Lavender Vision
Gay Liberation, vol. 1, no. 1
In the wake of the Stonewall rebellion in New York, gay liberation activism in Boston accelerated, including the establishment of a periodical, Lavender Vision. Initially, gay men and women worked on the newspaper together as a "69 publication," meaning half of the newspaper was devoted to gay men and half to gay women. Shortly after its initial publication, though, lesbian activists split, feeling that gay women needed a space of their own. The newspaper was relaunched as a women-centered periodical and local gay men established Fag Rag.
In this issue, divided between women and men, articles explore self-defense, tensions within the women's liberation movement, "phallic imperialism," music, poetry, definitions of masculinity and manhood, the war in Vietnam and gay community.
In the women's half of the newspaper, a section titled, "Who We Are," explains, "We are some lesbians involved in women’s liberation who feel a need for a large lesbian community that gives us ways to meet together and be together and fight together. We’re hoping that this paper can be a place to share feelings and experiences and news about what we are doing in our movement… It has been exhilarating for us as radical lesbians to come together to share work and love and skills and strength: to understand together how we’re fucked over by a society as women, as gay women: and to figure out how to stop this oppression and all oppression. Join us."
Lavender Vision
Roz Payne
ca. 1970-71
Free Press, February 4, 1971
New Left
The Free Press was a short-lived publication created in 1968 by the Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Society at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was introduced initially in 1968 as a placeholder paper for The McGill Daily while it was on hiatus. During the 1960s, The Daily and Free Press were important venues for outspoken students facing opposition from student government and the university administration. They covered issues like the War in Vietnam, women's liberation and reproductive rights, racial justice, gay liberation and the counterculture. This issue focuses on "Human Sexuality" and features articles on William Reich, gay liberation, lesbianism, feminism and Freud, the sexual revolution in Quebec and poetry by W.H. Auden.
Students of Arts and Sciences, McGill University
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
February 4, 1971
newspaper
Forty Acres and a Mule
Racial Justice
A chapbook by E. Sharon Gomillion, with drawings by Casey Czarnik. Published in 1973 by Diana Press, a lesbian/feminist printing and publishing house started by Coletta Reid and Casey Czarnik in Baltimore, Maryland in 1972, and relocated to Oakland, California in 1977.
E. Sharon Gomillion and Casey Czarnik, Diana Press
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1973
small press book
Rough Times, 1972, vol. 3, no. 2
Mental Health
RT - A Journal of Radical Therapy, was a radical, “alternate journal” of mental health that emerged initially in the early 1970s in Minot, North Dakota in the context of the New Left. It published 12 issues between 1970 and 1972 and "voiced pointed criticisms of psychiatrists during this period. The journal, originally titled, The Radical Therapist and then Rough Times, was run by a group of psychiatrists and activists who believed that mental illness was best treated by social change, not behavioral modification. Their motto was "Therapy means social, political and personal change, not adjustment.” In the 1969 manifesto that launched the journal, organizers wrote:
Why have we begun another journal? No other publication meets the need we feel exists: to unite all people concerned with the radical analysis of therapy in this society. It is time we grouped together and made common cause. We need to exchange experience and ideas, and join others working toward change. The other “professional” journals are essentially establishment organs which back the status quo on most controversial issues… We need a new forum for our views.
In the midst of a society tormented by war, racism, and social turmoil, therapy goes on with business as usual. In fact, therapists often look suspiciously at social change and label as ‘disturbed’ those who press towards it.
Therapy today has become a commodity, a means of social control. We reject such an approach to people`s distress. We reject the pleasant careers with which the system rewards its adherents. The social system must change, and we will be workers toward such change.
Those involved with this movement sought to offer and alternative to “Establishment” therapeutic approaches. Like many movements of this period, over time, ideological splits divided participants and led to numerous changes in the effort and the journal.
This issue includes an RT position paper; combat liberalism; psychiatric drugs; women’s sex education in a state hospital; impressions of a mental institution; the grief of soldiers; gynecology; beauty standards; Paddington Day Hospital in London; quaaludes; patients’ rights; mental health in China; Old People’s Yellow Pages in Boston; Mental Patients Association; transactional analysis; homosexuality and prison treatment; George Jackson, letters and poetry.
The Radical Therapist, Inc.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1972
newspaper
RT - A Journal of Radical Therapy, December 1974, vol. 4, no. 5
Mental Health
RT - A Journal of Radical Therapy, was a radical, “alternate journal” of mental health that emerged initially in the early 1970s in Minot, North Dakota in the context of the New Left. It published 12 issues between 1970 and 1972 and "voiced pointed criticisms of psychiatrists during this period. The journal, originally titled, The Radical Therapist and then Rough Times, was run by a group of psychiatrists and activists who believed that mental illness was best treated by social change, not behavioral modification. Their motto was "Therapy means social, political and personal change, not adjustment.” In the 1969 manifesto that launched the journal, organizers wrote: <br /><br /><em>Why have we begun another journal? No other publication meets the need we feel exists: to unite all people concerned with the radical analysis of therapy in this society. It is time we grouped together and made common cause. We need to exchange experience and ideas, and join others working toward change. The other “professional” journals are essentially establishment organs which back the status quo on most controversial issues… We need a new forum for our views. </em><br /><br /><em>In the midst of a society tormented by war, racism, and social turmoil, therapy goes on with business as usual. In fact, therapists often look suspiciously at social change and label as ‘disturbed’ those who press towards it. </em><br /><br /><em>Therapy today has become a commodity, a means of social control. We reject such an approach to people`s distress. We reject the pleasant careers with which the system rewards its adherents. The social system must change, and we will be workers toward such change.</em> <br /><br />Those involved with this movement sought to offer and alternative to “Establishment” therapeutic approaches. Like many movements of this period, over time, ideological splits divided participants and led to numerous changes in the effort and the journal. <br /><br />This issue focuses on women and includes articles about anger; Midwives in Santa Cruz, feminist therapy; feminine hygiene; women and violence; rape; compassion, altruism and “man-hating”; women as healers; heterosexual politics; lesbianism; obesity; motherhood; body image; poetry; and reviews.
