Vietnam
Vietnam War
Comic created in 1967, written by Atlanta SNCC leader, Julian Bond, and illustrated by T. G. Lewis. Bond wrote the comic while battling to be seated in the Georgia House of Representatives. He had been elected to the Georgia House of Representative in 1965 with 82% of the vote, but the Georgia state legislature refused to seat him because of his statements (on behalf of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) in opposition to the Vietnam War. In the comic, Bond draws linkages between the war in Vietnam and the struggle for racial justice in the U.S., which was increasingly common among more militant activists during this period.
Julian Bond and T.G. Lewis
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1967
comic
Liberation, July 8, 1966, no. 83
New Left
Liberation was a left periodical published in Paris during the 1960s that served a wider European audience..
Liberation
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
July 8, 1966
newspaper
New Left Notes, vol. 2, no. 3, January 20, 1967
New Left
New Left Notes was the official newspaper published by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). This issue includes articles about the Selective Service System; Minneapolis Community Union Project (M-CUP); psychedelic warfare at the University of Connecticut; Bertrand Russell Foundation report; equality for women; draft resistance; upcoming spring mobilization against the war; proposal on the “domestic economic aspects of the war”; Puerto Rican independence; report from France; national office expenses; war crimes tribunal petition; literature list; letters to the editor.
Students for a Democratic Society
Bruce Pech
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
January 20, 1967
underground press
Liberated Guardian, November 25, 1970
New Left
The National Guardian was a radical, left newsweekly published out of New York City from 1948-1992. The paper was established by James Aronson, Cedric Belfrage, who were committed activists for the Progressive Party and Henry Wallace presidential campaign, as well as John McManus and Josiah Gitt, both liberal newspaper men, though Gitt quickly dropped out. In addition to the Progressive Party, the newspaper also held ties with American communists and the labor movement. The Cold War took a toll on the newspaper, with the decline of the Progressive Party and the rise of McCarthyism in the U.S. During the post-WWII era, the newspaper focused coverage on opposition to the Cold War and militarism, support for emerging anti-colonial struggles around the world, defense of those targeted by McCarthyism, advocacy for the black freedom movement. The newspaper continued to hold a cozy relationship with the Communist Party U.S.A., though it did break with the group over some issues, particularly support for independent political action beyond party control. The 1960s-era brought a new period of political rancor within the editorial ranks of the newspaper. In the end, the periodical changed leadership and renamed itself The Guardian. The Guardian took an increasingly Maoist line, supporting armed struggles against colonialism. During this period, the newspaper attempted to forge ties with SDS and SNCC, writing that "The duty of a radical newspaper is to build a radical movement.” "We are movement people acting as journalists," the Guardian′s staff now proudly declared. The Liberated Guardian formed out of a workers strike at The Guardian newspaper in New York City in the Spring of 1970. The Liberated Guardian was notable for it strong stand in favor of armed struggle. An ideological and political split within the ranks of the Liberated Guardian staff led to the newspaper’s demise in late-1973. The original Guardian pressed on and took on a more hard-line Marxist-Leninist ideology in the late-1970s, eroding that newspaper’s reputation for investigative journalism. Readership and support for The Guardian declined through the 1980s and the paper ceased publication in 1992.
In this issue, articles focus on Malcolm X’s assassination; Black Panther Party; Timothy Leary and armed struggle; the privatization of imperial intervention; local short reports on revolutionary struggle in the U.S.; liberation struggle in Uruguay; draft counseling; the Seattle Liberation Front; the War Measures Act in Canada; Quebec independence movement; police repression in Canada; Palestinian liberation; lessons from the Jordan wars; the CIA in Israel; review of the film Finally Got the News, on the League of Revolutionary Black Workers; labor strike at Fiat in Italy; black workers in the auto industry; corporations that make antipersonnel munitions; report on peace talks in Paris; tenants rights; local briefs; indigenous people in Columbia and armed struggle; letters to the editor.
Liberated Guardian Worker's Collective
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
November 25, 1970
underground newspaper
RAT Subterranean News, June 5-19, 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. This issue covers a wide range of topics, including reflections on Vietnam; a Weather Underground communiqué; women’s oppression in Puerto Rican culture; an interview with FBI informant George Demmerle; organizational structure and principles of The Feminists; brief reports from Ceylon and France; a review of the case of Sam Melville, Jane Alpert and Dave Hughey; a Sylvia Plath poem, “The Jailer”; gynecology and sexism; labor politics in Argentina; feminism and the media; report from the Conference for Women event, titled, “Liberation – from What?”; political prisoners; city planning on the Lower East Side of New York; Dionne Donghi; American Indian Movement seizure of B.I.A. land; Panther 21 trial; ads and personals; poetry.
