13.
54
Black Politics, 1968, Volume I, Issue 9-10, p. 10a.
51
20
candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties; vote for the Black Panther
Party to register your support.55
Around the same time as the first issue of Black Politics, another group, one even
more loosely connected with the Panthers, conveyed its new publication to the
newsstands. The Inner City Voice, based out of Detroit, Michigan, aspired to be “The
Voice of the Revolution” and “Detroit’s Black Community Newspaper,” and, like the
Panthers they proclaimed as heroes and martyrs, was quite critical of most facets of
1960s American society – from capitalism to Chrysler to the court system, from police to
the military to the Olympics, no aspect of America was safe from the Voice’s disdain and
calls to action. Like its counterpart in Black Politics, The Inner City Voice also focused
on the atrocities in Vietnam and tied their relevance to the events on the home front,
contributing to cementing the notion of oppressed blacks and the oppressed Vietnamese
as unusual – yet arguably similar – bedfellows.
Like The Black Panther and others of its ilk, The Inner City Voice selected
various “Toms” from within the African-American community to lambast within its
pages. From Martin Luther King Jr. to James Baldwin, staffers at the Voice spoke out
against nonviolence and expatriatism as unhelpful, counterproductive, impotent, and
weak, asserting that violence and self-defense were much more effective mentalities on
the road to equality.
Though the Voice did not serve as the official mouthpiece for the Black Panthers,
the connections between the newspaper and the group are hard to dispute. Photos within
the Voice’s pages showed Panther leaders visiting its newsroom, and every issue carried
with it a vast array of stories deriving from or chronicling the Panthers themselves. The
subject of violence is rampant in the Voice:
Once again the bullet has proven to be the dominant and most critical political
force in America. ... It is necessary for us to thereby face up to the brutal nature of
this uncivilized nation and prepare for the violent struggles ahead. The white
enemy is ruthless. Either we will unite and politically and militarily organize
ourselves around a black revolutionary socialist program, or we will perish at the
hands of counterrevolutionary white capitalists.56
However, in the face of the calls to action and self-defense often espoused by the
liberation groups, some Voice articles also showed an interesting bridge between the
nonviolent and more aggressive arms of the civil-rights movement.
Urgent Appeal From Panthers: The Panthers are asking that the Black Community
throughout this country rally to their support at a time when the Bay area cops
have intensified their drive to wipe out the Panther leadership and completely
destroy the Party. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is
also asking ‘that Brothers and Sisters do everything possible to let the Panthers
know that they do not stand alone, and to let the hunkies in the Bay Area know
that they have gone too far.’57
Much of what The Inner City Voice espoused was illustrative of the frustration
felt by the seeming futility and impossibility of the nonviolent civil-rights movement
groups such as SNCC and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference strove for. One
55
Black Politics, 1968, Volume I, Issue 9-10, p. 10a.
The Inner City Voice, 1968, Volume I, Issue 8, p. 9.
57
The Inner City Voice, 1968, Volume I, Issue 8, p. 11.
56
21
illustration in a 1968 issue, merely thick black words inside a thin black box, reads: “I
HAVE A DREAM GUN” and is signed by “A BROTHER.”58
But the Voice did not consist solely of violence and Panther tenets. Like Black
Politics, the Voice made a concerted effort to chronicle international events and the
struggles of other populations around the world, and it went further in this realm, from
Vietnam to Zimbabwe to Israel to Chile. While some pieces focused on the struggles of
the people themselves, such as in Zimbabwe,59 other stories reported on how the
American government has intervened in situations around the world, such as the CIA’s
presence in Chile during a time of rebellion.60 This enhanced worldview built on what
Black Politics had started and offered readers another outlook on the revolutionary events
at home and how they fit in with the revolutionary events of the world at large, with
illustrations complete with maps and statistical infographics, clearly a progression in the
world of underground newspapers.
A year later, in 1969, The Black Liberator, the newspaper of the Black Liberation
Alliance, debuted with new ideological blueprints for liberation and equality. Not as
vitriolic as The Black Panther, but certainly not docile, the Liberator offered features on
relating to the African-American community as a whole, not solely one militant arm of
the community, and offered news of goings-on within all facets of the civil-rights
movement.
The Liberator served as another shifting point for the movement. Ready to
reunite opposing sides of the black community and to smooth over differences within the
civil-rights ideologies by reporting on all sides, all the while tying in positive pieces
supporting African-American causes and careers in an effort to help blacks find some
common ground with one another, the Liberator represents the dichotomy of the
movement toward equality near the close of the 1960s, both serving as an example of
how far the movement had come – from an overarching theme of unity to a severe split
and back to tentative unification again – and yet also clearly showing how far the
movement had yet to go. With notes on the self-defense aspect of the revolution and also
illustrations of how the nonviolent movement was still plugging along, the Liberator went
a step further than The Black Panther and The Movement, and indeed the other civilrights newspapers that came before it. With its sights set firmly on a unified liberation,
the Liberator’s articles and information clearly strove to lead the reader in that direction.
But the staffers of the Liberator were, understandably given the shifts of the
movement, tentative in these steps and still viewed many whites as “the enemy,” thereby
stopping a complete full-circle to the days of an integrated SNCC. In a proposal for a
cooperative system of economics and sufficiency, Ogun Kakanfo wrote, “This need to
cooperate stems from the fact that we are an unwanted colony of people. As genocidal
attacks against us increase, we must develop the economic structures of a city under
siege. ... Of course, we must steal what we can and use whatever allies we have among
our enemies.”61
Along this same vein, the Liberator insisted on unity within the increasingly
fragmented black community. Articles detailed how to relate to one’s neighbors within
58
The Inner City Voice, 1968, Volume I, Issue 8, p. 13.
The Inner City Voice, 1968, Volume I, Issue 8, p. 20.
60
The Inner City Voice, 1968, Volume I, Issue 8, p. 20.
61
The Black Liberator, 1969, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 1.
59
22
the African-American community and how to come together to constitute a powerful
mass. The staff called for a black education, a new emphasis on black history, a
deliberate means of consumption (via African-American businesses), and a disappearance
of the in-fighting that had separated blacks for years. Their motto, “If black people are to
survive in America, they must attain power,” speaks directly to this urge for support
within the black community. While urging a new form of economy – a rejection of
capitalism and an embrace of cooperative living – the Liberator encouraged a new brand
of social unity, thus moving a step past the Panthers.
By 1970, the civil-rights movement had taken many diverse twists and turns, from
nonviolence to retaliation to an embrace of all ways of promoting equality. But it had
gone further than even that. The newspapers of the era showed distinct shifts from a
desire for tolerance by whites to inclusion in American society to a secession from
America to a new plan to achieve economic power. As the movement fractured, its
power grew. And as the movement grew, so did the ideologies and actions stemming
from it. Civil rights in the 1960s cannot be defined solely by a shift from one staunch
mindset to another. Rather, the shifts serve as a perfect example of pragmatism in action,
and the newspapers of the era offer a plethora of evidence of the multifacetedness of the
revolution.
23
CHAPTER TWO: SHIFTS IN SENTIMENT TOWARD GOVERNMENT
AND WAR
The shaky foundation of civil rights by midcentury was certainly not the only
catalyst for protest within the activist counterculture. As the world pulled itself together
after World War II and America became a nation of affluence and technological prowess,
various individuals and groups within society began to poke holes in the notion of a
unified, upwardly mobile America and its capitalist, seemingly strong government.
President Truman’s engagement of troops to Korea for a role in the First Indochina War
in 1945, followed by the continued military activity by Presidents Eisenhower and
Kennedy, only fueled pacifists’ and activists’ calls for change.
The public sentiment toward government and war was wide-ranging by 1960.
The forerunners of President Nixon’s “Silent Majority” witnessed the positive postwar
economic swing that in turn landed them in newly constructed suburban homes teeming
with new appliances in homogeneous (and thereby perceived as “safe”) neighborhoods.
Working-class whites located a wide array of new jobs with better pay than could be
found in previous decades. The birth and popularity of the television brought the outside
into people’s homes, regardless of race or class status, and in turn made viewers feel as
though they were neighbors with such lighthearted characters as Lucy and Ricky, Donna
Reed, or the Cleaver family.62
But another segment of the American population – namely, the younger
generation of so-called Baby Boomers who were coming of age by the 1960s – did not go
so gently into the night. Instead, many of these young men and women spoke out
passionately against America’s military escalations on the international stage and against
the government’s seeming ignorance on the subject of true equality. One portion of this
activist population manifested itself in the aforementioned civil-rights movement.
Another, however, was directed at the way the government was run and the military
techniques that accompanied such a leadership style.
[T]he war realigned elements within the antiwar movement and attracted other
disaffected groups to it. Threading their way through the swirling politics and
culture of the period, activists tried to harness widespread opposition to the war as
they challenged the policy of two presidential administrations. At stake was the
public opinion necessary to sustain the war effort.63
The underground press covered this broad subject in many ways, with many
angles, and by utilizing many styles of writing and reporting. But through this wide
62
63
Spigel, Chapter 1.
Chatfield, 117.
24
variety of outlets, the alternative media of the era illustrated the ideological changes that
came about in the midst of a rapidly shifting society, one that did not remain steadfastly
settled for more than a few months at a time. These shifts came sometimes slowly,
sometimes with lightning speed – another illustration of the history of the time period.
“As a drive-force for domestic reform within a war-making society, the anti-Vietnam
War opposition seemed in a state of permanent transformation, gyrating in response to
the internal convulsions that shook America ... as well as to the shifting tempo of the
war.”64
The voices from these newspapers are as diverse as the publications themselves –
some from students, some from active GIs, some from everyone in between. This
diversity in turn yields an even more complete portrait of what was actually happening
within various pockets of society during a period of affluence, war, and social change.
One of the major ideological shifts that are found within the antiwar and socially
critical publications of this period is the migration from emphasis on the power of the pen
to the emphasis on group action and activism. This massive change in ideological
purpose within a decade is fascinating to chronicle.
But criticism of governmental and military actions of the postwar period did not
have its roots in the 1960s. Already by the 1950s, the need for change was brewing. “To
those coming of age in the 1960s, the normative life course of the 1950s was a straight
and narrow path in need of liberation.”65 In 1956, Liberation, from New York, came onto
the scene with a focus on liberalism and social change. “[W]e can see that the greatness
of liberalism has been its emphasis on humaneness and tolerance, its support of the
liberties of the individual and its insistence on the free and inquiring mind and rejection
of fanaticism and dogmatism.”66 An editorial in the debut issue went on: “One of the
symptoms of our time is that many people are fed up with ‘politics’ – by which they
mean the whole machinery associated with political life.”67
Liberation debuted on the cusp of social overhaul and brought with it a sense of
foreboding about the events and changes to come. Coming onto the scene in the midst of
the affluent, suburbanized mid-1950s, the publication provided an interesting insight into
the internal turmoil of American society. “Liberation in large part represented the
maturation of militant pacifism since its genesis in World War II, and consequently took
up most of its concerns – utopianism, anarchism, non-violent revolution, civil rights, the
Third Camp, and, of course, peace.”68 An editorial titled “Tract for the Times” read:
The decline of independent radicalism and the gradual falling into silence of
prophetic and rebellious voices is an ominous feature of the mid-twentieth
century. Anxiety and apprehension have invaded the air we breathe. Advances in
science and technology, which should have been our greatest triumphs, leave us
stunned and uncertain as to whether human life and history have meaning.69
This observation is particularly powerful when one considers the marks soon to be
made on history, the faces soon to emerge and embed into the mind of a nation. The
64
Hixson, 43.
