RAT Subterranean News, February 6-23, 1970
New Left
RAT Subterranean News was published in New York, starting in March of 1968 and was edited by Jeff Shero, Alice Embree and Gary Thiher, who had come North from Austin, Texas, where they worked on The Rag, another important underground paper. Whereas the East Village Other represented the counterculture point of view, RAT had a left political orientation. In early 1970, women’s liberation activists took over RAT and turned it into a women-only periodical to challenge sexism within the New Left. This issue is the first after the take-over of RAT and covers a wide range of topics, including Afeni Shakur and the Panther 21; letters to the editor; women’s take-over of RAT; feminist critique of the New Left; the ambush of New York police in Harlem; the emergence of strong women leadership in the Weather Underground; Kathleen Cleaver in Algeria; sabotage; theft and activism; Boston students protesting a lecture by S.I. Hayakawa; Berkeley women take-over of karate class; a Gay Liberation Front protest at a San Francisco radio station; gas masks; women challenging doctors on abortion; sex and sexism; “Are Men Really the Enemy?” exam; John Sinclair release from prison; Palestinian women and armed struggle in Jordan; obscenity trial against Che; women in China; a Stockton, California, housewives strike; poetry; film review of “Prologue…”
R.A.T. Publications, Inc
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
February 6-23, 1970
underground press
Revolution Revolution - Eldridge Cleaver for President
Black Power
In 1966, Detroit cultural radicals, Allen Van Newkirk, John Sinclair and Gary Grimshaw created Guerrilla, “a monthly newspaper of contemporary kulchur” and “weapon of cultural warfare.” The newspaper was a part of a larger project, the Detroit Artists Workshop, which was formed in 1964, “a local attempt in self-determination for artists of all disciplines.” Guerrilla mixed “humor, politics and music under the circus big top of surrealism and pop culture.” It was primarily a cultural review and included an international artistic perspective. Soon after its first issue appeared, Van Newkirk, who was an revolutionary anarchist with an antipathy for the hippie counterculture and slackers, split with the Detroit Artists Workshop and fired Sinclair, who was more aligned with the hippie counterculture. Despite their ideological and political differences, the two, in fact, continued to work together on Guerrilla, though Van Newkirk’s vision predominated. In subsequent issues, Van Newkirk included a series of oversized political posters, including this one.
The text on this poster reads: "A Rule Of Thumb Of Revolutionary Politics / Is That No Matter How Oppressive The Ruling Class May Be / No Matter How Impossible The Task Of Making / Revolution / May Seem / The Means Of Making That / Revolution / Are Always At Hand." At the center is information on a publication, Guerrilla with the quote "our purpose in entering the political arena / is to send the jackass back to the farm and the elephant back to the zoo." At the bottom is "Eldridge / Cleaver / For President / Minister of information/Black Panther Party".
Eldridge Cleaver was the controversial "Minister of Information" for the Black Panther Party. Cleaver, who edited the Black Panther Party newspaper, is credited with crafting a more radical and incendiary public rhetoric for the organization. His 1968 book, Soul On Ice, was a best-seller, simultaneously praised and condemned, and much-debated. Cleaver was the presidential candidate for the Peace & Freedom Party in 1968, earning .05% of the vote. Following a deadly altercation with Oakland police that same year, Cleaver fled the United States, first to Cuba, then to Algeria and ultimately France, before he returned to the United States in 1975. An ideological split between Cleaver and party co-founder, Huey Newton, led to Cleaver's ouster from the party. Following his exile, Eldridge Cleaver became a born-again Christian, dabbling in a variety of different denominations. He also participated in conservative politics through the Republican Party. Cleaver died in 1998.
Guerilla: Free Newspaper of the Streets
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1968
poster
Right On!
Black Panther Party
Right On! was published by the Revolutionary Peoples Communications Network and the Black Community News Service of the Black Panther Party. This issue includes articles about Attica Prison Rebellion; Eldridge Cleaver and Algeria; the murder of George Jackson; the aftermath of San Quentin; prison resistance by Afeni Shakur; the murder of Leroy King; police shoot-out in Detroit; slumlords; the Black Liberation Army; police repression against Black Panthers in New Jersey; political corruption in New Jersey; Black Liberation Army in Los Angeles; Free Food Program; welfare; prison and trial news; capitalism, dope and genocide; international acts; on Revolutionary Justice; voodoo in the black community; cartoons; poetry and the Ten-Point Program.
Black Community News Service
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
September 15-30, 1971
underground press