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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School

2004 Activism amid a Chaotic Era: The of the 1960S Hope Nelson

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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 ...... 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 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 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 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 mid- century. 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 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 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. 3 Kessler, 156. 4 Spates, 877. 5 Free Student, volume unknown, issue 1, p. 13.

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 , 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 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. 8 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 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 “” at all.

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 Peck, 38. 12 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 “,” 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 , 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 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 Spigel, 37. 14 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. 16 Sellers, 46. 17 The Movement, 1965, Volume I, Issue 4, p. 3.

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 civil- rights mindsets, were available among various cities and social groups. One of these was Harambee, which debuted in 1967 and arose from , California. A newspaper chronicling the actions and injustices faced by African Americans in the face of an ever- changing 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 . 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. 19 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.

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 civil- rights 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. 23 Harambee, 1967, Volume II, Issue 2, p. 6. 24 Sellers, 183.

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. 26 Harambee, 1967, Volume II, Issue 2, p. 2. 27 Meier, Bracey, and Rudwick, 230.

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. 29 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.

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 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-on- black, 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 . 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. 33 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.

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. Stage- managed 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. 38 The Black Panther, 1967, Volume I, Issue 5, p. 1. 39 The Black Panther, 1967, Volume I, Issue 5, p. 2.

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. 41 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.

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 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 , 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. 45 Ann Arbor Argus, 1969, undated volume, p. 6. 46 Ann Arbor Argus, 1969, undated volume, p. 15.

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, 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. 48 Ann Arbor Argus, 1969, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 2. 49 Black Politics, 1968, Volume I, Issue 1, p. i.

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 , 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- 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. 51 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.

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. 56 The Inner City Voice, 1968, Volume I, Issue 8, p. 9. 57 The Inner City Voice, 1968, Volume I, Issue 8, p. 11.

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 civil- rights 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. 59 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.

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 Spigel, Chapter 1. 63 Chatfield, 117.

24 variety of outlets, the 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 since its genesis in World War II, and consequently took up most of its concerns – utopianism, , 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. 65 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.

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 ‘non- violent movement’ and others have dubbed the ‘beat .’”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. 74 Wittner, 238. 75 Wittner, 267.

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 troop- based 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. 77 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.

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. 82 Despite Everything, 1963, Volume I, Issue 1, pp. 16-20. 83 Despite Everything, 1965, Volume II, Issue 4, p. 1.

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. 85 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.

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. 90 The Partisan, 1965, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 13. 91 The Partisan, 1965, Volume I, Issue 1, p. 15.

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 African- American 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. 93 The Partisan, 1967, Volume III, Issue 1, p. 22. 94 The Partisan, 1969, Volume V, Issue 1, p. 17.

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, 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. 96 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.

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. 100 Lewes, 9. 101 Lewes, 52.

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. 103 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.

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 , 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. 109 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.

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 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. 114 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 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.

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. 119 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.

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. 122 Rupp and Taylor, 3. 123 Rupp and Taylor, 6.

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. 125 Rodnitzky, 3. 126 Evans, 212. 127 Rodnitzky, 4. 128 Rodnitzky, 26.

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 . 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. 130 Rodnitzky, 4. 131 Echols, 27.

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 social- rights 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. 133 It Ain’t Me Babe, 1970, Volume I, Issue 5, p. 12. 134 Everywoman, 1972, Issue 31, p. 2.

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, anti- feminist) 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 all- inclusive, 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. 136 Evans, 211. 137 Matthews, 231.

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. 139 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.

45 succinct – 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 civil- rights 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 ultra- democracy 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. 145 Everywoman, 1970, Volume I, Issue 1, May 8, 1970, p. 1. 146 Everywoman, 1970, Volume I, Issue 1, May 8, 1970, p. 1.

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 Everywoman, 1970, Volume I, No. 1, Issue 5, p. 1. 148 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 .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 Everywoman, 1971, Volume I, No. 1, p. 12. 150 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’s- rights activists. This thorough exploration into the main facets of the movement shows an expansion of consciousness and awareness within the movement itself; like the civil- rights 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 male- dominated 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. 152 Off Our Backs, 1970, Volume I, No. 1. 153 Off Our Backs, 1970, Volume I, No. 2.

50 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. 156 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.

52 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 in- fighting for behind the scenes and showed a unified face to the world. Unlike the civil- rights 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.

55 REFERENCES

Ain’t I A Woman? Volumes I-IV. Iowa City, Iowa, 1970-1974.

The Ally. Volumes not available. Berkeley, California, 1968-1970.

The American Exile in Canada. Volumes I-V. Toronto, 1968-1975.

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.

Black Politics. Volumes I-II. Berkeley, California, 1968-1969.

Bloom, Alexander, and Breines, Wini, eds. Takin’ it to the Streets: A Sixties Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Chatfield, Charles. The American Peace Movement: Ideals and Activism. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992.

Despite Everything. Volumes I-IV. Berkeley, California, 1963-1969.

Echols, Alice. Daring to Be Bad. : University of Minnesota Press, 1989.

Evans, Sara. Personal Politics. New York: Vintage Books, 1979.

Everywoman. Volumes I-III. Los Angeles, 1970-1972.

Foley, Michael S. Confronting the War Machine: Draft Resistance During the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Hagan, John. Northern Passage: American Vietnam War Resisters in Canada. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001.

Harambee. Volume II. Los Angeles, 1967.

56 Heineman, Kenneth J. Campus Wars: The Peace Movement at American State Universities in the Vietnam Era. New York: 1993.

Hixson, Walter L., ed. The Vietnam Antiwar Movement. New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 2000.

The Inner City Voice. Volumes I-II. Detroit, 1968-1969.

It Ain’t Me Babe. Volumes I-V. Berkeley, California, 1970.

Kessler, Lauren. The Dissident Press. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1984.

Lewes, James. Protest and Survive. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2003.

Liberation. Volumes I-XX. New York, 1956-1977.

Matthews, Glenna. The Rise of Public Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Meier, August; Bracey, John Jr.,; Rudwick, Elliot. Black Protest in the Sixties. New York: Markus Wiener Publishing, Inc., 1991.

Miller, James. Democracy is in the Streets. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994.

Naples, Nancy A. Community Activism and Feminist Politics. New York: Routledge, 1998.

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Peck, Abe. Uncovering the Sixties: The Life and Times of the Underground Press. New York: Citadel Press, 1991.

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Rodnitzky, Jerry L. Feminist Phoenix: The Rise and Fall of a Feminist Counterculture. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999.

57 Rupp, Leila J., and Taylor, Verta. Survival in the Doldrums. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Sellers, , with Robert Terrell. The River of No Return: The Autobiography of a Black Militant and the Life and Death of SNCC. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990.

Spates, James L. “Counterculture and Dominant Culture Values: A Cross-National Analysis of the Underground Press and Dominant Culture Magazines.” American Sociological Review. Volume 41, No. 5, October 1976, pp. 868-883.

Spigel, Lynn. Welcome to the Dreamhouse. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.

The Movement. Volumes 1-6. San Francisco, 1965-1970.

Wittner, Lawrence S. The American Peace Movement, 1941-1960. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969.

58 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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