Up From the Bottom, Vol. 1, No. 1
Anti-War Movement
First issue of Up From the Bottom. a G.I. Anti-War newspaper published in San Diego by active duty service members, veterans and their dependents. This issue includes content about a boycott of Tyrrell's Jeweler; the Farm Workers' Strike in San Diego; Nixon's military pay freeze; the case of a female service member held on the Constellation; comics; a reflection by a service member on a nuclear submarine; civil disturbance training in San Mateo; Article 138; George Jackson; counseling services; CIA counter-insurgency; drug abuse; the case of Marvin Jones; the case of Raymond "Charlie" Brown; astride at the Rohr plant in Chula Vista; racism in the labor movement; boycott of Mr. Dependable's; alliance with Vietcong.
Up From the Bottom
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
September 1971
newspaper
Viva La Huelga (1 image)
Farm Workers Movement
An image of two Mexican-American children in Edinburg, Texas, resting on a car with a United Farm Workers bumper sticker.
Roz Payne
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s or early-1970s
SDS National Conference in Austin (17 images)
New Left
Like many campuses, the University of Texas at Austin saw an increase in student activism and protest during the mid- and late-1960s. The student Free Speech Movement, anti-war activism, African American and Latino student protest, women’s liberation organizing and the counterculture were all present. White New Left activism was particularly significant, with UT being an important site of what came to be known as “Prairie Power,” a faction within Students for a Democratic Society that was critical of the national office and advocated a more decentralized structure for the organization and a greater emphasis on campus organizing and the war in Vietnam. Jeff Shero, Thorne Dreyer, Carol Neiman, Gary Thiher, Alice Embree, Grace Cleaver, Robert Pardun, Larry Jackson and Greg Calvert were all notable Texas New Left activists. Austin was also home of The Rag, which author John McMillian called “a spirited, quirky, and humorous paper, whose founders pushed the New Left's political agenda even as they embraced the counterculture's zeal for rock music, psychedelics, and personal liberation.” Former Rag staffer, Alice Embree, remembered, "The Rag covered what was not covered by the 'straight' press. The writers participated in the political and cultural uprising and also wrote about it. And they told you where to get a chicken dinner for 35 cents." White student activists at UT were increasingly working with black and Latino activists, enlisted military soldiers at Fort Hood and the local labor movement. According to historian, Beverly Burr, student activists, “tied many issues together in a comprehensive critique of the American government, the economic system and socialization.”
Between 1967 and 1969, the relationship between student activists and the university administration became increasingly contentious. In May of 1967, six student activists were censured for their role in an anti-war protest that disrupted a visit by Vice-President Hubert Humphrey. The following year, the administration fired, Professor Larry Caroline, who served as the faculty adviser for SDS, after he told a group of anti-war protesters that only revolution would bring a solution to racism and militarism in the U.S. Caroline had also led a successful effort to integrate the faculty lounge, supported African American activist and graduate student, Larry Jackson, and pushed for other structural reforms at the university that rankled not only administrators, but also some of his fellow faculty members. These conflicts raised a variety of issues related to free speech and academic freedom. At the same time, African American and Latino students demanded a series of reforms, including the creation of Black Studies and Chicano Studies programs. Countering the rising tide of student militancy, the state legislature and university Board of Regents passed new “disruptive activities” bills in early 1969, hoping to head off upcoming protests by black, Chicano and anti-war campus activists. Beverly Burr explained, “The bill basically prohibits pickets, strikes, sit-ins, and anything the university deems ‘disruptive to administrative, educational or other authorized activity.’” The Regents also refused a request by SDS to hold their national convention at the Student Union, announcing "we are not about to let the university be used by subversives and revolutionaries." A March 1969 article in The Rag quoted President, Norman Hackerman, claiming SDS’s "intention of destroying the American educational system" and a lack of meaningful educational purpose for the decision by the Board of Regents. Following legal wrangling, the SDS National Convention ultimately took place at the Catholic Student Center and was attended by more than 800 activists. Beyond the conflict with university officials, the 1969 SDS gathering was notable for the growing factionalization within the group. Burr wrote, “A ten-point proposal for the liberation of schools was passed which called for among others: an end to the tracking system, an end to flunkouts and disciplinary expulsions, a new teaching of history in such a way as to truly expose the injustice of 'this racist, capitalist society' and support for the Black Panthers.”
Roz Payne
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1969
New Left Notes, vol. 1, no. 29, August 5, 1966
New Left
New Left Notes was the official newspaper published by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). This issue includes articles about the upcoming SDS national convention in Clear Lake, Iowa; a debate over electoral politics and the National Council for a New Politics; a burglary at the Chicago headquarters of the DuBois Clubs of America; definitions of radicalism; an update from the Iowa City chapter; a discussion of the intersection of race and poverty and ERAP; a response to a previous article on the Communist Convention; SDS and ideology; “derisive terminology”; the radical tradition in America; the “crisis of Cold War ideology”; an Cleveland gathering of anti-war groups; “representative democracy” vs. “referendum democracy”; recent racial conflict on Chicago’s West Side; an upcoming Socialist Scholars Conference; grape strike; SSOC; a response to a critique of the New Left by Tom Kahn; letters to the editor.