Hagan, 6.
66
Liberation, 1956, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 3.
67
Liberation, 1956, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 4.
68
Wittner, 237.
69
Liberation, 1956, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 2.
65
25
concept of meaning within history – indeed, within life itself – is one that would rise
again and again over the next decade. This notion of meaning is particularly pertinent to
the antiwar cause – after all, many of the protesters and soldiers asked, what exactly was
America fighting for in Korea and Vietnam? What was the purpose of war instead of the
pursuit of peace? Where was the meaning in such violence? What could studying the
nation’s history reveal to a complex culture coming of age in a tumultuous time?
Often, one links such questions with the tangible, visible activism that had ensued
by the mid-1960s. But the observations made in Liberation, especially in the beginning,
bring about a “hands-off” style of journalism unlike that of the Black Panthers or even
SNCC, one that reports from newsrooms rather than trenches. This style of journalism,
which is discarded by the editorial board as the years progress, lends itself to a more
academic, more thoughtful manner of writing, one that brings historical observations and
analyses into the context of their contemporary realm much more than many of its
successors – and, for that matter, “non-activist” predecessors and contemporaries such as
the Beats – did. This hands-off journalism, like many of the other alternative media,
remained biased, but its style and manner of reporting lent itself to a more macro view of
the world than the micro lens that would later be used by antiwar publications.
Too, it is important to note that Liberation did not focus solely on the escalations
in Southeast Asia. Rather, while trumpeting the advantages of peace and the problems of
war, the staff also focused on many of the other growing movements that would later
come to be identified with the 1960s: civil rights, gender issues, anti-imperialism.
Instead of focusing on a single issue and allowing that issue to dominate the publication’s
character and signification in the underground press, the staff of Liberation focused on an
overarching theme – peace. Peace at home, peace within American society, peace within
government, and peace abroad are all tackled in Liberation, and this expansion into many
arenas that history would later delineate into separate fields of study served as a testament
to the interconnectedness of the activist movements that would fully bloom by the
1960s.70 “It quickly became the organ and focal point of what some have called the ‘nonviolent movement’ and others have dubbed the ‘beat peace movement.’”71
The transformations made in Liberation throughout the next decade of its
existence are multitudinous. Actually, the shifts in ideology, focus, and journalistic style
found in Liberation were representative of the shifts in the antiwar movement itself and
were found, in pieces, within other, more short-lived underground newspapers of the
time. In the beginning, the publication’s content was thorough and analytical, though
stand-offish. The editors placed a strong emphasis on the power of the university as a
mode of change and the power of intellectualism and historical analysis as means of
social support and shifts. But by the end of the 1960s, Liberation’s style of reporting
changed. No longer hands-off, the reporters and editors were reporting from within the
field. No longer solely a forum for scholars and philosophers, the newspaper became a
sounding board for members of the younger activist movement.72 But the newspaper
maintained a steadfast grip to a globalist viewpoint that, at its debut in 1956, was well
70
Also, some authors such as Wittner readily delineate the peace movement itself into two arms –
“nonviolent action and nuclear pacifism” (257). Liberation crosses over into both of these, as well.
71
Wittner, 237.
72
Activists such as Wolfe Lowenthal, “a young activist who is currently on the staff of the National
Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam,” saw their work in print. Liberation, September 1968.
26
before its time in terms of antiwar activism. In their early days activists focused solely
on the war at hand and, perhaps, the inhabitants of the “enemy” nation. But Liberation’s
editors found another pulse worth recording – that of other populations and countries
perhaps affected by American imperialism and military maneuvers.
For instance, in its third edition the newspaper tackles the issue of Russian
communism following the death of Stalin. “The death of a ruler who has been boss or
dictator, especially in a revolutionary situation, raises the problem of succession in an
acute form,” A.J. Muste wrote. “Speculation as to what would happen when Stalin died
was a favorite indoor sport in a good many circles for a number of years before the end
came. Would the regime collapse? Would a battle with no holds barred break out in the
Kremlin clique? No doubt it was a deadly serious preoccupation of the top Soviet leaders
themselves.”73 This global consciousness remained in Liberation’s editions throughout
the 1960s, and by the middle of the decade the paper found itself not alone, but rather a
leader in an ideological movement that was quickly gaining in numbers.
Another social shift depicted by Liberation (though perhaps not intentionally so)
is that of a movement from an “adult” activist population to one more readily classified
as consisting of “students.”
A poll of the readers of Liberation in 1959 provides some idea of their social
origins and political views. As usual, the prototype was a middle class
intellectual. Over two thirds of the readers sported a college degree, while more
than half of these had received one or more graduate degrees. Concentrated most
heavily in the professions, Liberation readers had “teacher” as their largest single
occupational category. They clearly tended toward utopian and radical views
very different from those of the average American.74
By the mid-1960s, however, the readership characteristics Liberation enjoyed
were superseded by a more youthful, student-oriented underground press, one that
focused much less on the intellectual basis for decision-making and much more on
instinct – indeed, more like the Beats so easily identifiable to Liberation’s original
readership. This shift was also seen in the larger movement. Perhaps passing on the
torch to their eager students, no longer were the academics and professors the most
outspoken group of pacifists or activists. “Pacifist sentiments appear to have had a
considerable influence among American college students. A study of 1200 students in 16
colleges and universities found that 6 per cent favored unilateral disarmament. ... The
authors of the study concluded that about one fourth ... ‘could be considered as
pacifistic.’”75
Still, though, before the dawn of the 1960s the editors of Liberation were
skeptical of such a transformation. Surprisingly, they did not even seem to notice that a
new activist vanguard was forming, one that would soon become synonymous with the
term “radical” itself. “Is it really because of a need for reappraisal of fundamental liberal
and radical ideas that no new radicalism is emerging?” Art Wiser asked in May 1956.
“Isn’t it rather an unwillingness to pay the price to put any liberal or radical idea into
practice? Again, is it really a question of the inadequacy of nineteenth century modes of
73
Liberation, 1956, Volume I, Issue 3, p. 3.
Wittner, 238.
75
Wittner, 267.
74
27
thought to cope with modern situations and knowledge?”76 With these questions, it is
apparent that even a publication as well-versed and observant as Liberation could not
foresee the massive societal and cultural changes that were looming on the horizon.
“Friends, where is the anguish of soul?” Wiser asked.77 In several years, the answer
would become readily apparent. The anguish of the soul would be in America’s
universities, in the nation’s capital, and in the streets across the country.
A an editorial in a Fellowship of Reconciliation publication in 1960 read: “The
observers have been wagging their heads for a long time over the ‘apathy’ of the ‘silent
generation’ of college youth. But what of now? What has suddenly happened to this
silent generation?”78 The students began to speak, and their collective voice quickly
drowned out that of the university professor. The antiwar movement began to be
associated with student radicals, not members of the Old Left. Perhaps this change in the
activist population – a youth movement supplanting a more adult realm – was a factor in
some of the ideological shifts that took place throughout the passing years.
But while Liberation illustrated many of the shifts and movements within the
realm of antiwar activism, it was by far not the only newspaper of the era to make a
significant ideological mark, particularly with regard to the war in Vietnam. Dozens, if
not hundreds, of alternative media sources devoted entire pages and publications to the
war coverage and the government’s subsequent decisions along the way, and many of
them served as sentries for new ideologies and political backlash strategies. From troopbased accounts of life in the trenches to civilians’ plans for stateside protests, the well of
antiwar reports and coverage ran deep.
In 1963, Despite Everything emerged in Berkeley, California, on mimeographed
sheets of 8 1/2-by-11-inch paper teeming with promises to move to a more palatable
format in subsequent issues. But despite its lack of aesthetic value, the publication
brought with it a sincere ideological contribution to the shifts found within the antiwar
movement throughout the 1960s. Its timing was interesting and allowed for a nice
account of the events and ideologies leading up to the full-blown conflict in Vietnam.
Like Liberation, Despite Everything began with a firm basis in the power of the
pen, in calls to action via the written word. “This periodical will be characterized by an
absence of apparatus, of tired slogans and symbols, by a readiness to work with ideas, to
discuss them to the limit, to say what needs saying, by a thoroughly open set-up (write for
us, reader, fight with us reader),” the editors wrote in their first editorial.79 Then, later in
the piece:
We see signs everywhere that people are ready to consider radical social
transformation and we would wish for this to be accomplished peacefully, through
recognition of its necessity. But we are not sanguine about the possibilities for
peaceful transformation, because of the obduracy, incredible stupidity, and
shortsightedness of those in power, who would, apparently, rather see civilization
perish than surrender privileges with less and less meaning.80
76
Liberation, 1956, Volume I, Issue 3, p. 10.
Liberation, 1956, Volume I, Issue 3, p. 11.
78
Wittner, 267.
79
Despite Everything, 1963, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 2.
80
Despite Everything, 1963, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 2.
77
28
The editors of Despite Everything did not focus on only one issue. Rather, they
offered opinions on everything from the civil-rights movement to diplomacy in France to
the escalations of American military interests around the world. Too, the editors took a
very interesting stance with regard to the dawning New Left. Today, many historians
would regard this newspaper as a solid example of New Left ideals and writings, but in
1963, the editors of Despite Everything clearly had some strong problems with this label
– and some of the ideologies and connections they felt were forced upon the “members”
of the New Left. Through the articles of staff writers such as P. Mac Dougal, it is easy to
see the subtle shift from the university to the “real world” of America.
Not for my life will I play at serving up puke from the old radical movement, after
the manner of those who exploit the past (they were convinced it had been
wasted) in order to impress the newly-radical young. ... The point is that a bunch
of young academics is treating this sphere of the past in the way the environment
forces them to, by division, sub-division, and specialization. Now in, say, history
or literature generally, the stultification reached by this method is already bad
enough. But here, of all places, where the history is that of a great collection of
failures, naivetes, half-bakednesses and corruptions, in general of the great failure
of the libertarian movement, that has as its direct result present world misery – no
exaggeration! ... Useful knowledge has to be summary, concrete, and, in general,
forget more than it remembers. Use the past, sure but what is valid out of it,
simply, without pretensions, to help in the best way possible – just as if it were
‘immediate knowledge,’ leave out the labels and the authorities.81
But Despite Everything did not tackle only the labels and ideologies of the New
Left. It also focused, from its debut issue onward, on military power and disarmament,
and the other topics these broad subjects evoked. “Is Disarmament Possible?” writer
Alan Dutscher asked in 1963. “[A]rmament is not just another industry, it is the epitome
of modern capitalism. ... It is our contention, then, that studies which posit the possibility
of total disarmament within the system are a fraud. Only the prior exposure of the cold
war hoax and the dependence of commodity economy upon it and armament provide a
framework within which total disarmament and total peace are discussable.”82
In July 1965, Despite Everything addressed the issue of Vietnam head-on. “The
only proper course, today, is to demand the unconditional withdrawal of all American
troops, ‘advisors,’ weapons and CIA agents immediately,” an editorial stated. “...Why
does the United States remain in Vietnam? And why does it ‘escalate’ the crisis? ... In a
very real sense, then, international crises are manipulated in Washington.”83
What followed this introduction was a lengthy analysis of the escalation in
Vietnam – which, by 1965, was beginning to be prominent – and the United States’ role
in the years leading up to war. From capitalism to imperialism, the editors of Despite
Everything left no societal facet untouched as they provided their readers with a sound
explanation of national events that, in turn, led the country straight into the war. “In our
time, peace is more truly an accident than war,” the story said. “The interpenetration of
the opposites, peace and war, has produced our present phase, ‘cold war.’ In the period
of the Cold War, the limits, tone, and content of such peace as there is, is set by the
81
Despite Everything, 1963, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 9.
