"Holiness"
Black Panther Party
This poem, written by imprisoned Black Panther Party member, Afeni Shakur, explores the hypocrisy of U.S. society and conjure a revolutionary Jesus who is in solidarity with the Black Panther Party.
Afeni Shakur
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1970
newsprint
poem
"Jesus Wept, Peter Slept, John Fell Out the Back Door Step"
Black Panther Party
This article includes a poem about Jesus meeting a member of the Black Panther Party (Afeni Shakur) and being turned on to the revolution.
Black Panther Party (Afeni Shakur)
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
July 4, 1970
newsprint
article
"Power to the People - George"
Black Panther Party
George Jackson was imprisoned for armed robbery in 1961 and placed in San Quentin Prison before being transferred to Soledad Prison. While incarcerated, Jackson became radicalized and formed a Maoist-Marxist group, the Black Guerrilla Family. He was also a member of the Black Panther Party. In 1970, he and two other inmates were charged with the murder of prison guard, John Vincent Mills, following a fight. They became known as the Soledad Brothers and were seen by many radicals as political prisoners. Jackson was also an author and published the influential, "Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George L. Jackson." Jackson was killed by guards at San Quentin during an escape attempt in 1971. Many activists believed he was murdered as retaliation for his activism. “To the slave," Jackson wrote, "revolution is an imperative, a love-inspired, conscious act of desperation. It’s aggressive. It isn’t 'cool’ or cautious. It’s bold, audacious, violent, an expression of icy, disdainful hatred!”
This 1971 poster from Cuba's OSPAAAL (Organization of Solidarity of the People of Asia, Africa & Latin America) marks Jackson's murder and shows his body laying contorted on the ground with star-spangled blood pooling around him. OSPAAA was the main publisher of international solidarity posters in Cuba. Notably, these colorful propaganda posters were not designed to be posted on walls within Cuba, as others were. Instead, they were folded and stapled inside the magazine, Tri-Continental, where they were then distributed internationally.
Rafael Morante
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1971
print
poster
"Prisoners of War: The Case of the New York Three"
Black Panther Party and Prisoner's Rights Movement
On May 21, 1971, two New York police officers, Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini, were shot and killed in a Harlem housing project. The killings took place within the broader context of growing black militancy and governmental repression against the Black Panther Party. Initially, five men were arrested and charged with the crime, Anthony (Jalil Muntaqim) Bottom, Albert (Nuh) Washington, Herman Bell, Gabriel and Francisco Torres. Charges were later dismissed against the Torres brothers. Bell, Bottom and Washington were members of the the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army and all targets of FBI COINTELPRO operations. The Black Liberation Army was an underground wing of the Black Panther Party. The group's program was to wage war against the United States Government. Its stated goal was to "take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of black people in the United States." Some believed the killings of the two police officers was retaliation for the killing of George Jackson during an attempted break-out from Attica Prison a few weeks earlier. Richard Nixon and other members of his administration, along with J. Edgar Hoover and other members of the FBI worked with New York Police in a special operation, called, "Newkill," to apprehend the perpetrators of these killings. The trial was controversial and included a number of questionable practices by local and federal law enforcement. All three were convicted and sentenced to long prison sentences. In 2012, Herman Bell admitted to the New York Parole Board that he played a part in the killings. He was released in April 2018. Washington died of cancer while still imprisoned in 2000. Bottom remains incarcerated.
This pamphlet, published by Friends of the New York Three, provides an overview of the case and broader context on COINTELPRO.
Friends of the New York Three
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. mid-1970s
pamphlet
"Revolutionary Youth Movement II," Mike Klonsky, Noel Ignatin, Marilyn Katz, Sue Eanet and Les Coleman
Anti-Vietnam War Movement
This pamphlet was written by members of the Chicago SDS in 1969 as a reaction to the Revolutionary Youth Movement's "Weatherman Manifesto" earlier that year. The group backed black nationalism, but placed an emphasis on a more traditional Marxist analysis of class struggle to attract the white working class to the movement. The document highlights the internal radicalization and factionalization that plagued SDS in the late-1960s and contributed to its disintegration.
SDS
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1969
pamphlet
"Two, Three, Many Vietnams," Weatherman
New Left
This pamphlet describes the revolutionary organizing strategy of the Weather Underground. According to this analysis, traditional mass-based non-violent protest, like those led by the National Moratorium Committee, only serve to reinforce U.S. imperialism and stave off more radical solutions. The Weatherman see the growing radicalization of the black freedom struggle as a vanguard of a global Third World anti-imperialist struggle. The Weather Underground's main goal is to organize the white working-class, which it calls "the least organized enemies of imperialism," into a revolutionary force in solidarity with third world struggles at home and abroad. "Our organizing strategy," they explain, "consists of organizing a white fighting force of young people who are ready to side with the blacks and third world." In the end, they conclude, "This big, fat, rich motherfucking country is going to be overthrown. Being a part of a revolutionary army that joins with other revolutionary armies defeat imperialism is the greatest thing anybody could want to be."