Students for a Democratic Society
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
August 5, 1966
underground press
New Left Notes, vol. 1, no. 17, May 13, 1966
New Left
New Left Notes was the official newspaper published by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). This issue includes articles about upcoming demonstrations against Vietnam draft tests on campuses; local updates; grape strike; National Council minutes; JOIN Community Union; MFDP summer recruiting; Southern Courier recruitment.
Students for a Democratic Society
Bruce Pech
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
May 13, 1966
underground press
New Left Notes, vol. 1, no. 36, September 23, 1966
New Left
New Left Notes was the official newspaper published by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). This issue includes articles about anti-draft organizing; the Clear Lake National Convention; financing a movement; SDS at University of Kentucky; National Council Resolutions; National Secretary’s Report; paranoid politics; SDS and electoral politics; merger of National Farm Worker’s Union and AFL-CIO; Radical Education Project (REP) report; Student Un-American Activities Committee at San Jose State College; Inter-University Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy; JOIN Community Union; literature list; letters to the editor.
Students for a Democratic Society
Bruce Pech
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
September 23, 1966
underground press
Akwesasne Notes, vol. 5, no. 2, Early Spring (April) 1973
American Indian Movement
Akwesasne Notes was a newspaper founded in 1969, amid a surge in Native American activism, by Ernest Benedict of the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne, which straddles the U.S. and Canadian border along the St. Lawrence River. The paper, which continued publication through the mid-1990s, became the largest and most influential Native American newspaper in the world. Editors explained the purpose of the newspaper: "Akwesasne Notes supports the efforts of people to re-investigate their own processes of survival - their culture. We are advocates of social justice processes which focus on reuniting people with their community and their land base, and which attempts to resist the exploitation of land, animal, water, and human beings." (volume 16, number 4)
This issue of Akwesasne Notes focuses on the first month of the occupation of Wounded Knee. In February of 1973, more than 200 Native American activists, many members of the Oglala Sioux people, led by members of the American Indian Movement, including Russell Means (Oglala Sioux) and Carter Camp (Ponca), began an occupation of Wounded Knee, a town on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The group opposed the tribal administration of Richard Wilson and protested the failure of the U.S. government to live up to its treaty obligations. Wounded Knee also had tremendous symbolic importance, as it was the site of an 1890 massacre of 150-300 Native Americans by U.S. military forces. The activists occupied Wounded Knee for 71 days, exchanging regular gunfire with U.S. Marshalls, FBI agents and other law enforcement. The occupation attracted international media attention, as well as broad support from other New Left activists and organizations, brought the struggles of Native people to a wider popular audience and helped spur further activism among indigenous people. A.I.M. leaders, Dennis Banks and Russell Means were indicted on criminal charges related to the occupation, but, ultimately, those charges were dismissed in a federal court, citing prosecutorial misconduct.
Articles include first-hand reports from the occupation, broader historical context related to Wounded Knee and the Pine Ridge Reservation and reprints of editorials about the occupation. In addition, articles explore police harassment, intimidation and violence against Native American and Chicano activists participating in a unity conference in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, as well as conflict between indigenous activists and law enforcement outside the Custer, South Dakota Court House and conflict in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Early Spring (April) 1973
underground press
Red Morning, no. 6, Summer 1971
Canadian New Left
Red Morning was a Canadian "revolutionary organization" located in Toronto during the early-1970s that operated in a "democratically centralist way." In this issue, articles focus on why the youth will make the revolution; the organizing philosophy of Red Morning; Wacheea, a tent city for young people; demonstration in Queen's Park; police repression; Toronto alternative press; Beggar's Banquet music event; Fabulous Fury Freak Brothers; free legal clinic; Edmonton riots; Sir George trials; release of Charles Gagnon and Pierre Vallieres; struggle in the U.S.; Chicano activism in Albuquerque; Latin American armed struggle; a "Free Paul Rose" insert poster and article; global armed revolution; self-defense during street fighting; women in jail; birth control; survival resources; Kingston Prison trial; Red Morning Program.
Red Morning
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Summer 1971
underground press
Los Siete de la Raza
Chicano Movement
In 1969, two plain-clothesed San Francisco police officers stopped several young Latino men moving furniture in the Mission District of San Francisco. An altercation ensued, resulting in one of the police officers, Joe Brodnik, being shot and killed with the other officer, Paul McGoran's, gun. Six of the young men (Gary Lescallett, Rodolfo Antonio (Tony) Martinez, Mario Martinez, Jose Rios, Nelson Rodriguez, and Danilo Melendez) were arrested and charged with murder, while another man (George Lopez) accused of the crime was never apprehended. Their court proceeding, which ran parallel to Huey Newton's more well-known trial, became a cause celebré within the Latino community and the New Left. Some of the accused had participated in local pan-Latino political activist groups, like the Mission Rebels, COBRA (Confederation of Brown Race for Action) and the Brown Berets. Member of the Black Panther Party and two of the Chicago 7 attended the trial. The men, who were ultimately acquitted, came to be known, popularly, as "Los Siete de la Raza," or "Los Siete."