Despite Everything, 1963, Volume I, Issue 1, pp. 16-20.
83
Despite Everything, 1965, Volume II, Issue 4, p. 1.
82
29
dominant opposite, war; peace is simply the time to rest and prepare for the next
‘incident.’”84
Much of what is said in Despite Everything up until that point echoed that of
Liberation – that is, a thoughtful, informed account of the goings-on around the world,
but not much in the way of action. By 1965, while the civil-rights movement was
entering its second wave, the mid-century antiwar movement was still in its first wave,
one consisting mainly of passive ideology. The stories and analyses given regarding the
Vietnam War were solid and accurate interpretations of the facts; but the call to action
was absent. The war is bad, newspapers such as Despite Everything said; but they offered
no solution short of nebulous, intangible changes in governmental and economic structure
– neither of which, truly, was feasible. However, it is important to note that “the nascent
draft resistance of [the mid-’60s] and the reaction to it inaugurated other important trends
that later extended into the subsequently much wider resistance movement, or at times set
precedents that proved instrumental in the way organizers shaped the later movement.”85
In April 1966, Despite Everything published a special Vietnam supplement
calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops and also took a stab at some of the
antiwar activist groups pushing for other solutions. “Instead, unfortunately, one hears
from all kinds of ‘peace groups’ a ‘demand’ for ‘negotiations.’ What right has America
to negotiate what is not her own territory? ... To call for negotiation is, in effect, to
legitimize the American imperialist intervention.”86 The article goes on to chide the
participants of a peace conference at the University of Michigan (“We had thought that
such perspectives were exclusively for the Vietnamese people to decide on”87). The
editorial took a hard-line stance for the immediate freedom of Vietnam as well as an
immediate homecoming for American troops serving in the region, and no other solution
would suffice.
Imagine what would happen if we had a ‘mass unified peace movement’
demanding negotiations. What happens when the President grants the demand?
The bulk of the protesters have been deliberately kept naive by the planned
suppression of more ‘advanced’ demands. When their meaningless demand is
granted they become confused and disillusioned. Then we will really see a
‘splitting of the movement’ like the one that occurred after the nuclear test-ban
agreement – a splitting which will indeed be a disintegration.88
So, in essence, the editors of Despite Everything were going in two directions at
once: They were demanding drastic change but not providing any concrete plan as to the
feasibility of such a change. They wanted to bring the troops home immediately and end
the war, but they offered no real ways to do this. This gap between ideology and
activism would soon be filled by other newspapers, other activist groups – but Despite
Everything’s problem pointed to the larger confusion within activist groups around the
nation. How would they get their message across as well as make a dent in the problem
itself? With the civil-rights movement, it was easy to take action (however successful it
might have been); after all, the movement was taking place stateside, at home. The
84
Despite Everything, 1965, Volume II, Issue 4, p. 7.
Foley, 24.
86
Despite Everything, 1966, Special Vietnam Supplement, p. 1.
87
Despite Everything, 1966, Special Vietnam Supplement, p. 2.
88
Despite Everything, 1966, Special Vietnam Supplement, p. 4.
85
30
Vietnam War posed many problems in activist technique, the greatest of which was
location. Short of traveling to Southeast Asia themselves, what was an effective way to
protest with more than the printed word? How could the nation be made aware of the
protesters in the same way as the Freedom Riders or the members of SNCC?
Among others, a newspaper called The Partisan drew attention to this issue and
offered suggestions. With ideas similar to Despite Everything on economics,
government, imperialism, and military power, this mouthpiece for the Youth Against War
and Fascism offered concrete solutions to the war effort. The YAWF, as the group
referred to itself within the pages of the publication, emphasized its strength in being
outsiders, a group willing to distance itself from mainstream societal views in order to
offer a new look at the situation.
The experiences of Youth Against War & Fascism in implementing its program
against the war are, we believe, very instructive in demonstrating the potential
strength of a movement based on the independent power and interests of the mass
of the people. Unencumbered by any ties to the ‘loyal opposition’ within the
Establishment, we have in two years built an organization entirely upon the hard
work and sacrifice of our members – all young workers and students. This has
left us free to say and do what we thought correct at every critical turn in world
events.89
Following the first bombings in North Vietnam, the group took to the streets,
distributing leaflets calling for a protest in Duffy Square, located in the center of Times
Square. The demonstration was short-lived – police interrupted the scene before the first
speaker was even able to begin – but, the YAWF contended, its purpose was served.
“The thousands of bystanders who watched from the opposite curbs during those brief
but tumultuous moments had seen with their own eyes the treatment given young,
unarmed people whose only crime was to demand the right to speak in the public
square.”90 The actions taken by law enforcement, YAWF contended, solidified the
group’s role in a socially progressive cause – after all, the only times police moved to
break up demonstrations were when they were challenging a foreign or domestic policy,
such as civil rights. The fact that the police were so quick to break up a demonstration of
unarmed young men and women made the factors by which the group was demonstrating
even more intriguing.
With this movement toward activism came a new realization, or at least a more
prominent one. “[R]eality cannot be ignored when it comes crashing around your ears,” a
story by Deirdre Griswold read.
The developing war appetite of U.S. imperialism can and will no longer be appeased
by bloody victories. We must be prepared for greater adventurism abroad and
greater reaction at home. ... The danger is always present that, without an organized
nucleus to turn to in the desire to end these wars of oppression, mass demoralization
and cynicism could set in.91
And as the 1960s progressed, this “organized nucleus” of activists grew in both
number and strength. The universities served as home to many of these activist cells,
offering teach-ins and forums for like-minded students to join together in the vein of
89
The Partisan, 1965, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 13.
The Partisan, 1965, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 13.
91
The Partisan, 1965, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 15.
90
31
educating the greater public on the events in Vietnam as well as protesting the
government and military. “At such locales, antiwar protest from 1965 to 1967 was
nonviolent and the most common types of protest against the war were teach-ins, peace
petitions addressed to Johnson, and low-key picketing.”92 But, The Partisan pointed out
in 1967, the universities also held a potentially darker side. “War crimes are being
committed; university departments and personnel have become accomplices,” reporter
Michael Ezra wrote. “... In fact, the Defense Department admits that 38 universities have
held contracts from the Pentagon for research in chemical and bacteriological warfare.”93
The story went on to address the potential infiltration of many student organizations, such
as the National Student Organization and MIT’s Center for International Studies – actions
that are reminiscent of the infiltration of civil-rights groups by white outsiders or AfricanAmerican operatives for the government. This subject, while certainly not isolated in one
newspaper, was not a main issue of the antiwar movement – but it is considerably
significant. If the antiwar activists were fighting against the government, and the
government was infiltrating their groups and meetings, how were they to plan, to
progress? Too, if the universities were becoming breeding grounds for American
military experiments and projects, how were students to view the very schools that
allowed them to congregate in larger numbers in order to achieve some sort of greater
world good? If their very congregation spot was one big government operative, how
were these groups to ever subvert the military machine?
The Partisan offered no solutions to such questions. But the fact that it raised the
issue initially is of great significance within itself. No longer were the universities
viewed, as they were in the mid-’50s in publications such as Liberation, as safe havens
for students and intellectual thinkers focused on solving the problems of war and peace.
Now, the universities had joined the ranks of the government and military, as well as
many citizens, as a hostile arm of American society. If the grounds for their teach-ins
and protests were not to be trusted, the antiwar activists would have to find new
techniques to convey their messages. These techniques came not out of frustration, but
out of necessity, out of a need to keep up with the rapid-fire military action overseas and
the reactionary measures taken against so-called “peaceniks” by the U.S. government at
home.
But The Partisan did not focus solely on the events in Vietnam. In the January 1969
issue, Deirdre Stapp (formerly Deirdre Griswold) wrote a three-part analysis of the
escalations of force in Indonesia and tied it in to the goings-on in the more familiar
Vietnam conflict.
A million people have been murdered in Indonesia; hundreds of thousands remain as
political prisoners in concentration camps with no bail, no lawyers, no trials. All this
has been done by the U.S. sponsored regime. ... The liberals who are outraged at the
war in Vietnam which U.S. imperialism is losing take no interest in this mass murder
where U.S. imperialism temporarily has the upper hand. A campaign must be
mounted in solidarity with the fighting Indonesian people whose blood and sweat is
building a second front in Asia.94
92
Heineman, 129.
The Partisan, 1967, Volume III, Issue 1, p. 22.
94
The Partisan, 1969, Volume V, Issue 1, p. 17.
93
32
Michael S. Foley asserted that by 1966-67, “[F]or more than a year after the attacks
on the [Committee for Non-Violent Action] draft card burners, protests targeting the draft
faded from the public view. ... Protest against the war continued but sporadically and still
on a relatively small scale.”95 As illustrated in the numerous alternative antiwar
newspapers of the time, this is not the case. Rather, the movement itself was shifting, not
shrinking – and this shift, while almost imperceptible at first, soon grew into a hulking,
looming protest that extended far beyond the confines of a draft-card bonfire. The fact
that a multitude of newspapers were reporting on antiwar actions and events at this time
serves as blatant proof that the movement was strong – and would only grow in strength
as it shifted directions.
In 1966, Pittsburgh Peace and Freedom News emerged with a plan for a new turn in
the antiwar movement. “A nationwide mass mobilization against the War in Vietnam is
the conception behind the VIETNAM SUMMER project,” a May 1967 feature said.
“Realizing that the real power to stop the war lies with the great numbers of unspoken
people, the project will attempt to reach those who have yet to be heard from and to
mobilize, what is believed to be, the enormous sentiment against the war.”96 Thus,
instead of mobilizing strictly within the confines of the college environment, these
activists sought input and aid from members of the community at large and sought to
enlist neighbors who would normally not be tapped by activist ideologies and
movements. This cross-cultural – indeed, multicultural – and cross-generational reach
served as a shift in the movement, an extended hand that had not been seen before in
antiwar circles. Its eventual success would be debatable, but the effort on the part of the
students showed that they knew they could not win peace by themselves – that inclusion
was necessary for unity against the unfavorable imperialism.
The roots of the Vietnam Summer project are familiar ones: Martin Luther King Jr.,
Dr. Benjamin Spock, and others. So too is the mission: “It seeks to duplicate the
Mississippi Summer Project of 1964 when thousands of people, mostly college students,
went to Mississippi to spend the summer helping to form the Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party which is now a third party in that state.”97 The ties to the civil-rights
movement are strong, and for good reason; indeed, even the Panthers fought for the
freedom of the oppressed Vietnamese people.
The actions that the Peace and Freedom News reported on at this time served as a
steppingstone for the movement’s trajectory. The prevalence of “We Won’t Go”
statements increased by leaps and bounds throughout 1967, and the publication addressed
this growth in several articles throughout the year. Through this statement, men of draft
age voiced their disagreement with America’s military policy and refused “to be inducted
into our government’s armed forces if called upon to do so.”98 Along with these
statements came a multitude of petitions to be signed by various groups and communities
across the city, state, and nation to voice disapproval of the war effort, and the Peace and
Freedom News placed a significant focus on many of them. Assemblies, speeches,
leaflets, and statements were the prescriptions for activists of the day, and the activists
responded favorably. But, as in other movements of the era, the shift was not complete.
95
Foley, 48.
Pittsburgh Peace and Freedom News, 1967, Volume I, No. 9, p. 3.
