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
Rising Up Angry, undated excerpt
New Left
Rising Up Angry was a radical organization compromised of working class youth from communities in Chicago, Illinois. The group published a monthly newspaper that ran from 1969 to 1975. The excerpt from this undated issue features brief reports on the Young Lord's in New York; a radical organization called Mother Jones in Baltimore; the murder of Eugene Anderson in Baltimore; the Lin Pio Park One; a Teamster action in New York; the case of Mark Jahr in Patterson, New Jersey; racial disturbance at the 103rd Street Beach; dangerous working conditions in Waukegan; a racist firebomb in Harper Area; death of black man in police custody in Arkansas; police harassment in Hamlin Park; armed self-defense; murals; a conversation about drug use among military service members;
Rising Up Angry
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
undated
newspaper
Fragging Action, August 1971, vol. 1, no. 2
Anti-Vietnam War Movement
Fragging Action was an underground newspaper created at Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base in Cookseytown, New Jersey, in the early 1970s. This issues examines personal experiences of G.I.s; a drug use amnesty program; letters "from the Dix stockade"; conscientious objection; comics; unemployment among veterans; the Travis Air Force Base Rebellion; military pollution; a resource list.
Fragging Action
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
August 1971
newspaper
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
Rough Times, November 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 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 statements and activities of Mental Patients Liberation Groups in Baltimore, Cleveland, Harrisburg, New York City, Philadelphia, Portland, Richmond, Syracuse, Vancouver and Washington, D.C.; articles on research, legal and publicity groups; mental patients’ legal rights; alternatives to traditional therapy; sterilization laws; “boys with gender behavior problems; aversion therapy; electroshock therapy; psychiatric drugs; suicide; and reviews.
The Radical Therapist, Inc.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
November 1972
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 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
Ann Arbor Sun, January 1975, vol. 3, issue 1
New Left
The Ann Arbor Sun was a newspaper founded by John Sinclair in November 1968 as a vehicle for the White Panther Party. In the 1970s, the newspaper transitioned into an independent publication covering local issues, left-wing politics, music, and arts. Finally in 1976, publication was suspended indefinitely.
This issue includes articles on military science and research at the University of Michigan; ROTC; cuts to social services; Gerald Ford inquiry into the CIA; international briefs; the war in Vietnam; Kissinger and the Middle East; police Turn in a Pusher program; history of cocaine; Showcase of International Wares; community calendar; book, music and performance reviews.
Ann Arbor Sun, Inc.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
January 1975
newspaper
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
White Lightning, undated, ca. 1971
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 heroin addicts; the decision to create White Lightning newspaper; a critique of Logos; methadone; the power of the rich; the experienced of drug treatment; the political evolution of an addict; Spirit of Logos platform; comix.
Spirit of Logos
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1971
underground newspaper
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
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
The TASC Trip (Washington's Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime)
Drug Addiction
This comic provides a critique of Methadone treatment for heroine addiction.
Drug Research Project
Roz Payne
undated
newsprint
broadside
The Black Panther, October 10, 1970
Black Power
Printed on October 10, 1970, this issue of The Black Panther is filled with various articles from other Black Panther Party chapters across the U.S., one particular article from the Philadelphia chapter compares police brutality in Philadelphia to the 1968 My Lai Massacre that took place during the Vietnam War. Another article from the Baltimore chapter highlights terrible conditions in the South Baltimore community due to episodes of police brutality and poor housing conditions. In Boston, the Panthers write about the right to free public school but are denied the right to walk freely to and from Curley School. The Bay Area National Lawyers Guild includes a "Guide to Know Your Rights" that outlines an individuals rights when stopped by law enforcement officials. Also included in this issue are articles about police repression in several cities; the case of Willie Turner, Jr; the Winston-Salem N.C.C.F.; General Motors; capitalism and dope; welfare system; Neo-colonialism and genocide; the trials of Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins; a youth conference; a Boston bank robbery; a letter from the "Soledad 7" thanking the Black Panther Party for their support; international news shorts; and, art by Emory Douglas.