The Radical Therapist, Inc.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
December 1974
newspaper
The Longest Revolution, June 1977, vol. 1, no. 5
Women's Liberation
The Longest Revolution was a “news and views” periodical from a progressive feminist perspective created by The Collective of The Center for Women's Studies and Services, a women’s liberation organization that formed out of San Diego State University’s Women’s Studies Program, but which moved off-campus because of clashes with university administration. Articles in this issue focus on Anais Nin; women and art; battered women; International Women’s Year; gay liberation; rape; Planned Parenthood; marriage; Indian Health Services; sterilization; police; Date County gay rights; disability; pregnancy; National Organization for Women; media discrimination; local arts; a calendar and letters.
The Collective of The Center for Women's Studies and Services
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
June 1977
newspaper
City Star, June 1973, vol. 1, no. 2
New Left
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 and the creation of a new, short-lived newspaper called the New York City Star.
In this issue, articles focus on the killing of Clifford Glover; Black Liberation Army; African Liberation Day; daycare centers; school board politics; a union drive at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital; Carlos Feliciano trial; defeat of a local gay rights ordinance; Rockefeller drug laws; bike trails in NYC; Head Start; May Day; energy crisis; Chrysler and racism; Wounded Knee; behavior modification in prison; international political briefs; Middle East politics; Quaaludes; gay liberation; women’s liberation poetry; Watergate crossword puzzle; and music, book and film reviews.
City Star
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
June 1973
newspaper
University Review, no. 28, April 1973
New Left
University Review was ;published was published by Entelechy Press in New York City. “Entelechy” is a term coined by Aristotle that has come to mean a force propelling one to self-fulfillment. According to the magazine front-matter, "UR. Universal Ragout. Ultimate Repast. Worldly in taste, stellar in ingredients, intergalactic in appeal... Food for thought. Month after month. Whet your appetite." This issue includes letters to the editor; an editorial on Allen Ginsburg, Pete Seeger and Groucho Marx; Weather Underground Communique #13; film review of Charlotte’s Web; an interview with Bernardo Bertolucci; Bobby Seale’s mayoral campaign; women in prison;
Food fads; a music review of Mahavishnu Orchestra, Bob Marley and the Wailers, David Bromberg, the Moody Blues and a set of new blues records; book reviews about drugs, Our Bodies, Ourselves, Vietnam and several books about film.
University Review
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Rough Times, April/May 1973, vol. 3, no. 5
Mental Health
<p>RT - A Journal of Radical Therapy, was a radical, “alternate journal” of mental health that emerged initially in the early 1970s in the context of the New Left. It published 12 issues between 1970 and 1972 and "voiced pointed criticisms of psychiatrists during this period. The journal, originally titled, The Radical Therapist and then Rough Times, was run by a group of psychiatrists and activists who believed that mental illness was best treated by social change, not behavioral modification. Their motto was "Therapy means social, political and personal change, not adjustment.” In the 1969 manifesto that launched the journal, organizers wrote:</p>
<p><em>Why have we begun another journal? No other publication meets the need we feel exists: to unite all people concerned with the radical analysis of therapy in this society. It is time we grouped together and made common cause. We need to exchange experience and ideas, and join others working toward change. The other “professional” journals are essentially establishment organs which back the status quo on most controversial issues… We need a new forum for our views.</em></p>
<p><em>In the midst of a society tormented by war, racism, and social turmoil, therapy goes on with business as usual. In fact, therapists often look suspiciously at social change and label as ‘disturbed’ those who press towards it.</em></p>
<p><em>Therapy today has become a commodity, a means of social control. We reject such an approach to people`s distress. We reject the pleasant careers with which the system rewards its adherents. The social system must change, and we will be workers toward such change.</em></p>
<p>Those involved with this movement sought to offer and alternative to “Establishment” therapeutic approaches. Like many movements of this period, over time, ideological splits divided participants and led to numerous changes in the effort and the journal.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
<p>This issue includes articles on electroshock therapy; police raid on Free School in Florida; prison letters; fear; prison therapists; housing; paranoia; healing; Freud; patient advocacy and legal services; female psyche; housework; minors; poetry; book reviews; letters.</p>
The Radical Therapist, Inc.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
April/May 1973
newspaper
Rough Times, April 1972, vol. 2, no. 6
Mental Health
RT - A Journal of Radical Therapy, was a radical, “alternate journal” of mental health that emerged initially in the early 1970s in the context of the New Left. It published 12 issues between 1970 and 1972 and "voiced pointed criticisms of psychiatrists during this period. The journal, originally titled, The Radical Therapist and then Rough Times, was run by a group of psychiatrists and activists who believed that mental illness was best treated by social change, not behavioral modification. Their motto was "Therapy means social, political and personal change, not adjustment.” In the 1969 manifesto that launched the journal, organizers wrote: <br /><br /><em>Why have we begun another journal? No other publication meets the need we feel exists: to unite all people concerned with the radical analysis of therapy in this society. It is time we grouped together and made common cause. We need to exchange experience and ideas, and join others working toward change. The other “professional” journals are essentially establishment organs which back the status quo on most controversial issues… We need a new forum for our views. </em><br /><br /><em>In the midst of a society tormented by war, racism, and social turmoil, therapy goes on with business as usual. In fact, therapists often look suspiciously at social change and label as ‘disturbed’ those who press towards it. </em><br /><br /><em>Therapy today has become a commodity, a means of social control. We reject such an approach to people`s distress. We reject the pleasant careers with which the system rewards its adherents. The social system must change, and we will be workers toward such change.</em> <br /><br />Those involved with this movement sought to offer and alternative to “Establishment” therapeutic approaches. Like many movements of this period, over time, ideological splits divided participants and led to numerous changes in the effort and the journal. <br /><br />This issue includes an editorial on the name change, as well as articles on Harrowdale State Hospital; lobotomies; the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues; Soviet Union vs. U.S. psychiatry; the perfect husband/wife; female therapists; women’s pain; class consciousness; common drug emergencies; the counter-culture; professionalism; poetry and letters.