97
Pittsburgh Peace and Freedom News, 1967, Volume I, No. 9, p. 3.
98
Pittsburgh Peace and Freedom News, 1968, Volume II, Issue 2, p.5.
96
33
Though by mid-decade the antiwar activists were loud and far-reaching in their
protestations and community, they still had much to accomplish and continued to search
for new ways to do so.
It is important to note that while students sought to unite through the university
system and then reach out to residents in entire neighborhoods and cities, they were not
the only vocal group speaking out against the war. In actuality, many of the soldiers who
had been drafted or had enlisted in the hopes of avoiding overseas duty were speaking out
against the violence in Vietnam. One such forum was The Ally: The GI’s Newspaper,
which debuted in February 1968 with a post office box in Berkeley, California. “Why do
we start this newspaper?” the first editorial asked.
The simplest answer is that the war motivates us. We are preoccupied with nagging
questions about the war, as it drags on endlessly, spreading throughout Southeast
Asia and making confrontation with China inevitable. We want to know to what
purpose Americans are giving their lives. To what end must Vietnam be tortured
and destroyed? What does it mean to die for ‘national security’? How many young
men must die before some ‘peaceful settlement’ is eventually found? Are you
required to defend a policy not of your making? Whose interests are you really
defending? 99
The Ally served an interesting purpose within the boundaries of the war protests.
With access to the daily life of military draftees and recruits, the newspaper’s editors
offered a unique vantage point from which to view the war itself as well as its effects on
the American soldiers preparing to fight in it. “With few exceptions, these [GI] papers
were actively interested in the myriad of political struggles of the period. Their reporting
favored the claims of demonstrators and activists over those of the authorities.”100 But
while it carries significant value in terms of historical background and cultural relevance,
in its time it also served another, more immediate purpose – informing the troops of what
was really happening overseas as well as stateside. Many of these men were holed up on
military bases for the majority of the time, and their knowledge of current events was
often limited to letters from family members or what the military chose to tell them. But
The Ally sought to educate, to inform, in a way the military officials did not. This posed
another problem in itself.
Scholars should not forget that GIs, despite the fact that they swore an oath to protect
the Constitution, had to conform to the rules and regulations of the Uniform Code of
Military Justice (UCMJ). Despite the best intentions of its authors – who had
attempted to bring military law in line with the Constitution – the UCMJ made the
brass the arbiters of the Constitution. The practical result of this, according to the
editor of Anchorage Troop, was the routine violation of GIs’ First, Fourth, Fifth, and
Eighth Amendment rights.101
Thus, violations of the UCMJ, while adhering to the Constitution, could lead to
punishment. With this in mind, however, GIs pushed on and distributed their newspapers
underground – and sometimes even directly under the noses of the officials who could
charge them with code violations. “If the Vietnam-era military had been an all-volunteer
force, the Court’s position that GIs had willingly traded in their Constitutional privileges
99
The Ally, 1968, Issue 1, p. 3.
Lewes, 9.
101
Lewes, 52.
100
34
and protections would have been supportable,” Lewes said. “The Vietnam-era military,
however, was not such an army. It was, in fact, peopled with draftees and enlisted men
enticed to join up by the slogan ‘choose the army before the army chooses you.’”102 The
GIs grasped firmly to this reasoning and used it in their defense while distributing their
newspapers throughout the military community.
Since SF is a staging area sending men to Travis and from there to Vietnam, we saw
the opportunity of reaching those men. So off we went to bus terminals and airports.
Twice we were told to leave the USO lounge at SF airport. According to the
receptionist, our presence was ‘creating a disturbance’ (all two of us!), although
none of the GI’s there who received copies had registered any complaint.103
Certainly, The Ally was not always received with open arms by other members of
the military. “One soldier read the paper, crumpled it into a tiny ball and returned it
without a word. ... An MP glanced at a copy of The Ally that had been given to a GI and
promptly told us to leave the airport.”104 However, many GIs did indeed take the
newspaper and read it without complaint. In fact, many welcomed it, as many soldiers
(especially draftees) faced the complexities that the newspaper sought to sort out. “The
problem of the serviceman is a complex one; there are no easy solutions, but the Ally
staff wants the serviceman to be able to study all sides of the issue and decide for himself
what he must do. Such decisions are highly personal. They may require great courage
and are not to be made lightly.”105
Thus, newspapers such as The Ally106 held a deep significance in terms of the
antiwar movement on the whole. Before 1967, most of the vocal protests were coming
from “outside” – that is, the general civilian public. But the introduction of newspapers
such as The Ally serves to pinpoint a shift in the revolution that cannot be ignored – that
of frustration, vocally, inside the barracks of the troops.107 Surely, this was not the first
time in American military history that soldiers felt frustration at the task that lay ahead of
them. But the fact that regular GIs were beginning to speak out in print, in newspapers
made within the military bases and distributed widely (The Ally had a 3,000-copy
circulation), illustrates a significant shift in antiwar ideology. The protests that once
seemed benign, coming from unaffected students and other groups of people not directly
hit by the war’s reach, now carried with them a new sense of immediacy. The troops
themselves had voiced their opposition to the crisis in Vietnam, and this served as a
102
Lewes, 52.
The Ally, 1968, Issue 2, p. 3.
104
The Ally, 1968, Issue 2, p. 3
105
The Ally, 1968, Issue 1, p. 4.
106
And, by 1968, there were many of its ilk, including Flag-in-Action from Fort Campbell, Kentucky;
AWOL from Manhattan, Kansas; As You Were from Fort Ord, Monterey, California; and others. All of
these adhered to roughly the same standards of publishing and message – but the growth of the
underground-military genre is important to note in terms of the growth of the antiwar revolution as a whole.
107
James Lewes is right to note that “defining the media this way does not imply that they were carbon
copies of each other. Instead they reflected the diversity of the counterculture and – depending on the
intended audience – emphasized certain issues over others” (9). However, a considerable amount of the
underlying message was essentially the same from newspaper to newspaper – a mix of cynicism, solid
reporting, and lighter features. While this does not mean that other GI newspapers are irrelevant to this
thesis, it does mean that these newspapers collectively signaled an ideological shift in the antiwar
movement.
103
35
signifier of the permeation of the antiwar sentiment in America. No longer an outsider’s
project, the war had stirred unfavorable sentiment from inside the military machine.
By 1968, the underground press was hearing from another group previously silent –
the Americans who dodged the draft by moving elsewhere. The American Exile in
Canada, the mouthpiece for the Union of American Exiles, spoke to this group and served
as a forum for exiles and expatriates, but in a historical context it also served as an
example of how the antiwar protests had moved to a new level. No longer content to pass
out leaflets, protest in the streets, or burn draft cards and summonses, many war
protesters by the late 1960s were packing up their belongings and leaving the country for
colder, yet less hostile, climates. “The war resisters who emigrated to Canada challenged
normative expectations with a legally dubious and disruptive move.”108 With this came a
new need for information on making such a move – and with this came a new genre of
newspaper geared toward such communication.
The American Exile in Canada brought with it many tips and features on making the
transition to Canadian life and the kinds of demonstrations and vigils that were taking
place north of the border. From driving regulations109 to Canadian terminology, 110 many
features focused not on the larger antiwar effort but rather on the massive life changes
brought about by such a sudden move.
But that is not to say that the newspaper ignored the events taking place both in the
United States and overseas. Rather, many of these reports are included as briefs or
editorials focusing on various trials of draft resisters, such as the case against 27 GIs at
the Presidio who faced the death penalty on a mutiny charge after staging a nonviolent
protest against the murder of a mentally ill soldier who tried to run away from his work
detail.111 Most of these articles came from news services or other newspapers (such as
SNCC’s The Movement), but many were editorialized on and analyzed by the American
Exile editors.
Though The American Exile in Canada strove to serve a readership based mainly in
expatriates avoiding the draft, the staff also sought to incorporate Canadian readers into
the publication as well. In one issue, the writers reached out directly to Canadians in an
open invitation to an American Thanksgiving celebration. In another example, the
writers implored sympathetic Canadians to reach out to newly transplanted Americans in
order to make their transitions a little easier.
If you agree that American boys should not be fighting in Vietnam here is your
opportunity to help those who won’t. Open your home to an American immigrant
during his first difficult days in Canada. ... Canadians can assist the Union by
offering temporary housing, employment suggestions and donations to cover
operating expenses. ... Can you help?112
Like the GI newspapers that began to appear a year or so earlier, The American
Exile in Canada serves as a clear illustration of the shifts in antiwar ideology that were
taking place rapidly by the late 1960s. No longer contented with protests within America
– perhaps recognizing that the protests were not gaining any major ground in the fight
108
Hagan, 10-11.
The American Exile in Canada, 1968, Volume I, Issue 5, p. 1.
110
The American Exile in Canada, 1968, Volume I, Issue 5, p. 7.
111
The American Exile in Canada, 1968, Volume I, Issue 6, p. 17.
112
The American Exile in Canada, 1968, Volume 1, Issue 6, p. 22.
109
36
against the war – would-be draftees and their sympathizers began moving northward to
Canada, essentially removing themselves from the conflict by pledging their allegiance to
a new home. “Young Americans who chose to oppose the selective service and military
laws of the United States by becoming exiles in Canada exercised a fundamental
American freedom. ‘America,’ Steven Decatur offered: ‘love it or leave it.’ They
left.”113 Certainly, this is not the first time a group of young people left America to find
what they hoped would be a utopia elsewhere,114 but it is important to note because unlike
previous expatriate groups, these Americans were essentially fleeing for their lives. If
they stayed in America, they would be subject to the draft, and thereby subject to an early
death in Vietnam. If they moved, they would be not only exhibiting an extreme form of
protest – leaving their home out of frustration with the military and the government – but
also potentially saving their own lives in the process.115 This physical movement is a
clear sign of how frustrated and extreme the protests had become in the hopes of finally
being heard by Washington.
In January 1969, YAWF’s The Partisan reported on a visit to Montreal by
representatives of the National Liberation Front and the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam. With topics ranging from general U.S. imperialism to the war in Southeast
Asia to questions posed by Black Panther Bobby Seale, the “Hemispheric Conference”
was a seemingly all-inclusive affair with peace as its final goal. “The Hemispheric
Conference ... was successful because it did in the end truly reflect the militancy of the
anti-war and anti-imperialist struggles, especially in the U.S., and provided a forum for
the Vietnamese liberation movement.”116 Comments like this one by reporter Deirdre
Stapp illustrated a movement toward new forms of action within the peace movement –
instead of only talking about Vietnamese leaders and citizens, peace groups began to
bring them to the United States in order to essentially put a face with a name. The
tangibility of this shift is found in the hostility and abrupt action taken at the end of the
conference itself, with the presence of Vietnamese leaders as a catalyst: “At one point,
there was practically a bonfire on the platform as draft cards, military orders and the U.S.
passport of a Puerto Rican delegate were burned in defiance of U.S. imperialism.”117
The Partisan also covered the events concerning the “Buffalo Nine,” who refused
to report for their draft assignments. “In order to demonstrate our complete and total
113
Hagan, 99.
Indeed, the Lost Generation moved to Europe to find such a utopia away from the clutches of what was
viewed as American imperialism and unfavorable governmental actions (such as Constitutional amendment
for prohibition). But theirs was a different kind of movement, one that sought a cultural haven not found in
America, not a direct protest of America itself. The antiwar protesters had other, perhaps more immediate,
motives.