Weatherman
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1970
pamphlet
"United States 1967: High Tide of Black Resistance," by James Forman
Black Power
James Forman was an important leader in the black freedom movement, from the southern civil rights struggle in SNCC, to the Black Power movement with the Black Panther Party and League of Revolutionary Workers. In this essay, published by SDS, Forman provides a historical analysis of racial oppression against black people in the U.S. and the accelerating freedom struggle in 1967, particularly the growing spirit of resistance. This period of resistance, Forman wrote, was underscored by a new militant consciousness, an international perspective, urban rebellion, armed self-defense and radicalism. At the same time, he enumerates the rising backlash and government repression against the African American liberation struggle.
SDS
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1967
pamphlet
Armed Self-Defense
Black Power
This button depicts a red five-pointed star symbolizing Communism and a black silhouette of a gun within a black outline of a gun sight. This image represents the discussion of armed self-defense among some urban Black Nationalist leaders and organizations during the late-1960s and early-1970s. The iconography on this button draws strongly from other third world liberation struggles of the time period.
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s or early-1970s
Button
Physical Object
Asylum for Kristina Berster
New Left
On July 16, 1978, West German, Kristina Berster, and two American accomplices were picked up by U.S. Border Patrol officials in Vermont for illegally crossing into the United States from Canada. Initially, the FBI and other law enforcement claimed Berster was a terrorist on the lamb from Germany, where she was a member of the Baader-Meinhof gang, also known as the Red Army Faction.
Baader-Meihof was a radical, left-wing organization established in 1970 that engaged in a series of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, bank robberies and shoot-outs with police over the course of three decades, though their activity peaked in 1977. Stefan Aust, who wrote a book about the history of Red Army Faction, detailed the background and emergence of the group, “World War II was only twenty years earlier. Those in charge of the police, the schools, the government — they were the same people who'd been in charge under Nazism. The chancellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, had been a Nazi. People started discussing this only in the 60s. We were the first generation since the war, and we were asking our parents questions. Due to the Nazi past, everything bad was compared to the Third Reich. If you heard about police brutality, that was said to be just like the SS. The moment you see your own country as the continuation of a fascist state, you give yourself permission to do almost anything against it. You see your action as the resistance that your parents did not put up.” As Red Army Faction member, Gudrun Ennslin, is reported to have said after the death of one his comrades, “They'll kill us all. You know what kind of pigs we're up against. This is the Auschwitz generation. You can't argue with people who made Auschwitz. They have weapons and we haven't. We must arm ourselves!” Aust went on to explain the appeal of Baader-Meinhof to some West Germans, “The Baader-Meinhof Gang drew a measure of support that violent leftists in the United States, like the Weather Underground, never enjoyed. A poll at the time showed that a quarter of West Germans under forty felt sympathy for the gang and one-tenth said they would hide a gang member from the police. Prominent intellectuals spoke up for the gang's righteousness (as) Germany even into the 1970s was still a guilt-ridden society. When the gang started robbing banks, newscasts compared its members to Bonnie and Clyde. (Andreas) Baader, a charismatic action man indulged in the imagery, telling people that his favourite movies were Bonnie and Clyde, which had recently come out, and The Battle of Algiers. The pop poster of Che Guevara hung on his wall, (while) he paid a designer to make a Red Army Faction logo, a drawing of a machine gun against a red star.” Red Army Faction was organized into cells and practiced what Brazilian revolutionary Carlos Marighella called the “urban guerrilla.” According to Marghella, an urban guerrilla, was “A person who fights the military dictatorship with weapons, using unconventional methods... The urban guerrilla follows a political goal, and only attacks the government, big businesses, and foreign imperialists.” In response, West German authorities initiated a growing clamp-down on left-wing activists and lawyers, as well as critics of the government, generally.
At the same time in the U.S., legislators and law enforcement were growing increasingly concerned about “terrorism” and looking for legal and social bases to tighten strictures on so-called “terrorists.” One point of concern was the northern border with Canada. In this context, many saw the Kristina Berster case as an opportunity for U.S. law enforcement in the post-1960s era to promote this new anti-terrorism agenda. At first, the FBI Press Officer claimed the arrest “marked the first time a member of the notorious urban gang has been caught trying to enter the country.” In Burlington, Vermont, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Jerome O’Neill, stated that Berster was one of the 34 most wanted persons in the world. These were explosive claims that were picked up and repeated by national press across the country, including the New York Times. Quickly, though, those grand assertions began to unravel. West German authorities corrected FBI statements, saying that Berster was not, in fact a member of the Baader-Meinhof gang, and that they may not even be interested in extraditing here, prompting a corrected statement by the FBI. Yet, the cat was out of the bag in the U.S. media and the retraction did not change the overall tenor of coverage in the case, with most media continuing to refer to Berster as a “terrorist.”