The Radical Therapist, Inc.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
April 1972
newspaper
The Woman's Film
Women's Liberation
"The film was made entirely by women in San Francisco Newsreel. It was a collective effort between the women behind the camera and those in front of it. The script itself was written from preliminary interviews with the women in the film. Their participation, their criticism, and approval were sought at various stages of production." (Roz Payne Archive) "... What we see is not only natural and spontaneous, it is thoughtful and beautiful. It is a film which immediately evokes the sights and sounds and smells of working class kitchens, neighborhood streets, local supermarkets, factories, cramped living rooms, dinners cooking, diaper-washing, housecleaning, and all the other "points of production" and battlefronts where working class women in America daily confront the realities of their oppression. It is . . . a supremely optimistic statement, showing the sinews of struggle and capturing the essential energy and collective spirit of all working people-and especially that advanced consciousness which working class women bring to the common struggle." Irwin Silber, Guardian. <iframe width="640" height="480" src="https://archive.org/embed/cbpf_000129" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Newsreel Films
Internet Archive
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1971
film
Up Against the Wall Miss America
Women's Liberation
"A now historical film about the disruption of the Miss America pageant of 1968. With raps, guerrilla theater, and original songs . Women stress the (mis)use of their sisters, by the pageant, as mindless sexual objects. Footage includes attorney / activist Flo Kennedy." (Roz Payne Archive) <iframe width="640" height="480" src="https://archive.org/embed/upagainstthewallmissamerica" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Newsreel Films
Internet Archive
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1968
film
No Coat-hangers
Women's liberation
This abortion rights button features a coat-hanger, a symbol of the illegal and often dangerous abortion procedures women often undertook in the era before Roe v. Wade.
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s or early-1970s
button
No More Bullshit
Electoral Politics
In 1969, at the prompting of feminist leader, Gloria Steinam, author, cultural critic and activist, Norman Mailer, made an outsider bid for mayor of New York City. His campaign ran as a ticket with Jimmy Breslin, the raucous New York Daily News journalist who was seeking to become the President of the New York City Council. At the time, New York was facing a growing list of problems, including rising crime rates, increasing poverty and deindustrialization, middle-class suburban flight, congestion, pollution and political stagnation. In response, Mailer, whose campaign slogans were “No More Bullshit” and “Throw the Rascals In,” set out an outlandishly bold set of initiatives. His primary proposal was the “51st State” plan, a scheme whereby the five boroughs of New York would secede from the rest of the state in a bid to secure more independence, greater political representation, resources and power. Once independent, Mailer envisioned a radically decentralized political order with the city “splintering into townships and neighborhoods, with their own school systems, police departments, housing programs, and governing philosophies." In addition, he advocated a ban on private cars in Manhattan, replacing them with cabs and a monorail system that would circle the island; a citywide free bicycle rental program; and policies that would eliminate pollution, reduce taxes, and establish full autonomy for public schools. According to campaign literature, at the collegiate level, the campaign promoted “vest-pocket campuses built by students in abandoned buildings” that would restore “a sense of personal involvement that is lost in the large university campuses.” In perhaps his most utopian proposal, Mailer urged the creation of “Sweet Sundays,” which would mandate, once a month, that all mechanical transportation stop and elevators close down so that New Yorkers could decompress from their hectic urban lives and avoid breathing exhaust fumes.
Campaign events were often chaotic. At one, Mailer quipped, "The difference between me and the other candidates is that I'm no good and I can prove it." At another, he called his own supporters “spoiled pigs.” After learning that bars would be closed on election day, Jimmy Breslin complained, “I am mortified to have taken part in a process that required bars to be closed.”
Many New Left activists and libertarians supported the Mailer-Breslin ticket. The Black Panther Party also endorsed the duo after they backed the release of Panther leader, Huey Newton. To some, the campaign was a lark, to other a serious challenge to the established order, and to others an outright offense.
In the end, Mailer finished in fourth place during the Democratic mayoral primary, edging out state Assemblyman, Charles B. Rangel, who would go on to be elected to Congress in 1970 and remain in office until 2017. Even in defeat, though, Mailer’s campaign was seen by many leftists and libertarians as an important attempt to move from the realm of ideas into programmatic politics.
________________
Norman Mailer first gained fame in 1948 with the publication of his now-classic war novel, The Naked and the Dead, which was based in part on his own WWII experiences. In 1955, he was a part of a small group that established The Village Voice, an influential alternative newspaper located in Greenwich Village, which continued publication until 2018. Also an influential essayist, Mailer published “The White Negro” in Dissent in 1957, a controversial analysis of the “hipster” in post-war American culture.
Mailer became a ubiquitous cultural figure in the 1960s. In 1960, he published "Superman Comes to the Supermarket," an essay in Esquire on the rise of John F. Kennedy at the Democratic National Convention. He continued to see JFK as an “existential hero” for a new era. That same year, Mailer was convicted of assault for the stabbing of his wife, Adele, and served three years of probation. Mailer was also one of 29 prominent Americans who co-founded the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, which opposed the hardline anti-Castro stance of U.S. politicians and military leaders during the early-1960s. The group achieved widespread infamy in 1963, when it became public news that Kennedy assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a member. In 1967, Mailer made a mark with the best-selling political book, Why Are We in Vietnam? and played an ongoing role in the anti-war movement, including signing the 1968 “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest,” a pledge to withhold tax payments to the U.S. government as opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam. Again that year, Mailer covered the turbulent Democratic and Republican National Conventions, work that he later published as, Miami and the Siege of Chicago (1968). In that book, Mailer portrays American politics cynically as a crass and self-interested exchange of political power. Reflecting back later on the party politics of the 1960s-era, Mailer wrote, "If you played for a team, you did your best to play very well, but there was something obscene… with starting to think there was more moral worth to Michigan than Ohio State." To Mailer, there was little difference between the disgraced Richard Nixon who left the White House after the Watergate scandal and Lyndon Johnson, whose liberal Great Society was derailed by the failed Vietnam war. Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson, Mailer is also seen as a pioneer in what came to be known as the “New Journalism,” a form of creative nonfiction that used some of the style and devices of literary fiction to write fact-based journalism. His most significant work in this vein was Armies of the Night (1968), a nonfiction novel about the October 1967 March on the Pentagon. The book won both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. Mailer also wrote books about the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, a response to criticisms of him and other male authors by feminist author, Kate Millett, and an account of the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle,” the heavyweight championship fight between Muhammad Ali and George Forman in Zaire.