115
It is important to note, however, that this action was not viewed as brave or “necessary” by all facets of
society. Many U.S. citizens loyal to the government viewed these exiles as cowards, as shirking their
patriotic duty in favor of the easy way out. “To some it is important to answer the question whether
resisting the draft by leaving the country was an act of courage or cowardice. Interestingly, thirty years
later, many draft resisters themselves still ponder this question. Philip Marchand, who is now a literary
critic for the Toronto Star newspaper, thinks about his fear of being killed or maimed and how this
compares to the feelings of young authors like Norman Mailer or Ernest Hemingway, who wrote of earlier
wars from their own experience. ‘I might have written a meaningful Vietnam novel,’ Marchand reflected;
‘but on the other hand I might have come back without any arms or legs’” (Hagan, 23).
116
The Partisan, 1969, Volume V, Issue 1, p. 10.
117
The Partisan, 1969, Volume V, Issue 1, p. 10.
114
37
unwillingness to serve this un-American imperialist war machine, we are publically [sic.]
burning the summonses which were served today,” the newspaper quoted Bruce Beyer as
saying. “We refuse to be used to perpetuate this immoral, illegal, racist, politically insane
war on the Vietnamese people.”118 Beyer and his eight counterparts were forcefully
removed from the Unitarian Universalist Church they had used as a refuge, beaten by
police, and placed under $10,000 bail each. Jerry Gross, the author of the article and
himself a member of the Buffalo Nine, concluded the story by writing that “[t]he
courageous and defiant manner in which the anti-war youths conducted their struggle
gave the morale of the Buffalo area antiwar movement a big lift. Every day brings us
closer to victory.”119
These sentences sum up the antiwar sentiment by the end of the 1960s: effectively,
We Shall Overcome. The nonviolent civil disobedience the members of the Buffalo Nine
adhered to while enduring police force and clubbings mirrors the Freedom Rides and
other nonviolent acts of the early civil-rights movement. But while the civil-rights
movement shifted into a darker, more violent side after giving way to frustration, even
the antiwar movement’s most “militant” period did not carry with it that sort of violence
– at least, not by the activists themselves.120
This shift from written analyses of the war to the subsequent protests to harsher
action – indeed, fiery action – such as burning draft cards and passports follows roughly
the same path as the civil-rights movement, but on a different timetable. What seemed
like years of analyses and criticism led to a quick succession of teach-ins, leafleting,
draft-card burning, and societal secession, and by the end of the 1960s the movement had
changed considerably from the way the decade had begun. As U.S. troops began
bombing Vietnamese targets more furiously, the antiwar activists stateside began
ratcheting up their protests, demonstrations, verbal attacks, and societal escapes. Thus,
the activists’ timetable fit the social scenario – and it did so as rapidly as the military
escalation overseas. The antiwar newspapers of the decade reflected this change in
numerous ways. From Liberation in the 1950s to The Partisan, The American Exile in
Canada, and The Ally by the end of the 1960s, the publications surrounding the problems
of war and the attainment of peace are hashed out on the printed page. And although the
answers are not clear-cut (or often apparent at all), the articles and features covered in the
alternative press show that members of the younger generation of Americans were indeed
118
The Partisan, 1969, Volume V, Issue 1, p. 40.
The Partisan, 1969, Volume V, Issue 1, p. 41.
120
However, by this time small groups of activists were attempting to intimidate war supporters in several
ways. “Berkeley activists physically intimidated on-campus naval recruiters and the small minority of
hawkish students; Harvard SDSers ambushed McNamara’s car, refusing to allow the defense secretary to
leave the campus until subjected to an extended session of jeering and cursing; and five hundred Chicago
students occupied a campus building to protest university administration of a Selective Service
examination” (Heineman, 130). In Campus Wars, Heineman illustrates the more violent side of events
associated with the antiwar movement – groups claiming to be antiwar “activists” brandished clubs during
a demonstration against Dow Chemical and firebombed a Wisconsin university official’s office – but
contrary to his assertions, these forms of action were the exception rather than the norm. The people
involved in these events, more closely associated with militants than activists, were not representative of
the movement and were not covered in antiwar newspapers – thereby proving their irrelevance to the notion
of peace and nonviolence the majority of activists espoused.
119
38
altering their mindset to fit the times and were not afraid of the malleability and
ideological shifts that came with the rapid-fire changes of the 1960s.
39
CHAPTER THREE: THE GROWTH OF THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT
Though the civil-rights and antiwar movements dominated many newspapers after
1960, they were certainly not the only changes afoot in American culture. By the late
part of the decade, the struggles encountered by the civil-rights and antiwar activists and
the successes and goals they strove for led to the birth of a new movement toward
equality – one putting women at the forefront. This countercultural shift, one that rose
from the ashes of other, seemingly dying, movements, harnessed activism in new ways
and gained new ground as a result. Indeed, many of the women who participated in the
early stages of the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s were well-versed in the
techniques and pitfalls of activism, and they applied this knowledge to the benefit of their
cause. “Although many countercultural groups of the 1960s became discouraged and
faded in the 1970s, women’s liberation continued to woo the next generation with
countercultural approaches. Indeed, by 1970 feminists were on the frontier of
countercultural change.”121
Certainly, this was not the first time women had spoken out to achieve new
liberties and freedoms. Generations upon generations of women had fought for – and
often eventually won – rights and freedoms in an effort to subvert their role as an
oppressed gender. And the efforts of these women must not be overlooked. “Well, I’m
sure there are people that would just love to think that when Betty Friedan wrote The
Feminine Mystique that started the whole thing except for some ineffectual old ladies that
sat in that vine-covered building and made repeated phone calls to congressional
leaders,” National Woman’s Party member Caruthers Berger said in 1982.122 Berger’s
comment brings with it a considerable amount of truth – the heady days of the 1960s
evoke a tantalizing allure, a sense of romanticism that makes studying them, heralding
them, almost inevitable. It is important to note, however, that women had been
struggling for greater rights for decades, even centuries. And as far as the 1960s and
1970s are concerned, “[N]ew research provides evidence that movements as broad-based,
well-organized, and sustained in their efforts as those of the 1960s and 1970s did not
spring fullblown out of nowhere anymore [sic.] than did the injustices which they
attempted to correct; instead, they had complex and inconspicuous origins.”123
But unlike previous battles – for voting rights, for property ownership, and the
like – many of the rights women were fighting for by the 1960s had shifted from civil
rights to social ones. “[T]heir demands led beyond equal rights, in formal terms, to a
121
Rodnitzky, x.
Rupp and Taylor, 3.
123
Rupp and Taylor, 6.
122
40
demand for equality of power. Thus they inspired a thorough critique of personal life and
of the subtleties of an oppression that was at once internal and external.”124 In the
countercultural growth of the 1960s, women also found for the first time a new way to
assert their opinions and push for greater change. “[B]efore the women’s liberation
movement of the 1960s, countercultural issues were usually lost in the midst of broader
campaigns which often won real social, political, and economic gains for American
women.”125 By the 1960s, however, women found themselves in a new position, one that
through the decade was carving out a place for them to fight for their rights alone, instead
of identifying with a group whose focus laid elsewhere. “[T]he women’s liberation
movement was initiated by women in the civil rights movement and the new left who
dared to test the old assumptions and myths about female nature against their own
experience and discovered that something was drastically wrong.”126
Despite their equal footing in terms of the basic tenets of freedom, many women
continued to find themselves oppressed and relegated to the Victorian cult of domesticity
– a modern-day reality of lower-paying jobs, fewer opportunities outside the home, a
minute representation in politics at every level, and a social expectation to remain the
primary caregiver for the family. Perhaps more surprisingly, even the women involved in
“progressive” organizations such as the Students for a Democratic Society found
themselves in secondary positions to the men of the group, adding fuel to the fire of
change. In many of these groups, “women radicals are seen as helpmates of radical men
or ‘handmaidens’ of reform” and often “struggled against a false tolerance extended to
women, children, and fools.”127 But sometimes, they were not granted even such a loose
form of respect:
In 1964, some women in SNCC ... met to discuss common problems. The result
was a position paper ‘On the Position of Women in SNCC,’ which argued that
SNCC women were themselves second-class citizens of this civil rights advocacy
group. Women members took the same risks as men. They could be thrown out
of school, arrested, or beaten by police, yet they did not have equal access to
leadership positions. Their jobs were planning meetings, serving refreshments
and cleaning up after meetings – similar to a ladies’ auxiliary. When they
presented the position paper to the SNCC leadership, Stokeley Carmichael, the
national president of SNCC, joked that the only position for women in SNCC was
prone.128
Why did activist organizations, groups based on creating an equal and harmonious
world, groups based on liberty and freedom for all, continue to subvert their own
ideologies by not ensuring that their own female members were granted equal status?
Why did SDS, SNCC, the Black Panthers, and other influential organizations reach out to
others while ignoring the plight of women in their respective communities?
The answer, as always, is not clear-cut, but several reasons stand out as key. The
most relevant to the groups discussed in this thesis is the simple fact that every activist
organization struggled with priorities – in other words, they found themselves unable to
124
Evans, 215.
Rodnitzky, 3.
126
Evans, 212.
127
Rodnitzky, 4.
128
Rodnitzky, 26.
125
41
tackle every social problem at one time, lest they lose their effectiveness in every arena as
a result. This posed problems in many areas, but certainly the potential pains of
prioritizing hit closest to home when women were involved – indeed, many were loyal to
a number of progressive causes and felt burned by the way they were treated despite their
membership. Time and again, women found their needs and, oftentimes, lack of rights to
be placed on the back burner in favor of a greater equality for minority groups and other
more pressing issues. The lack of priority placed on gender equality served to divide
activist groups time and again.
Following the example of the SNCC women, a group of SDS women presented a
position paper on the position of women in SDS. It essentially argued the same
things that SNCC women had charged. SDS women took the same risks as SDS
males but did not share leadership roles. The SDS women were jeered on the
convention platform with a variety of hostile comments. Later SDS leadership
would explain that although women did suffer discrimination as a class, their
problems were minor compared with the problems of blacks, ethnic minorities,
and third world people. Women’s problems would have to wait.129
But the tightrope of prioritizing was not the only factor that played into the
relegation of women’s issues in many activist arenas. Despite the progressive nature of
many of these organizations, many male members still held firm to the intellectual and
“natural” divide between the sexes and propagated such a chasm with their actions.
Often, men reasoned that “[b]ecause women were often considered notoriously fuzzy
thinkers, ruled by runaway emotions, their social critiques need not be taken as
seriously.”130 Naturally, this mindset among their peers angered many activist women
and added more items to their rapidly growing list of grievances within their respective
movements. If women could not be respected by men who were supposedly leftist and
radical, men who were fighting incessantly for change, they reasoned, they would have to
strike out on their own to get the rights – and respect – they so desired.
[W]hite female activists began to question culturally received notions of
femininity as they met powerful, young black women in SNCC and older women
in the black community who were every bit as effective as male organizers and
community leaders. Civil rights activist Dorothy Dawson Burlage explained that
‘[f]or the first time I had role models I could really respect.’ And, later in the
decade, radical women found role models in those Vietnamese and Cuban women
who were playing critical roles in their respective national liberation struggles.131
As with other issues, the shifting ideologies found within the women’s rights
movement made their way en masse to the printed page by the end of the 1960s as more
women became fed up with the societal limitations placed on them, often by their own
neighbors and relatives in the community. The first whispers of women’s rights in the
media came within other, broader activist newspapers such as RAT. In 1968, for
example, RAT ran an article chronicling a 10-member nude protest against Playboy’s
campus representative to a local college. “Molly Malcolm, one of the co-sponsors of the
protest, said they were attacking ‘Playboy’s distorted view of sexuality,’” the story said.