The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
October 10, 1970
underground press
Speed Kills Graffiti (1 image)
counterculture
Unidentified graffiti in New York City
Roz Payne
Roz Payne
National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
ca. late-1960s or early-1970s
Rainbow River 2
White Panther Party
Rainbow River was an underground press paper put out by the White Panther Party in Somerville, Massachusetts. In this issue, article topics include dealing with an overdose; legal self-defense; the war in Vietnam; gay liberation; sexuality; women's liberation; prisoners of war; and poetry.
White Panther Party
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. early-1970s
underground press
Rainbow River
White Panther Party
Rainbow River was an underground press paper put out by the White Panther Party in Somerville, Massachusetts. In this issue, article topics include drugs, high schools and oppression, draft resistance, poetry about revolution and food coops, a Weather Underground statement and the White Panther Party 12-Point Program.
White Panther Party
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. early-1970s
underground press
newsletter
"The Story of Uncle Sam the Pusher Man: The Story of How The US People Got Hooked on Morphine, Heroin and Methadone"
Drug Addiction
The pamphlet explores the problem of drug addiction within the broader historical effort to profit off of addiction by corporate and governmental interests. The pamphlet states, "It is a history of the pain, greed, brutality and corruption that has gone hand in hand with the making of the United States into the largest and most powerful military and economic empire the world has ever known." Later, the pamphlet concludes, "The American drug epidemic is a product of American capitalism. In order to stop the product, it will be necessary to destroy the producer. When the American people create a social system dedicated to the elimination of human suffering, the problem of drug abuse will be solved."
Drug Research Project
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s or early-1970s
pamphlet
Thank You for Pot Smoking
Marijuana Legalization
The American Cannabis Society and its famous catchphrase, “Thank You for Pot Smoking,” was created in 1978 by Madison, Wisconsin, resident, Bob Kundert and his sons, Jeff and Eric. In a 2016 interview with the Psychedelic Times, Jeff Kundert, who is the current President of the organization, reflected on the origin of the group and its iconic slogan:
“My dad and my brother were watching TV and saw a placard on the television that said ‘Thank you for not smoking,’ and then ‘American Cancer Society’ underneath it. My brother in fun changed the ‘n’ to a ‘p’, then dad changed the word ‘cancer’ to ‘cannabis.’ We thought it was funny then, and it just stuck.”
He continued, “After I got back from Vietnam, I introduced my dad to cannabis and he really enjoyed it. We were hard working professionals, my dad owned a large construction company, and he found cannabis to be a big help in his life. He enjoyed what the youth were doing more than what the establishment was doing, which often involved things like drinking lots of alcohol.”
“Dad was worried that cannabis was being maligned and had been maligned for a long time. He thought, ‘Since people aren’t being given the truth about cannabis, why don’t we start a society just to disseminate the culture of cannabis — what people do when they’re high, what it feels like to be high, how to pass a joint correctly, things like that.’ Of course, there was pushback, but he stayed in that fight with the American Cannabis Society until his passing in the year 2000, when he was still wearing his ‘Thank You for Pot Smoking’ shirt, and was the most loved person in the nursing home with his friendliness, spunk, and humor.”
Another 2016 article in Madison’s Isthmus Magazine, further explained, “Members of the American Cannabis Society see themselves as freedom fighters on a mission to overturn nearly a century of federal marijuana prohibition. Their crusade to ‘free the herb’ isn’t so people can get high — which they do in spite of the law — but to have peace of mind while doing so. ‘The point,’ Kundert explains, ‘is that no one is going to put me or anybody else in jail for enjoying and sharing this sacred herb.’”
American Cannabis Society
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1978
poster
Ask the Free Wild Animals
Counterculture
This poster features references to the 1960s-era counterculture, like LSD and Timothy Leary and a "Weatherfreak."
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. early-1970s
poster