In 1979, Mailer published The Executioner’s Song, for which he won his second Pulitzer Prize. The “true crime” novel focuses on the execution of Utah murderer, Gary Gilmore. His final novel, Harlot’s Ghost, published in 1991, explored the hidden history of the CIA from the end of WWII through the mid-1960s. Mailer, who also wrote drama and screenplays for films, died in 2007.
_____________________
Jimmy Breslin was an outspoken journalist and novelist who was known as a tough-talking representative of working-class residents in his hometown, Queens, New York. In 1962, Breslin wrote a best-selling book on the New York Mets baseball team, Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game? In 1963, he was covering southern civil rights activism in Selma, Alabama, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. While other journalists wrote stories about the fallen president, Breslin secured an interview with Malcolm Perry, the Parkland Hospital doctor who had tried to save him. He followed that up with a powerful column about Clifton Pollard, the man who dug Kennedy’s grave. As journalist David Shedden later wrote, “It’s a plainly told story -- no breathtaking sentences here -- but the style is effective in its Hemingway-esque directness. Breslin moves from the gravedigger’s perspective, to a more omniscient view of the funeral, back to the worker. We like the passage about Jackie Kennedy, its moving description of her particular, telling gestures. But the piece’s central power lies in Breslin’s juxtaposition of the cemetery workers, the small details of the scene’s sounds and sights, with the enormity of the event." From there, Breslin secured positions as a columnist for a succession of New York newspapers, gaining a reputation as a staunch opponent of corruption and injustice. Like Mailer, Breslin was seen as a pioneer of the New Journalism movement and often mixed his own experience with his journalistic reportage of political events. In 1969, he published the true-crime book, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, about mobster “Crazy Joe” Gallo and his band of bungling baddies. The book was made into a film in 1971.
Breslin continued to be an influential writer until his death in 2017. In 1973, he wrote another novel, World Without End, Amen. In 1977, Breslin again gained notoriety for a series of compelling articles on the infamous “Son of Sam” serial killer, David Berkowitz. In response to those essays and in the midst of his killing spree, Berkowitz wrote to Breslin: “Hello from the cracks in the sidewalks of N.Y.C. and from the ants that dwell in these cracks and feed on the dried blood of the dead that has settled into the cracks.” The murderer continued, “J.B., I’m just dropping you a line to let you know that I appreciate your interest in those recent and horrendous .44 killings. I also want to tell you that I read your column daily and find it quite informative.” In 1978, Breslin received a sizable advance to co-write a book about the Son of Sam murders with Dick Schaap, titled, .44. Many viewed the book as exploitative and in poor taste so soon after the traumatic events. In 1986, Breslin won a Pulitzer Prize, in part for his writing about the AIDS epidemic in New York City, as well his broader work championing the causes of ordinary people. In later decades, he published a memoir, I Want to Thank My Brain for Remembering Me (1996), as well as a non-fiction account of a Mexican construction worker in New York who was killed on site when a building collapsed, The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutiérrez (2002), and a final book about the mafia, titled, The Good Rat (2008). Los Angeles Times columnist Jack Smith described Breslin, "like an Irish wind that has blown through Queens and Harlem and Mutchie's bar. It is a pound of Hemingway and a pound of Joyce and 240 pounds of Breslin." Following his death in 2017, Tom Wolfe called him, “incredible, the greatest newspaper columnist of my era.”
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1969
button
Rankin Brigade Peace March in Washington, D.C. (29 images)
Anti-Vietnam War Movement
Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to a federal office in the United States when she won a seat in the House of Representatives from Montana in 1916. Rankin was a women’s rights activist and a pacifist who opposed U.S. military interventionism. Prior to her election to Congress, Rankin worked on women’s suffrage while a student at the University of Washington. Washington State granted women the right to vote in 1910. During the mid-1910s, Rankin worked as a lobbyist for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and played a role in helping women gain the right to vote in Montana in 1914. Her 1916 election to Congress came as the nation debated U.S. involvement in the First World War, which she opposed. “I may be the first woman member of Congress,” she famously said upon her election in 1916, “but I won’t be the last." In the House, Rankin played a key role in the national women’s suffrage movement and the ultimate passage and ratification of the 19th Amendment. After gerrymandering in Montana pushed her out of Congress in 1919, Rankin moved to Georgia in the 1920s and 1930s where she continued to speak nationally on peace and in favor of child labor laws, as well as the Sheppard-Towner Act, a social welfare program that benefited women and children.
Rankin was elected to Congress from Montana a second time in 1940, again largely in opposition to U.S. intervention in the Second World War. Most notably, on December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Rankin was the only House member to vote against the declaration of war on Japan, a vote that drew hisses from her all-male colleagues. "As a woman I can't go to war," she explained, "and I refuse to send anyone else.” Rankin abstained from voting on a declaration of war against Germany and Italy two days later. The positions effectively ended her congressional career. Asked years later if she regretted her actions, she replied, "Never. If you're against war, you're against war regardless of what happens. It's a wrong method of trying to settle a dispute.”