“The dapper Playboy representative only slightly ruffled, remained libertarian to the end:
129
Rodnitzky, 26.
Rodnitzky, 4.
131
Echols, 27.
130
42
‘The only time I object to demonstrations is when they interfere with the speaker.’
Chuckling, he told the group, ‘I think you’re pretty swinging.’”132 The same edition,
however, contained revealing advertisements of “Buxom Ladies” easily rivaling the
Playboy contingency that sparked the protest reported in RAT, thereby solidifying the
notion that though the newspaper reported on certain events, it was not necessarily
encouraging or discouraging them.
In the next few months and years, this mentality changed. No longer did women
relegate themselves to mere stand-alone stories in unaffiliated newspapers. In a 1970
issue of It Ain’t Me Babe, one reporter writes:
If the men [editors of RAT] return to reinstate the porny photos, the sexist comic
strips, the ‘nude-chickie’ covers (along with their patronizing rhetoric about being
in favor of Women’s Liberation) – if this happens, our alternatives are clear. Rat
must be taken over permanently by women – or Rat must be destroyed.133
With that mentality firmly at hand, women took the helm themselves and became
editors, writers, artists, and publishers of their own productions. This mindset emerged
from the knowledge that if they wanted a fair press, they would have to disseminate the
information themselves – and, as many male-owned mainstream newspapers and
magazines would not let them achieve economic parity and equal status, they found that
running their own newspapers would be much more beneficial. “Can a sophisticated,
experienced woman reconcile herself to being a third class citizen in a ‘hip’ publishing
empire?” Barbara Freeman asked in a 1972 issue of Everywoman. “If you’re one of
those women looking forward to a job as editor or reporter, to positions which are more
than shit-work, that involve the mind you’ve learned to use and the imagination you’ve
developed, forget it, because baby there ain’t no place for you out there.”134
In the mainstream world, magazines such as Ms. emerged to take up the banner of
women’s rights. But these polished pieces of journalism belie the raw emotions and
ideologies that were rampant by 1970. Underground newspapers such as Ain’t I A
Woman? and Everywoman began tackling the issues surrounding women’s rights with a
force that reinvigorated the alternative-press community. But even prior to the
emergence of newspapers devoted solely to propelling women’s causes, articles and
pages devoted to gender issues began appearing, perhaps at the behest of female activists,
in other publications not affiliated with “women’s liberation.” For example, by 1968,
The Black Panther and SDS’ New Left Notes had both begun reporting on women’s
issues, however feebly.
With that in mind, however, it is important to note that, as a whole, the socialrights arm of the women’s movement did not blossom until nearly 1970, clearly
illustrating the fact that while the civil-rights movement was arguably in its third
transformation, the modern-day women’s movement was merely in its early stages. Not
quite in infancy and not quite matured, the movement found itself in what could be
considered its rebellious teenage years – seemingly invincible and ready to take on the
world.
And, certainly, the newspapers of the era reflect this. With this in mind, it is
surprising that very little scholarship has tackled the subject of these powerful historical
132
RAT, 1968, Volume I, Issue 29, p. 7.
It Ain’t Me Babe, 1970, Volume I, Issue 5, p. 12.
134
Everywoman, 1972, Issue 31, p. 2.
133
43
tools, for in these publications it is easy to see the ideological shifts that take place within
years – or, often, within months – and gain a perspective on the varied lives led by the
diverse members of the feminist movement. Far beyond Betty Friedan or Gloria
Steinem, through these newspapers it is easy to see the tactics, techniques, and thoughts
employed by a new generation of feminists from coast to coast, and it is fascinating to
watch their ideological transformations as their movement grew. And while observing
their growing collective power, they were forced to confront gender issues that they
would face again and again in the pages of their publications. “Radical women agreed
that they needed to organize separately from men, but they disagreed over the nature and
purpose of the separation. Indeed, was it a separation or was it a divorce that they
wanted?”135 Many newspapers, plagued by the priority problems of the past, attempted to
tackle every subject likely to affect women, from abortion to child-care, racism to
education, the Pill, the Vietnam War, and more.
It is interesting to note that the ideological growth found within the women’s
movement takes a different structure than that of other activist movements of the 1960s
and 1970s. The women’s movement, unlike that of civil rights or antiwar actions, made
ideological strides in a lateral fashion, rather than in a way that was strictly
chronologically hierarchal. “As the groups began to form, differences in style and
ideology also quickly emerged. It could hardly have been otherwise; the left as a whole
was moving into a period of fragmentation, suspicions, and mutual recrimination.”136
Many newspapers emerged in 1970; not many postwar publications solely devoted to
women arose before 1970 or, at least on the liberation front, in the years immediately
following 1970, though many of the ones that did emerge at the start of the decade grew
for years. Also, the public’s interest in women’s-liberation activities grew rapidly by the
end of the 1960s, leading to a veritable explosion in feminist (or, in many cases, antifeminist) sentiment by 1970. “What seems most remarkable, despite the preceding
recitation of abundant long-term and proximate causes for a movement, is the speed with
which the public discourse about women’s issues underwent a transformation in the late
’60s and ’70s.”137 Thus, the shifts made in ideology and organizational growth here are
not longitudinal – that is, they cannot be found in newspapers that succeed their
ideological forefathers (or foremothers, as the case may be), but instead can be charted in
a lateral expansion of thought that came as the newspapers born in and around 1970 grew
and worked to solidify their ideals within the bounds of a fast-paced, shifting society.
Ain’t I A Woman?, emerging in Iowa City in 1970, is a good example of this allinclusive, ideologically growing mindset. The newspaper serves as a nice cross-section
of the thoughts and ideas of the women’s movement and features plenty of activism –
manifesting in protests, workshops, and other forms – as well as ideological essays.
The first issue’s editorial explained why such a newspaper is needed in the
Midwest:
There are special reasons ... why we needed a paper for and by women. All of us
tend not only to be without confidence in this area but also without developed
ability. We need to develop all kinds of abilities and know we have not been able
to do this working jointly with men. We would tend to do mostly routine ... work
135
Echols, 51.
Evans, 211.
137
Matthews, 231.
136
44
even if this wasn’t imposed on us. We would volunteer for it since we don’t feel
the confidence to volunteer for or do more statusy work. Even if the men we
worked with were free from the male chauvinist pig mentality that has intimidated
and humilated [sic.] us all our lives ... we have been conditioned to play our
subordinate role too well and have had too many experiences of seeing ourselves
pitted against each other in some ridiculous, competitive way.138
As did many newspapers of the era, Ain’t I A Woman? tackles a plethora of
issues ranging from abortion (featuring a column by a woman who had undergone a
clandestine abortion south of the U.S.-Mexico border139) to the role of lesbianism in
society (a narrative discussing “how society uses lesbianism to keep women apart” by
reinforcing stigmas associated with physical contact and affection140) to everything in
between. But it is interesting to note that the publication did not ignore other, more
“mainstream” movements, movements that had been growing for the better part of a
decade. Indeed, even in the first issue of Ain’t I A Woman?, the journalists reported on a
student movement at the University of Iowa that fought for various national and
international actions:
Following a week of window smashing, mass rallies, and the burning of the old
armory building, students at the Univ. of Iowa voted to strike under the following
demands: (1) U.S. out of Indo-China now, (2) An end to all political repression,
(3) An end to all racist attacks on black people especially the Black Panther Party;
and an end to sexism (the exploitation of women), (4) The abolishment of ROTC
and all military recruitment on this campus, (5) The punishment by law of police
who assaulted students, especially the police who shot at the four blacks, (6) The
granting of amnesty for all persons protesting American’s Aggressive War in
southeast Asia, (7) The Tuesday, May 12 meeting of faculty senate on the status
of ROTC must have 10 student representatives. Roll call vote published, (8) All
university employees affected by the strike be paid for lost wages.141
This kind of coverage, accompanied by stories of recent student riots and other
forms of protest, illustrated perfectly that the women’s movement was not nearly ready to
detach itself wholly from the movements that spawned it. In time, this sentiment would
change, but in the late 1960s and the early days of the 1970s, women had not quite
reached the point of leaving their activist comfort zones – though how they integrated
their new, more liberated self-image with that of their activist male counterparts and, as
well, their female protégés who still remained loyal to their initial civil-rights and antiwar
organizations proved to be a tricky subject to work through.
Ain’t I A Woman? served as a great launchpad for the alternative media of the
movement, even alleging that other underground newspapers were virtually the same sort
of medium as the more mainstream publications: “Ain’t I A Woman and many other
publications by sisters around the country began as we felt a need for alternative media.
We have to communicate without the constraints of the pig press where we’ve always
had our page for recipes, fashions and advice on how to please a man.”142 With such
138
Ain’t I A Woman?, 1970, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 2.
Ain’t I A Woman? 1970, Volume I, Issue 1.
140
Ain’t I A Woman? 1970, Volume I, Issue 1.
141
Ain’t I A Woman?, 1970, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 4.
142
Ain’t I A Woman?, 1971, Volume I, Issue 2, p. 8.
139
45
succinct language – the theme of which can be found throughout each edition – the
editors and writers carved out a need for themselves as forerunners of a new generation
of liberation, one that did not stretch out solely across races and religions and
nationalities, but across gender, as well.
It is important to note, however, that though the women’s rights movement sought
to correct many of the problems left unaddressed by other activist movements of the
generation, it was not without its exclusionary flaws. “Most of the women in women’s
liberation groups were white women,” said Johnnie Tillmon in 1991. “The women’s
liberation part, they don’t want to wear no bras, they don’t want to wear no girdles, they
was concerned about men opening the door, that kind of stuff. That isn’t where our heads
were. Our heads were – do we have a door; do we have money to buy a bra to put on ...
Our thing was survival.”143
That said, however, black and white women, as well as other women, did indeed
find common ground. Certainly, white women raised awareness of the need for
continued improvement in race relations. And African American women, for their part,
were not overly antagonistic toward white women by the time the liberation movement
hit its stride. Also, women of the Mexican-American population, another ethnic group
often featured within the pages of newspapers such as Ain’t I A Woman?, often worked
alongside white women to improve work opportunities and conditions as well as broader
social freedoms. But when one considers the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s
and ’70s, one must recognize the differences between white and minority activists of the
era – again, each individual woman, whether black or white, American or Mexican or
Korean, faced the difficulty of prioritizing which freedoms, which civil and social rights,
were of the most importance and therefore must be pursued first.
Indeed, the initial face of the women’s movement was predominantly white, and
because of this, women’s liberationists made very apparent distinctions between their
movement that that of civil rights. This differentiation is interesting for several reasons:
It showed that women’s-rights activists were not making viable attempts to achieve
gender equality across race lines, and it also showed that women viewed their own
struggle for civil rights as a separate fight than that of the popularly known “civil-rights
movement.”
By 1971, Ain’t I A Woman? was beginning to illustrate the feelings of futility –
or, at the very least, frustration – that come with the fight for equality. Like the civilrights movement and, in many ways, the antiwar movement that began before it, the
women’s movement faced a dilemma in how it was to be organized, how it could be most
effective. A mass movement, the staff opined, might cause its own speed bumps on the
road to freedom. Just like the problems faced by the SDS nearly a decade prior,
women’s-liberation activists found that the more people included in the movement, the
more opinions there were, and consequently, the more diversity – and perhaps
divisiveness – of thought. “When the priority in political work becomes that of involving
as many numbers as possible there becomes no way to avoid liberalism and ultrademocracy or the lack of ideological struggle that occur; there becomes no effective way
of working except single issue organizing,” one story read in a January 1971 issue.