RAT Subterranean News
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
June 5-19, 1970
underground press
Ten Days That Shook the University
Counterculture and Student Movement
This 1966 pamphlet was originally published in French at the University of Strasbourg by students of the university and members of the Situationist International. The SI was an international organization of "social revolutionaries" that included avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. The group was prominent in Europe from its establishment in 1957 to its disbandment in 1972. "Ten Days That Shook the University" attacked the subservience of university students, as well as the strategies of student radicals. It was sharply critical of student radicals that took on particular issues, rather than the broad destruction of the system. The document caused significant stir and led to the dissemination of Situationist ideas across Europe and into the United States. The pamphlet is credited with precipitating the mass protests and campus take-overs in May of 1968 in France.
Situationist International
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1966
pamphlet
As Goes Burlington So Goes France
Electoral Politics
Drawing from a Doonesbury comic by Gary Trudeau, this button includes the phrase, “As goes Burlington, so goes France” as a parody of the U.S political saying dating from the nineteenth-century, “As Maine goes, so goes the nation.” As a member of the Liberty Union Party, Bernie Sanders’ successful 1981 mayoral election in Burlington, Vermont, represented the state’s liberal-left position, in contrast with the emergence of the New Right at the same time.
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1981
Button
Physical Object
"False Promises/Nos Engañaron"
Counterculture
The San Francisco Mime Troupe was an avant-garde, “guerilla theater” troupe created by R.G. Davis in 1959 and dedicated to political satire. Peter Berg directed the group throughout its heyday in the 1960s. Initially performing in lofts and basements, the SFMT gained notoriety during the mid- and late-1960s for its rambunctious free performances outdoors in public parks, particularly Golden Gate Park. Their performances targeted political repression in the U.S., American military intervention abroad, racism, sexism, materialism and capitalism. Seen as a part of the countercultural movement, the SFMT also had several well-known run-ins with law enforcement, often charged with “obscenity”. Their 1965 Minstrel Show, Or Civil Rights in a Cracker Barrel, was performed in black face and offended some — both black and white. In another piece, an actor played a military policeman who paraded prisoners into Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza and began to abuse them. The troupe was also arrested on the campus of the University of California-Berkeley during the Free Speech Movement. Berg later went on to co-found, the Diggers with Emmett Grogan, a collective that brought a sense of theater to their charity work with the hippies and the poor in San Francisco.
This poster by Jane Norling, was created for the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s 1976 original production of the play, "False Promises/Nos Enganaron.” According to the Troupe’s website, provides the following summary of the play: “Set in a Colorado mining town in 1898 where Mexican and American workers are organizing a copper mine, this simple story evolves into an epic that links the stories of Mexican and white miners, black and white dance hall queens, and a black soldier to the global machinations of Teddy Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan. The play also ties in U.S. expansion into Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Hawaii with the development of the American West.”
The play was written by Joan Holden, directed by Arthur Holden, with music and lyrics by Andrea Snow, Bruce Barthol and Xavier Pacheco. It featured Marie Acosta, Lonnie Ford, Sharon Lockwood, Melody James, Ed Levey, Dan Chumley, Esteban Oropeza, Patricia Silver and Deb'bora Gilyard and a band, the “Rough Riders,” including Bruce Barthol, Barry Levitan, David Topham and Jack Wickert. The production toured West Germany, Italy and France after its initial run in San Francisco.
artist Jane Norling
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1976
poster
Joint Treaty of peace Between the People of the United States and the People of South Vietnam and North Vietnam
Anti-Vietnam War Movement
The “Joint Treaty of Peace Between the People of the United States and the People of South Vietnam and North Vietnam” was developed by representatives of student peace organizations from the U.S. and Vietnam in December 1970. That month, a delegation sponsored by the National Student Association flew to Paris and then attempted to fly to Saigon to meet with students, but were turned away. In Hanoi, they met with student representatives from South
Vietnam and North Vietnam. The participants in the meetings hoped to foster peace by detailing key principles that all parties in the conflict could agree on. The treaty was endorsed by a number of politicians and celebrities, including Eugene J. McCarthy, Daniel Berrigan, Phillip Berrigan, Noam Chomsky, Charles E. Goodell, I. F. Stone, George Wald, Erich Segal, Rock Hudson, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the New University Conference and others.
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
December 1970
poster
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