In the post-war period, Rankin traveled extensively, including to India several times, where she studied Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence. Largely ignored by her own generation, a rising tide of younger anti-war and women’s liberation activists during the 1960s found new inspiration in Rankin’s life and activism. In January of 1968, the Jeannette Rankin Brigade, a coalition of various women’s liberation and peace groups, organized the Jeannette Rankin Peace Parade, an anti-war march from Union Station to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. The group had formed the previous year when Rankin told a peace gathering in Atlanta on the same day that the U.S. death toll in Vietnam hit 10,000, “If we had 10,000 women who were willing to make the sacrifices that these boys had given their lives for – that we could stop the war.” The demonstration ran into opposition from Capitol Police, who invoked an 1882 law barring protests on Capitol grounds. It was the first time the law had ever been enforced. The demonstrators filed a legal grievance, but court action did not come by the day of the event. As a result, organizers decided not to go to the Capitol, which would be a violation of the law and might undermine their appeals to moderate women, wives and mothers. An estimated 5,000 women participated in the protest at Union Station, including folk singer, Judy Collins, Vel Phillips, Coretta Scott King and Dagmar Wilson, who gave speeches later at the nearby Omni Shoreham Hotel. Demonstrators held a sign stating, “End the War in Vietnam and the Social Crisis at Home.” As a former member of Congress, Rankin was allowed on the floor of the House, where she presented House Speaker, John McCormack, with a peace petition that demand Congress to withdraw troops from Vietnam, make reparations to the Vietnamese, and “refuse the insatiable demands of the military industrial complex.” She also met and spoke with Senate Leader, Mike Mansfield, who was also from Montana.
Some more militant women’s liberation advocates were displeased with the emphasis on respectability politics, mourning wives and mothers. Indeed, a Washington Post article about the protest afterward emphasized that it was “peaceful and ladylike.” In response to this emphasis, several hundred members of the Brigade, dressed in “miniskirts and high boots,” attempted to commandeer the microphone at the Omni and complained that King and Wilson had been invited to participate merely to appeal to “church women” in the demonstration. The splinter group then staged a funeral march at Arlington National Cemetery, where they paraded a dummy in “feminine getup” and “blonde curls,” to a funeral dirge “lamenting woman’s traditional role which encourages men to develop aggression and militarism to prove their masculinity.” A flyer the faction made and passed out to Rankin Brigade members stated:
“Don’t Bring Flowers...Do be prepared to sacrifice your traditional female roles. You have refused to hanky-wave boys off to war with admonitions to save the American Mom and Apple Pie. You have resisted your roles of supportive girl friends and tearful widows, receivers of regretful telegrams and worthless medals of honor. And now you must resist approaching Congress playing these same roles that are synonymous with powerlessness. We must not come as passive suppliants begging for favors, for power cooperates only with power. We must learn to fight the warmongers on their own terms, though they believe us capable only of rolling bandages. Until we have united into a force to be reckoned with, we will be patronized and ridiculed into total political ineffectiveness. So if you are really sincere about ending this war, join us tonight and in the future.”
These photos were taken of the Rankin Brigade demonstration on January 15, 1968, by Roz Payne. The set also includes a few images of a young man burning a draft card.
Roz Payne
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
January 15, 1968
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
RAT Subterranean News, issue 15, October 29-November 18, 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 baking bread; a critique of the Weather Underground; Angela Davis; George Jackson; Quebec independence; working-class white women; American "concentration camps"; abortion; welfare rights; the Young Lords; the West Side Women's Center; a report from Asia; Black Power poetry.
RAT Subterranean News
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
October 29-November 18, 1970
underground press
White Lightning, no. 13, February 1973
New Left
Based in the Bronx, New York, and founded in 1971, White Lightning was a revolutionary community organization made up of whites and dedicated to serving the people. The group was founded by ex-addicts who had participated in Logos, a residential drug treatment program in the Bronx that used the “Therapeutic Community Model” for treating drug addiction, which emphasized “intense, confrontation group sessions.” Interestingly, drug treatment programs were one of the few places where black, white and Latino people came together, which provided a unique opportunity for radical activists. After leaders of Logos attempted to convert the organization from a treatment program into a lifelong utopian community, activists led by Gil Fagiani, who feared it was evolving into a cult, formed a break-away group called “Spirit of Logos.” The organization was influenced by the activism of the Young Lords and viewed drug addiction as the result of racism and poverty, rather than individual pathology and focused their work on unjust drug laws, the defunding of drug treatment programs, slum lords, drug pushers and addicts, organized crime, corrupt police, as well as what they saw as drug companies plundering African American, Latino poor white neighborhoods in New York City. In 1971, the group split along racial lines, with black and brown members refusing to work with white members. While the African American and Latino group soon dissolved, about a dozen white activists formed a new group and called themselves “White Lightning.” They targeted the white working-class and put out a monthly newspaper. As Fagiani explained years later, “We believed it essential to support the liberation struggles of people of color. We joined picket lines organized by the mostly Mexican American United Farm Workers Union, as well as demonstrations against the massacre at Attica State Prison and the political repression directed at the Black Panthers, Young Lords, and the American Indian Movement… White Lightning viewed the following questions as critical: How could we get working-class whites to see they had a stake in left politics? How could we convince them to look at people of color as their logical allies instead of their natural enemies?” White Lightning members also explored the histories of discrimination and class oppression faced by white ethnic groups in America as a way to build solidarity across racial lines. Like many groups in the early-1970s, White Lightning ultimately succumbed to sectarian divisions and disbanded.
This issue of White Lightning includes articles that focus on a city-wide rent hike; sports revolt; “People’s Grapevine,” which offered brief reports on other activism in the city; Lincoln Detox; abortion; housing as a human right; the war in Vietnam; socialist housing; women in prison; government attacks on working people and immigrants; comix.