143
Naples, 44.
46
We have not as yet come very far in an analysis of how we end our oppression.
We have recognized our position and concluded that we must have a revolution
and have come some way in defining what that revolution must accomplish.
What we have not been able to do is form any kind of analysis on how we get
there. To engage in the ideological struggle to fill the gap between our
recognized position and the revolution we invision [sic.], we see as crucial – more
crucial than the number of women we involve.144
Thus, by 1971, just one year after the emergence of a multitude of newspapers
that focused on women’s liberation as a movement of its own, several media mouthpieces
for the movement faced the same problem their activist predecessors did – how to go
about solving a problem that was so complex, so heavily intertwined with society, that it
was difficult to even measure.
Everywoman, also debuting in 1970, serves as the rougher edge to Ain’t I A
Woman?’s more polished, slightly more professional-looking motif. Like Ain’t I A
Woman?, Everywoman does not mince words when it comes to fighting for women’s
liberation, but it does so in a more raw, disorderly fashion. The newspaper contains
interesting, fairly well-written articles about abortion (including a first-hand account of
an illegal Los Angeles abortion clinic)145, the state of public elementary schools (and their
similarities to harems)146, various peace demonstrations, and more. And that’s just within
the first year.
Like its counterparts, Everywoman encompasses all manner of women’s
liberation topics and promotes the growth and ascension of women in the fight for
equality. But it does so with a harder tone than other publications of the time. Though in
substance Everywoman did not progress much further than the other publications of the
era, in design and visual appeal it portrayed a more urgent, almost painful, veneer.
Indeed, its design belied the future of the movement itself – chaotic, bold, often brazen,
the pagination of the newspaper stretched further than the neater, more upbeat (and, in a
sense, more visually appealing) appearance of newspapers such as Ain’t I A Woman?.
Though somewhat superficial – indeed, the first thing the reader notices when picking up
an edition – the design is an important facet to note when analyzing a newspaper. And in
the case of Everywoman, the design meant more than a mere page layout. Rather, it was
representative of the newspaper’s underlying tone, one that would become much more
apparent in its actual content in upcoming months and years. Incidentally, as the
newspaper aged, its design and content were inversed – the design became more flowery,
more fluid, while the stories focused on harsher topics and were more diverse, ranging
from protests to book reviews to profiles of women within the movement.
The stories in Everywoman also depict a sordid side to the women’s liberation
movement. Details of many problems within the movement mirror those found in SDS
actions and in the civil-rights movement, as well as the antiwar action of the decade. In a
cover story in the July 31, 1970 edition, titled “Spies In Women’s Liberation,” the
reporter chronicled the infiltration of a Marxist women’s study group by a member who
“was sending detailed reports of our meetings in order to continue receiving her stipend”
at Brandeis University. This discovery, the story said, led to fear within the movement
144
Ain’t I A Woman?, 1971, Volume I, Issue 11.
Everywoman, 1970, Volume I, Issue 1, May 8, 1970, p. 1.
146
Everywoman, 1970, Volume I, Issue 1, May 8, 1970, p. 1.
145
47
that perhaps women would face the same difficulties in organizing that other activist
groups had faced. “We are afraid that other such people may be active in the women’s
movement – people connected with university departments which thrive on studies of
movement and left-wing activities,” the story said. “The research that some of us and
others in left movements have done reveals that this information is used at the highest
level to break movements, both in this country and everywhere else in the world.”147
Also, the article revealed another new fear within the movement – that of how its
members should utilize their affiliation with women’s liberation. Obviously not
subscribing to the notion of “Any press is good press,” the article stated:
We are also concerned about the way the issue of women’s liberation is being
used by many people and organizations. For instance, the name of one of our
members was used to endorse a gubernatorial candidate in the South. This was
deceptively acquired, and the effect it had was to give credence to this campaign
as far as other women were concerned. ... This opportunism extends to people
who want to cash in on our movement, by writing books, articles in popular
magazines, becoming ‘stars,’ and has even gone so far as to include efforts to
publish desk calendars, stationery, and even produce such preposterous things as
‘women’s liberation DRESSES!’148
This problem, too, was one previously faced by members of the civil-rights
movement, and while it is a difficult issue to resolve, it also signifies the growth of the
women’s movement in terms of both popularity and political opportunism. For example,
as citizens’ interest in civil rights grew, so did the political promises, however empty or
ultimately fulfilled, made by everyone from presidents to mayors to commissioners in
order to garner the vote of a newly formed bloc. The same can be said at this juncture for
women’s rights. With its growth in terms of public interest came its worth as a political
tool, and with that interest came the potential for misuse. The fact that women’s
newspapers were now facing this problem serves as a testament to its gravity – and a
signifier that the movement was, by mid-1970, growing by leaps and bounds.
Everywoman began 1971 with a fully illustrated front page that featured a
likeness of the Grim Reaper wearing a sash reading “1970” and the New Year’s Baby
with a sash bearing the numerals of the new year. The Grim Reaper held a sign, attached
to its sickle, which reads “EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN.” The baby, representing the
new mindset of the newspaper, held a sign saying, “HUMAN RIGHTS FOR WOMEN.”
Thus, with the dawn of the new year came a new mentality – that before equal civil rights
became an option, women must be granted human respect in its most base form. This is
the path the movement would continue to take, and through its illustration Everywoman
was riding the new wave of ideology.
As success remained elusive, frustration took hold, and many women gave up
while others only got stronger. In one story titled “Movement Farewell,” Anselma
dell’Olio wrote,
I have come to announce my swan-song to the women’s movement. ... And I go
with the sorrow and in the depths of despair known only to those who fall
defeated just a [sic.] they think that victory is in sight. I can think of no greater
cruelty. Disappointment is far too mild a word. I have been destroyed. Defeated
147
148
Everywoman, 1970, Volume I, No. 1, Issue 5, p. 1.
Everywoman, 1970, Volume 1, No. 1, Issue 5, p. 1.
48
by myself, perhaps, with a big push from my sisters in the struggle. I have
decided to speak to you, instead of leaving quietly, in the hopes of preventing
others from being destroyed and defeated as I have been. ... I never dreamed that I
would see the day when this rage, masquerading as a pseudo-egalitarian
radicalism under the ‘pro-woman’ banner, would turn into frighteningly vicious
anti-intellectual fascism of the Left, and used within the movement to strike down
sisters singled out with all the subtlety and justice of a kangaroo court of the Ku
Klux Klan.149
Dell’Olio’s words illustrated the divisiveness within the movement in blatant
form, again mirroring the unrest rampant in the other major activist movements of the
era. What is especially interesting to note in this piece is the fact that the movement
itself, at least in its organized form, was so young, so new; and still many women such as
Dell’Olio already were facing frustration at not gaining ground quickly enough. This
same level of public frustration was not shown in the civil-rights movement for years, but
for these women, many of whom had already spent years working with various activist
groups and facing battle after battle, both against society and within the group itself, the
struggle for rights was lengthier than their newly born movement illustrated.
Two other newspapers that depicted this frustration early on were It Ain’t Me
Babe, published in Berkeley, and Off Our Backs from Washington, D.C. Like their
counterparts, both debuted in 1970, and they continued for quite some time, growing by
leaps and bounds throughout.
It Ain’t Me Babe is a perfect illustration of the way the movement was growing
via expansion, rather than chronologically. Like many of the aforementioned
publications, It Ain’t Me Babe covered the basic tenets and ideals of the women’s
movement, but it also provided its own editorial insight that gave yet another viewpoint
onto the philosophy behind the activism. The fight for women’s liberation, the writers
said, was not just a fight for rights but also a fight for identity.
Quite often members of Women’s Liberation are asked to provide explicit
answers to the male query, ‘what are you trying to be?’ Though it is a question
that will more naturally be defined by involvement than by theory, some basic
attitudes on the part of many women in the movement ought to be publicly
relayed to our supporting brothers as well as to our apprehensive audience of men
and women.150
But what were the activists to do about this? Later in the editorial, the writers
answered:
Like most Black militants, women are refusing to assume the neurotic and
inhuman role that the traditional white male has meant. Too often in both the
history of the feminist and black struggles for liberation, the oppressed have
attempted to assume the identity of the oppressor. It is difficult to avoid this
error, for both our language and our social standards of success and normalcy are
fundamentally created from the point of view of the white male. ... Thus, many
women are seeking to re-define their social identity by experimenting with new
life styles and by assuming new command over their own destiny. No longer will
women accept their role as attractive decoration for a male world. In rejecting our
149
150
Everywoman, 1971, Volume I, No. 1, p. 12.
It Ain’t Me Babe, 1970, Volume 1, No. 2.
49
traditional status as sexual objects, we affirm ourselves as individuals, who, like
men, are sexual beings.151
These kinds of analyses are found within many editions of It Ain’t Me Babe. In
many issues, one page was dedicated to a portion of the ideology behind the women’s
movement, ranging from definitions of the movement to the expectations of women’srights activists. This thorough exploration into the main facets of the movement shows
an expansion of consciousness and awareness within the movement itself; like the civilrights and antiwar movements before it, the women’s-liberation arena found itself in a
much more self-reflective place, one that lent itself much more readily to analysis.
Off Our Backs, like its ideological compatriots, focused on many aspects of the
women’s movement and tackled feminist issues such as the Pill, abortions, the Equal
Rights Amendment, and updates on legal cases surrounding women. But it took a step
further from many other publications by covering environmental issues, printing columns
promoting and lambasting politicians, and reporting on the state of American institutions
such as health care and medicine. Too, Off Our Backs brought with it a longevity many
of the other publications did not possess – indeed, the newspaper stayed afloat until well
into the 1980s. With this longevity came a unique insight into the progression of the
women’s movement on many different fronts, and it gave a truly broad illustration of the
shifts in ideology the activists encountered. “We are building a movement so that we
may be freed from myth and prejudice,” Barbara Burris wrote in the first edition’s
editorial on Feb. 27, 1970. “This movement seeks to understand itself and to build pride
and courage by reaching back to claim as its own its long ignored and supressed [sic.]
history.”152 Off Our Backs, through its long-running reign, was able to help chronicle this
foray into uncharted territory and, ultimately, served as an indicator of whether these
initial goals were reached.
One interesting facet of Off Our Backs that is not seen explicitly in other
publications is the “how-to” articles that were peppered throughout the newspapers. In
the March 19, 1970, edition, for instance, the editors feature a full-page story on how to
change a tire, complete with illustrations and basic instructions. “Changing a tire is a
simple and gratifying task which has generally been left to men for cultural, not physical
reasons,” the story said. “It requires about the same energy output as shoveling snow,
and only a little more knowledge.”153 Stories such as this one, while seemingly simplistic
in content and nature, carried with them a weightier signification. By publishing these
kinds of articles, the editors lived up to the credo of their movement and, instead of
merely publishing columns and editorials urging the empowerment of women, they
worked to empower women by giving them alternatives to reliance on the maledominated culture. Stories such as “On the road” gave women much more instruction
than merely how to change a tire quickly; rather, they gave women the information
needed to rely on themselves, not a husband, father, brother, or good Samaritan man.
Incidentally, the how-to articles did not focus solely on the standard “masculine”
realms, such as automotives or athletics. Many editions also ran how-tos that benefited
women on a much more personal level. Even in the very first issues of Off Our Backs,
editors ran features on how to administer various contraceptive techniques, including
151
It Ain’t Me Babe, 1970, Volume 1, No. 2, p. 2.