Free Los Siete
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1969
underground press
The Black Panther, August 15, 1970
Black Power
Inside this issue of The Black Panther are multiple articles that speak to the harassment by law enforcement against party members selling the Newspaper in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. This issue also highlights how the Federal Bureau of Investigation infiltrated the Black Panthers with trained informants and created a fake newspaper called the "Bay State Banner." Other items include an article on “revolutionary suicide”; short pieces on the Soledad Brother; Alabama Liberation Front; Chicago Liberation School; National Chicano Moratorium Committee; police brutality in Hartford; Joan Kelley; Bobby Seale’s appeal; a call for justice for the "Los Siete de la Raza”; a two page spread of letters written to Huey Newton from children at the Black Panther Party Liberation School in San Francisco thanking him and the Panthers for the school; a critique of the American Constitution explaining institutional racism, particularly in the prison system; a message from Huey Newton to the People’s Revolutionary Constitutional Convention; a critique off integration; the N.C.C.F.; and, artwork by Emory Douglas.
The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
August, 15, 1970
underground press
Beverly Axelrod Biography
New Left
This is a brief political biography of Beverly Axelrod, who was a civil rights and social justice attorney for a variety of activists and organizations during the 1960s, including the Congress of Racial Equality, Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panther Party, Dennis Banks of the American Indian Movement, Jerry Rubin of the Yippies, the United Farm Workers, the Chicano Movement in New Mexico, and others. Axelrod also travelled to Vietnam and helped organize the first anti-war protest that featured women and children. Her correspondence with Eldridge Cleaver formed a significant basis for his book, Soul On Ice. She was also called before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. Later in life she formed ACE Investigations, an investigative firm that did trial preparation for civil and criminal cases. Axelrod died in 2002 of emphysema.
ACE Investigations
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
January 7, 1998
photocopy
chronology
"Tierra-O Muerte: The Land Belongs to the People"
Chicano Movement
This pamphlet combines previous writings by Clark Knowlton and Frances Swadesh into one essay that explores the long land struggle in New Mexico that culminated in the 1967 Tierra Amarilla courthouse "raid." In addition, it explores tensions between La Raza and hippies, who were coming to New Mexico in larger numbers.
El Grito newspaper, re-published by Radical Education Project
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. early-1970s
pamphlet
"The Farmworker's Movement: A People's Fight Against Corporate Exploitation"
Farmworker's Movement
This issue of the Joint Strategy and Action Committee, Inc.'s newsletter, "Grapevine," attempts to pull together the farmworker's union "history, philosophy, tactics, program, church support."
Joint Strategy and Action Committee, Inc.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
January 1972
newsletter
Juan de la Cruz Liberation Brigade
United Farm Workers Movement
Juan de la Cruz migrated to the United States under the bracero program, working at the Roberts Farm in Arvin, California. De la Cruz joined the United Farm Workers of America in 1965, advocating for living wages of workers, clean drinking water, and public health facilities. De la Cruz was killed in August 1973 during a picketing demonstration occurring between Arvin and Weedpatch, California.
United Farm Workers of America
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1970s
Button
Physical Object
Tengo Puerto Rico En Mi Corazon (I have Puerto Rico in my heart)
Puerto Rican Nationalism
The Young Lords Organization (YLO) functioned as a Puerto Rican nationalist group geographically focused in large urban areas such as Chicago and New York City. The YLO sought to address U.S. imperialism, Puerto-Rican self-determination, and public health access.
Young Lords Organization
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s
Button
Physical Object
Huelga Delano (Strike Delano)
United Farm Workers Movement
The Delano Grape Strike was organized by Cesar Chavez, Delores Huerta and the United Farm Workers of America and lasted from 1965 to 1970. The campaign incorporated nonviolent strategies such as boycotts and grassroots organizing to challenging the low pay of migrant workers by table-grape growers, namely the DiGiorgio Corporation and Schenley Industries. The Delano Strike, which received considerable national attention, ended in July 1970 with the signing of an agreement between the UFWA and the DiGiorgio Corporation.
United Farm Workers of America
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s
Button
Physical Object
Support Farm Workers
United Farm Workers
The United Farm Workers of America was founded in 1962 following the merger between Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee and Cesar Chavez’s National Farm Workers Association. The new union was led by Chavez and Delores Huerta. In general, the UFWA sought to raise awareness of migrant workers’ rights and utilized nonviolent strategies such as collective bargaining, strikes, and boycotts, to secure and protect farm-workers labor rights, work hours, wages and access to health care. During the late-1960s and mid-1970s, the UFWA initiated well-known boycotts against table grapes and lettuce to protest what they viewed as unfair labor contracts and unacceptable working conditions.
United Farm Workers of America
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. mid-1960s
Button
Physical Object
Machismo is fascism
Women's Liberation
This Young Lords poster says,
Machismo is fascism – equality for women – women's struggle is the revolution within the Revolution – Equality for Women - Equality Now!! - Enough of oppression – Freedom Now
Young Lords Party
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. mid-1960s
poster