Spirit of Logos
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
February 1973
underground press
off our backs, February 1970
Women's Liberation
off our backs (OOB) was a radical feminist newspaper published from 1970 through 2008, when it disbanded due to financial trouble. Some consider OOB the longest-running feminist periodical in the U.S. The newspaper, founded in 1969, was run on a consensus decision-making model by a collective of women, originally including, Marilyn Salzman Webb, Heidi Steffens, Marlene Wicks, Colette Reid, and Norma Lesser. According to Wicks OOB “really started because Marilyn Salzman-Webb was writing for the Guardian in New York, and every time she would send articles having to do with women, they would be totally screwed up and edited to the point that they wouldn’t make any sense at all. So after a meeting at the Women’s Liberation Center on Mintwood Place, we were rapping about what we could do about that, and I don’t know who said it first, ‘Why don’t we start our own?’ but the response was ‘Yes, let’s do that.’” In the first issue of the paper, editors explained that the name “reflects our understanding of the dual nature of the women’s movement. Women need to be free of men’s domination to find their real identities, redefine their lives, and fight for the creation of a society in which they can lead decent lives as human beings. At the same time, women must become aware that there would be no oppressor without the oppressed, that we carry the responsibility for withdrawing the consent to be oppressed. We must strive to get off our backs, and with the help of our sisters to oppose and destroy that system which fortifies the supremacy of men while exploiting the mass for the profit of the few.” OOB strove to cover the fullness of women’s experience across the country. In this issue, articles explore New York Governor John Lindsay and police repression in New York City; drug use and drug pushers; Malcolm X; heroin; “Fascist Funnies”; “pigs.”
off our backs
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
February 1970
underground press
Leviathan, vol. 1, no. 6, October and November 1969
New Left
Leviathan was a radical New Left newspaper loosely aligned with Student for a Democratic Society, published in 1969 and 1970. Early editorial leaders of the periodical included Carol Brightman, Beverly Leman, Kathy McAfee, Marge Piercy and Sol Yurick in New York, as well as Peter Booth Wiley, Carole Deutch, Danny Beagle, Matthew Steen, Bob Gavriner, Al Haber, Bruce Nelson, Todd Gitlin, and David Wellman in San Francisco. The paper, which took a generally serious, intellectual-minded approach to radical organizing, as opposed to the more irreverent tone of the counterculture, ceased publication in the Fall of 1970 in the wake of SDS factionalization. In this issue, articles focus on the New Left and Lenin; the role of the vanguard; a feminist critique of the economy of the movement; legal repression in the U.S. and Europe; revolutionary propaganda; international media; poems.
Leviathan Publications, Inc.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
October and November 1969
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
The Carolina Plain Dealer, vol. 1, no. 8, February 1971
New Left
The Carolina Plain Dealer was an underground press newspaper published out of Durham, North Carolina, during the early-1970s. In this issue, articles focus on the murder of Ella May Wiggins and labor strife in Gastonia, NC; free phone calls; Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos; People’s Peace Treaty; Oppression in High Point cartoon; imagination poster insert; environmental set-backs in Washington, D.C., New Haven harbor and New York; imperialism in Latin America; Uruguay; brief pieces on local activism across N.C.; a feminist critique of rock music; Historical Comics; Fabulous Fury Freak Brothers.
Carolina Plain Dealer
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
February 1971
underground press
Leviathan, vol. 2, no. 1, May 1970
New Left and Women's Liberation
Leviathan was a radical New Left newspaper loosely aligned with Student for a Democratic Society, published in 1969 and 1970. Early editorial leaders of the periodical included Carol Brightman, Beverly Leman, Kathy McAfee, Marge Piercy and Sol Yurick in New York, as well as Peter Booth Wiley, Carole Deutch, Danny Beagle, Matthew Steen, Bob Gavriner, Al Haber, Bruce Nelson, Todd Gitlin, David Wellman in San Francisco. The paper, which took a generally serious, intellectual-minded approach to radical organizing, as opposed to the more irreverent tone of the counterculture, ceased publication in the Fall of 1970 in the wake of SDS factionalization. This issue is dedicated to the women’s liberation movement and includes articles focus on the women’s suffrage movement; the future of women’s liberation; class and the women’s movement; women in the male-dominated movement; small groups and women’s liberation; child care; women, family and capitalism; women’s liberation in England; Cuban women; a poem on the Black Panthers; a short play.
Leviathan Publications, Inc.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
May 1970
underground press
Cornell Daily Sun, Tuesday, May 6, 1969
New Left
The Cornell Daily Sun is an independent newspaper published by Cornell University students in Ithaca, New York. The newspaper was established in 1880 by William Ballard Hoyt to challenge the weekly Cornell Era. Of particular note in this issue is coverage of the arraignment of eight SDS members – Henry Mendell, Michael Goldberg, Jonathan Miller, Stephen Parsons, Charles “Chip” Marshall, Paul Kaye, Andrew Griggs and Jeffrey Dowd – who led a protest against ROTC on campus. SDS members issued three demands from the university: 1) End ROTC on campus, 2) drop charges against all ten students arrested in connection with the protest, and 3) grant a leave of absence to Rev. Daniel Berrigan, associate director of the Cornell University United Religious Work (CURW), if jailed. Another article focuses on continuing campus demonstrations nationwide, damages to Straight Hall after black student occupation, and an editorial on the pill.
Cornell Daily Sun
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
May 6, 1969
independent media
RAT Subterranean News, May 22-June 4, 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 media and revolution; Joan Bird and Dionne Donghi; a labor walk-out at Bell Telephone in New York; the police killing of six black men in Augusta, Georgia; police killing of two students at Jackson State; street-fighting between Puerto Rican youths and police on the Lower East Side; poetry; the role of women in the labor movement; brief reports on anti-colonial struggles in Portuguese’s African colonies; corporate repression of indigenous people in Brazil; 9 days of global activism in May; revolutionary feminism; squatting; “The Woman-Identified Woman”; How to…; emergency first aid for street warfare; ads and personals; repression against marijuana advocates; letters to the editor.
RAT Subterranean News
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
May 22-June 4, 1970
underground press
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
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
Homemade Radical Feminist Book
Women's Liberation
This homemade book was created by Roz Payne and a number of other radical feminists.
Roz Payne and unidentified others
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
undated
Physical Object
Radio Free Boston
Women's Liberation
This document details an action against WBCN in Boston by the radical feminist organization, Bread and Roses on International Women's Day.