Off Our Backs, 1970, Volume I, No. 1.
153
Off Our Backs, 1970, Volume I, No. 2.
152
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illustrations and lengthy directions for use. This kind of feature continued to urge the
empowerment of women by allowing them to take control of their own bodies, and the
directions and explanations offered within the articles helped give them the confidence
and skill to do so.
Off Our Backs also chronicled actions and events surrounding other newspapers
and forms of media aimed at women, including attacks on the mainstream media by
women’s liberation activists who were frustrated by the oppression they saw in many
mainstream newspapers and magazines. The April 11, 1970, issue, for example, reported
on a demonstration at the offices of Ladies Home Journal:
Over one hundred radical women stormed into the magazine’s editorial offices on
March 18th to give substance to the slogan [‘Never Underestimate the Power of a
Woman’], by demanding a liberated issue of the magazine to be done by the
women. The protesters also demanded a monthly column, day care centers and
training courses for the Journal’s women employees, an end to degrading and
exploitive advertising, and role-reinforcing articles supporting the ‘feminine
mystique.’ Startled by the tactics of women from NOW, the Feminists, Media
Women, Redstockings, and the New York Radical Feminists, who occupied his
office for a full day and smoked his cigars; editor and publisher John Mack Carter
agreed to let the women do a supplement to a regular issue.154
Articles such as this one are important when observing the women’s movement
because they depict the actual goings-on within the activists’ circles themselves, rather
than mere hearsay or accounts well after the fact. Throughout the movement, the women
who reported on the events they witnessed were also often part of those events, and while
their participation prohibits their accounts from being completely detached and unbiased,
the tradeoff is more than fair when one takes into account the fact that their very
participation in such events allowed them to delve as deeply into issues as they did. In
fact, their participation in the activist arenas of the time provided them the same sort of
inside knowledge as did the “embedded” journalists in the 2003 war in Iraq. Sometimes,
one must forsake unbiased reporting in search of what a publication perceives as the
truth, and the reporters for the alternative women’s press recognized this.
However, the staff of Off Our Backs was quick to assure its readers that not all
stories printed in the alternative press, however radical, were designed to merely inform,
to chronicle a movement. An article in the April 25, 1970, issue read:
Now that women’s liberation is part of ‘the movement’, like Time and
Newsweek, underground papers are all stepping on each others’ toes to print
women’s copy – not because it’s a significant addition to revolutionary theory,
but because it sells papers and gives the women their thing. We are naive to think
this patronizing is a significant step toward the elimination of male supremacy in
the movement. They could give a damn for our coverage! It’s used for their own
ends. ... In past months most undergrounds have had either special supplements
on women’s liberation or some articles about our movement. The most honest
say they’ve done this for one of three reasons: women’s liberation boosts sales, it
protects the paper (i.e. men) against charges of male supremacy, or some women
have waged a real struggle to get to do their supplement. All of these reasons
154
Off Our Backs, 1970, Volume I, Issue 3, p. 6.
51
underline the fact that women’s liberation is about as welcome for serious
political coverage as Ann Landers’ column would be.155
This analysis of the state of the underground, “progressive” press shows
tremendous awareness on the part of the Off Our Backs staff – a consciousness that was
not seen nearly as deeply in most of the other women’s rights publications of the era.
Also interesting in this analysis is the idea that while any coverage whatsoever was
welcomed at the end of the 1960s, by the beginning of the 1970s members of the
women’s liberation front were becoming much more discerning when it came to their
portrayal via the standard underground media outlets. This change of heart and mind can
be attributed at least in part to a growing awareness that, despite their best efforts, women
fell prey to a patriarchal society in myriad subtle and nondescript ways, and that in order
to shield this vulnerability, they must not allow themselves to be waylaid – and hence
taken advantage of – by the press.
Perhaps a factor in the publication’s longevity, the foresight and analysis shown
by Off Our Backs is what truly sets it apart from other newspapers and, in turn, is a
determining factor in the growth and management of the movement itself. While many
women lashed out at the most obvious forms of exploitation or took up the banner of the
typical issues, such as abortion or the Pill, the staff of Off Our Backs saw much further
than that and, while continuing to report on those matters, also turned its attention to the
more seemingly elusive aspects of the movement, the underlying treatment of women by
men and by society in general. From ecology’s impact on women to the state of the
underground press, from comic books to popular music, Off Our Backs deviated from the
normal fodder for journalistic reports and instead forged new ground as an alternative
publication, making connections other newspapers never seemed to find. This expansion
of ideological conceptualism serves as a signifier of the growth – not necessarily shifts,
but true and uninhibited growth – of the women’s movement as a whole.156
Certainly, the women’s movement continued to grow extensively throughout the
1970s, picking up victories and stomaching social defeats all the while. But the rampant
ideological growth that took place within the confines of only a couple of years –
particularly 1970 and 1971 – is what is most noticeable. While other activist movements
grew upward, changing and molding with the passing years, the women’s movement
started out fragmented, balancing theoretical social models with all-out action, and grew
in ideologies and in strength in many different regions, both physical and figurative – as
seen by the women’s newspapers emerging at the time – to become one force. Though
like their counterparts in other movements, members on the forefront of women’s
liberation did not always agree on how to move forward in society, they showed a
155
Off Our Backs, 1970, Volume I, No. 4, p. 5.
More than a decade later, in 1985, Off Our Backs continued to produce newspaper editions, even
maintaining the same design style as the original issues. These 1980s issues held true to the newspaper’s
original intent and continued to report on legal cases, crime (such as abortion-clinic bombings and the like),
and politics (such as the decisions and actions of President Reagan). What is most interesting is the
historical context and links between the initial issues in 1970 and those of 1985 – while women had made
many strides in terms of social and cultural acceptance, breaking through to previously off-limits jobs and
newer legal provisions (such as Roe v. Wade), much remained the same. Reading an issue from 1984 or
1985 was often like reading an issue from 1971. The names, faces, and locations may have changed, but
Off Our Backs assured its readers that there was much work left to be done.
156
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remarkable external cohesiveness that other movements, such as the fight for civil rights,
did not express nearly so clearly.
This cohesion, in turn, depicts not only a growing movement, but also a growing
ideology in the nature of movements as a whole. “The new movement of women
reflected both the weaknesses and the strengths of the background from which it came.
Yet for all its problems, the women’s liberation movement was infused with a vitality
that was rapidly ebbing in other parts of the left. The tide was at flood.”157 Indeed, the
women’s movement portrayed itself as a new kind of activism, one that saved the infighting for behind the scenes and showed a unified face to the world. Unlike the civilrights movement, where one ideology was taken over, often with hostility, by another, or
even the antiwar movement, where ideas of governmental rule and demonstrative
measures openly ran the gamut, the women’s movement proved strong, resilient, and, in
time, successful – indeed, more successful than that of civil rights or war protestations.
What one sees in the women’s movement, especially through the lens of the newspapers
of the era, is a shifting ideology in terms of activism as a whole – and, at the dawn of a
new decade, with the slate figuratively wiped clean from the tumultuous 1960s, such a
shift is quite appropriate.
157
Evans, 211.
53
CONCLUSION
In the beginning, the chronicling of the ideological shifts in various social
movements of the 1960s looked to be a fairly easy, though time-consuming, task. But
after months of research, of combing through various underground periodicals from the
era and paying particular attention to each writer’s views, biases, and ideologies, the task
of compiling this information, of creating a detailed timeline of the shifts from words to
movement, from a base in ideology to a base in action, has proven itself time and again to
be one of surprising twists and turns.
The first revelation of the project, encountered early on, centered on the notion of
these timelines themselves. So often history paints a portrait of a smooth transition from
one ideology to another – from segregation to integration, from war to peace, from social
subordination to equal rights. But, as the newspaper accounts of the era prove, this view
of history is decidedly misguided. Indeed, nothing came easy for these activists; each
group fought an often-frustrating battle to change American society from what it was to
what it could be. And, along the way, these activist groups fractured, splitting off into
dozens of directions with dozens of agendas and plans of action. Thus, while SNCC and
the Black Panthers were each striving for the same ultimate goal – rights for African
Americans – they did so with a gulf of differences. The same is true for all the major
movements of the decade. While, in the end, one can pinpoint various historical facts
that help anchor an overall timeline, in the heat of the 1960s such data was not so clear.
And the clarity many of these activists lacked within that decade leads to the conclusion
that history is not so methodical, after all, but instead is chaotic, disorganized, and
oftentimes uncertain, even years later.
The second revelation gained through this project also centers on timelines. So
often, historians are wont to focus solely on one of the activist movements of the 1960s,
seemingly overlooking other events of the decade that could perhaps be catalysts or
results of a particular movement’s actions. This is not a useful way of looking at history.
Rather, this project has solidified my belief in the interconnectedness of events and
groups, even in ways that are not readily apparent at first. The antiwar movement, the
civil-rights movement, and the women’s movement all are connected through names and
faces, events, activist tactics, and sometimes resources. This mentality is illustrated quite
clearly within the alternative newspapers of the era – certainly, the bylines and subjects
showing up in a newspaper for one movement often echo those showing up in other
publications. This interconnectedness led to a strengthening of all movements; the ability
to learn from others’ successes and mistakes boosted each larger activist group’s
54
effectiveness and ability to work within the shifting confines of an ever-changing
America.
And, finally, the third revelation stemming from this research was the notion of
personality within each movement – or, often, within facets of each movement. Through
these newspapers, the activist movements history depicts as cohesive units were actually
rarely so; rather, the activists themselves encountered problems dealing with one another
and working together on one set plan. This too explains the fragmentation of the
movements and groups. The underground newspapers published in the 1950s through the
early 1970s were teeming with the personalities of the generation, and it is only natural
that these diverse personalities would be prone to collision. This in-fighting often
harmed the larger movement – after all, if these groups could not achieve their goals of
harmony and unity within their small organizations, they might have a hard time
convincing American society to take part in the peacemaking – but it also brought some
surprising benefits. The women’s movement emerged from the ashes of SDS, SNCC,
and other like-minded groups that were not devoting enough time to women’s issues, and
through the activists’ previous experience with these groups they were better able to
propel their own movement toward perhaps a greater success. This shift in priorities and
creation of new activist groups is seen time and again throughout the alternative press.
The chronicling of the ideological shifts that took place within the 1960s was a
fascinating project to undertake. The underground newspapers of the decade were
teeming with life, energy, and solid ideas for a chaotic age, and this medium was an
enlightening way in which to study the 1960s.
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REFERENCES
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Ann Arbor Argus. Volumes I-II. Ann Arbor, Mich., 1969-1971.
Black Liberator. Volume I. Chicago, 1969.
Black Panther, The. Volumes I-XI. San Francisco, 1967-1974.
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Bloom, Alexander, and Breines, Wini, eds. Takin’ it to the Streets: A Sixties Reader.
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Chatfield, Charles. The American Peace Movement: Ideals and Activism. New York:
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Despite Everything. Volumes I-IV. Berkeley, California, 1963-1969.
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Heineman, Kenneth J. Campus Wars: The Peace Movement at American State
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Hope Nelson, 23, is a native of Tallahassee and a copy editor at the Tallahassee
Democrat. A longtime professional writer and editor, her work has been published in a
variety of publications, ranging from music magazines to anthologies on the culture of
North Florida.
She graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in English from Florida
State University in 2002 and wishes to continue her education at the doctoral level. She
enjoys teaching and would like to continue in the education field.
Currently, Ms. Nelson lives in Tallahassee with her fiance, Michael Pope, and
their cat, Lucky.
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