Off Our Backs
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
undated
mimeograph
leaflet
Spectre, no. 4
Women's Liberation
This publication was created by a group of "revolutionary separatist white women" and explores a variety of intersectional dynamics of the women's liberation movement, including race, class and sexuality.
revolutionary separatist white women, published by Know, Inc.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
September/October, 1971
underground press
"Toward a Female Liberation Movement," by Beverly Jones and Judith Brown
Women's Liberation
In this 1968 essay, sometimes referred to as the "Florida Paper," Beverly Jones and Judith Brown put forth a strong, even incendiary, critique of the "Women's Manifesto," which was created by the Women's Caucus at the 1967 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) convention. This document was originally published by the Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC). In the 1970 Handbook of Women's Liberation. Marlene Dixon wrote, "That started it if anything written started it. That paper just laid it on the line."
Beverly Jones and Judith Brown, published by New England Free Press
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1968
pamphlet
"The Hidden History of the Female: The Early Feminist Movement in the United States," by Martha Atkins
Women's Liberation
This essay offers a historical analysis of the women's rights movement prior to the 1960s-era. It was originally published by Hogtown Press.
published by New England Free Press
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
undated
pamphlet
I Am Furious (Female)
Women's Liberation
This collectively written essay offers a radical analysis of women's liberation in an effort to "formulate perspectives for the Women's Caucus of the New University Conference." The New University Conference was formed in March of 1968, "as the first politically left organization on American campuses with the explicit membership policy of including faculty and graduate students." By 1971, the organization had more than 2,000 dues paying members on roughly 60 campuses, but went into sharp decline in 1972, disbanding shortly thereafter. The Women's Caucus of the NUC was a particularly influential segment of the group and helped promote campus-based daycare centers and other feminist reforms. The essay begins with a quote from Engel's, "The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State": "The ultimate goal of a radical women’s movement must be revolution. This is because the condition of female oppression does not ‘depend on,’ is not ‘the product of,’ is not ‘integral to’ the structure of society; it is that structure. The oppression of women, though similar to that of blacks, differs from it in that it depends not on class divisions but rather on a division of labor premised on private property and resulting in the family as primary unit for the functioning of the economy. ‘The modern family,’ says Marx, ‘contains in embryo not only slavery… but serfdom also, since from the very beginning it is connected with agricultural serves. It contains within itself in miniature all the antagonisms which later develop on a wide scale within society and its state.” The essay goes on to explore women’s liberation and its links to consumerism, religion, psychiatry, economics, family, gender, race, the New Left and more.
Ellen Cantarow, Elizabeth Diggs, Katherine Ellis, Janet Marx, Lillian Robinson, Muriel Schien, published by Radical Education Project
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1969
pamphlet
"Women: The Longest Revolution," by Juliet Mitchell
Women's Liberation
This essay offered a socialist analysis of "The Woman Question," drawing on Marxist feminism, psychoanalysis and literary criticism. As Christine Riddiough has noted, "Written just three years after Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, Mitchell’s work garnered nowhere near the notoriety of Friedan’s. It was, nonetheless, as important." This essay was originally published in the November/December 1966 issue of New Left Review.
published by New England Free Press
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1966
pamphlet
"Liberation of Women: Sexual Repression & the Family," Laurel Limpus
Women's Liberation/Sexual Liberation
This theoretical essay explores the links between women's liberation, sexuality and sexual repression. It was originally published in This Magazine is About Schools, a publication founded in 1966 in Toronto, Canada. While it initially focused on radical education, the magazine widened its focus to other issues over time.
published by New England Free Press
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1970
pamphlet
"What is the Revolutionary Potential of Women's Liberation," by Kathy McAfee and Myrna Wood
Women's Liberation
This influential essay puts forth an argument for women's liberation within the broader "revolutionary movement" of the late-1960s. The essay, which is re-published here by New England Free Press, was originally published under the title, "Bread and Roses," in the June 1969 issue of The Leviathan.
published by New England Free Press
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1969
pamphlet
May Day Gathering of Tribes in Atlanta
Counterculture
This poster is a promotional piece for the 1967 Atlanta May Day Gathering of Tribes. The artifact does not include a year. The May Day Collective was loose-knit anti-war organization that eschewed national leadership and promoted local organizing. The group played a key role in massive protests that took place in Washington, D.C., in May of 1971.
May Day Collective
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1967
poster
Cold Steel, Mid-Summer 1971
Environmentalism
Two-pages from a short-lived underground press publication in Buffalo, New York. The articles presented here focus on environmental pollution in Lake Erie, as well as rape and female self-defense.
Cold Steel
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Mid-Summer 1971
underground press
Free Vermont
New Left
This Movement broadside from Burlington, Vermont, touches on a variety of issues related to Movement politics from the early-1970s.
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. early-1970s
newsprint
broadside
Pac-O-Lies, March 1970, vol. 1, no. 3
Media Activism
Pac-O-Lies was published by the New York Media Project, which was dedicated to a critical perspective on mainstream, corporate media during the 1960s-era. Among the group's core goals were: to end "the lie of objectivity" in the media; eliminate all forms of censorship; give greater coverage to issues related to "black and female liberation"; work toward "worker control" of all media; and "eliminate all forces that use the mass media as a means of coercion and repression." This issue covers a range of topics, including media coverage of the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, Women's Liberation, worker control of media in Europe and Nixon's "Vietnamization" policy.
New York Media Project
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
March 1970, vol. 1, no. 3
underground press
Unconventional News, August 20-23, 1972
New Left
This issue of Unconventional News focuses on protests against the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami, and includes essays on the protest planning, the War in Vietnam, Gay Liberation, Women's Liberation, George Jackson, internationalism and a poem by anti-war priest, Daniel Berrigan.
Miami Conventions Coalition
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
August 20-23, 1972
underground press
Pac-O-Lies, July 1970, vol. 1, no. 4
Media Activism
Pac-O-Lies was published by the New York Media Project, which was dedicated to a critical perspective on mainstream, corporate media during the 1960s-era. Among the group's core goals were: to end "the lie of objectivity" in the media; eliminate all forms of censorship; give greater coverage to issues related to "black and female liberation"; work toward "worker control" of all media; and "eliminate all forces that use the mass media as a means of coercion and repression." This issue covers a range of topics, including the trial of Black Panther Party leader, Bobby Seale; CBS News; the War in Vietnam; Women's Liberation; McGraw Hill Publishing; Playboy Magazine; Joan Bird; and, "unhappy professionals" in the mainstream media.
New York Media Project
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
July 1970, vol. 1, no. 4
underground press
Pac-O-Lies, vol. 1, no. 1
Underground Press
Pac-O-Lies was published by the New York Media Project, which was dedicated to a critical perspective on mainstream, corporate media during the 1960s-era. Among the group's core goals were: to end "the lie of objectivity" in the media; eliminate all forms of censorship; give greater coverage to issues related to "black and female liberation"; work toward "worker control" of all media; and "eliminate all forces that use the mass media as a means of coercion and repression." This initial issue of the publication lays out the organization's overall critique of mass media and covers a range of topics, including media coverage of the Black Panther Party, Women's Liberation and the War in Vietnam.
New York Media Project
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
undated
underground press
Osawatomie, Summer 1975, no. 2
New Left
Newsletter of the Weather Underground summarizing the latest happenings in the underground, including articles about Ho Chi Minh; John Brown; revolutionary struggle; Prairie Fire; women workers; the politics of daycare; victory in Vietnam; personal reflection on Vietnam; Ponce cement strike; class struggle; imperialism and hunger; Secretary of Agriculture. Earl Butz and the politics of food in the U.S.; prisoners and class war; Mozambique independence; organizing the unemployed; book review; repression at Pine Ridge Reservation.
Weather Underground
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Summer 1975, no. 2
underground press
Red Balloon, 1973
New Left
The Red Balloon Collective was a radical organization started by Mitchel Cohen, Roberta Quance and Jack Bookman at the State University of New York, Stony Brook in 1969. The group emerged out of the fragmentation of SDS in 1968. According to Cohen, Red Balloon sought to "strengthen existing movements, help people to form their own direct action collectives and underground papers, and then link them together."
Featured in this issue of Red Balloon includes a call to participate in a conference at the University of New York at Stony Brook; an analysis about the 1972 election candidates in relation to Leftist values; an article discussing how the impact of widespread Gonorrhea and Syphilis was influenced by a failing healthcare system; as well as essays on Women's Liberation and the War in Vietnam. Most of this issue analyzed how youth culture in university and high school environments can be tools for a revolution. Lyrics to the song "sung to the tune of the 'Rhythms of Revolution'" are presented on the back cover.
University officials denied permission for the Red Balloon Collective to hold the planned conference at the SUNY-Stony Brook campus. In response, two dozen members of Red Balloon barricade themselves inside the administration building, prompting helmeted law enforcement to storm the building to expel the activists.
Red Balloon Collective
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1973
underground press
RAT Subterranean News, February 14-20, 1969
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 a student demonstration in Linden, New Jersey; a protest against Playboy by the Women's Liberation Front at Grinnell College in Iowa; a Yippie reply to Jerry Rubin; and an article with the complete transcript of the indictment against Clay L. Shaw for conspiring to kill John F. Kennedy. A portion of the issue also highlights local poetry readings and includes advertisements for "swinger" services.
R.A.T. Publications, Inc.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
February 14-20, 1969
underground press
A Man's World & Welcome To It
Women's Liberation
This article, by Kae Halonen, provides a Marxist feminist analysis of her upbringing, women's history, the job market, property relations and factory workers.
Radical Education Project, Detroit, Michigan
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
mimeograph
article
Children’s Liberation
Women's Liberation
An extension of the women’s liberation movement, the Summerhill Collective’s leaflet on the organization’s goals points to shifting ideas about parenthood, specifically the relationship between mother and child. Defining the nuclear family as a site of oppression for both parent and child, the Summerhill Collective sought to associate childrearing as a pleasurable and respectable endeavor.
Summerhill Collective
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1972
mimeograph
article
Free and Voluntary Abortion Is Every Woman’s Right
Women's Liberation
This Chicago Women’s Liberation Union leaflet discusses the accessibility to abortion resources for women with unwanted pregnancy. Citing the physical and legal ramifications stemming from the contemporary abortion laws in the U.S., this leaflet touches upon the themes of sterilization, birth control, and global population increase in the late-1960s and 1970s.
According to the Encyclopedia of Chicago, the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union was formed in 1969. The founding members were Naomi Weisstein, Vivian Rothstein, Heather Booth, and Ruth Surgal. The group's goals under women’s liberation were to halt sexism and unequal opportunity for all women. Under the branch of unequal opportunity was women’s access to healthcare. The CWLU is best known for the pamphlet that was published in 1972 called “Socialist Feminism: A Strategy for the Women’s Movement.” The pamphlet made a national mark and put the CWLU on the map as an agent of change for women’s rights. Many chapters of Women’s Liberation were linked through the work they published, allowing women’s rights to gain influence across the country. One of the Chicago chapter's goals as an organization was to raise consciousness of women’s issues. This leaflet raises consciousness about abortion resources and their accessibility for women with unwanted pregnancies. It was also used as a measure to reject the current U.S. abortion laws and gain support to repeal them. Building on the notion of population increase, the pamphlet illustrates the stance that the CWLU had on the legalization of Abortion and the opposition to the American Medical Association. At the end of the leaflet there is a number provided for the Jane Collective. This was an underground abortion counseling service located in Chicago that ran from 1969 to 1973 and collectively performed approximately 11,000 abortions.
Chicago Women’s Liberation Union
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s or early-1970s
mimeograph
leaflet
Do People Pollute?
Women's Liberation
This Chicago Women’s Liberation Union article links post-World War II consumer culture to the politics of motherhood and the social accessibility for women to alternative models of womanhood. Contrasting the wife-mother model of womanhood, this leaflet describes the relationship between consumerism, the environmentalist movement, and gender roles in the 1960s and 1970s.
Chicago Women’s Liberation Union
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s or early-1970s
mimeograph
article