American journalist Greg Guma has written extensively about the Berster case. In an article titled, “How disinformation turned Kristina Berster into an ‘enemy of the state,’” he described the context of growing radicalism in Germany when Berster entered the university:
“WHEN KRISTINA Berster, then 20, arrived in Heidelburg in late 1970, the student movement was well underway. The young in Germany were restless and angry, mostly about Vietnam. The rhetoric had turned revolutionary since the days of ‘Ban the Bomb!’ and the Berlin Wall. Student radicals numbered over 170,000, some of them turning gradually to Communism or Maoist ideology.
In a sense, German youth were emulating American dissent. The New Left in the US had reached a crisis point with the police riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago and the Days of Rage, which sparked the formation of the Weather Underground. German protest erupted with demonstrations in Berlin and the bombing of two empty department stores by Andreas Baader and Gudrin Ensslin.
The purpose of the bombings, said Baader, was ‘to light a beacon’ against the consumer society. As Ensslin explained, ‘We set fires in department stores so you will stop buying. The compulsion to buy terrorizes you.’ The analysis was superficial, but it struck at the core of German complacency in an era of intensive economic development.
With their accomplices, the couple was caught and convicted on arson charges, but they found support from one of Germany’s leading leftist journalists, Ulrike Meinhof.
When they were released in 1969, pending appeal of their cases. Baader and Ensslin went underground with help from Meinhof, and on September 29, 1970, the Red Army Faction (RAF) was officially born with the robbing of three West Berlin banks. Baader said the first problem of ‘the revolution’ was finding financial support.
By early 1971, West German police were turning to automatic weapons and brutal tactics at demonstrations. Anyone who looked like a nonconformist risked a spontaneous interrogation. New search, arrest and gun laws were passed; roadblocks were a common sight on the Autobahn. The excuse for the broad extension of police powers was a nationwide search for the Baader-Meinhof group, even though the political fugitives were responsible for only five out of 1,061 bank robberies committed during their heyday. The first suspect killed by police was a 20-year-old hairdresser named Petra Schelm.”
Berster was interested in psychology and grew increasingly alarmed at what she viewed as the isolation, atomization and alienation of people in West German society, as well as the frightening new psychological tactics authorities were developing against political dissidents. Berster was deeply influenced by radical concepts of therapy articulated by people like Thomas Szasz, who wrote, “The parallel between political and moral fascism is close. Each offers a kind of protection. And upon those unwilling to heed peaceful persuasion, the values of the state will be imposed by force: in political fascism by the military and the police; in moral fascism by therapists, especially psychiatrists.” After Berster was implicated by an informant as a left-wing sympathizer, she was detained and imprisoned for six months. During that time, she saw first-hand the erosion of legal rights in the West German system, as her lawyer was targeted and sanctioned by the state.
When Baader and Meinhof were arrested in 1971, they were placed in what was called “wipe-out detention.” As Guma explained, “It was a world of total sterility: luminous white, with fluorescent lights always on and all windows covered. The cells were soundproofed and filled only with white noise. In the ‘Dead Wing’ there were no visitors except lawyers and relatives. Reading materials were censored and other prisoners were never seen nor heard. When Jean-Paul Sartre saw Baader after two years in the ‘Dead Wing,’ he said, ‘This is not torture like the Nazis. It is torture meant to bring on psychic disturbances.’
Berster called this form of solitary confinement ‘the most effective way to destroy personality irreversibly. Humans are social. When you cut that off, when people are not able to talk or relate to others, an internal destruction begins. You become catatonic; somatic problems begin.’”
As a result of her own experience and the treatment of members of the Red Army Faction, Berster became increasingly interested in and involved with the prisoner’s rights movement in her country through the Socialist Patients Collective. In 1972, West German political leaders passed repressive new legislation against radicals, heightening concern that Berster and others would not receive fair trials. At the same time, growing debate divided the New Left in West Germany over the necessity of armed struggle. Berster later told supporters in Vermont that she had “problems with violence… I can’t shoot someone. I could never do violence.” As the 1970s pressed on, Berster decided to flee West Germany, spending time in Yemen, obtaining an Iranian passport and then ending up in Montreal. At her trial, Berster explained why she had crossed over to the U.S. in Vermont, “When I was in Paris, I was told that to get into the States, all you had to do was walk through Vermont’s northern border… They gave me a plan, with a map they drew, to enter from Noyan, Quebec, to Vermont.” Berster hoped to receive asylum in the U.S.
The Berster case attracted the support of a group of New Left activists in Vermont, including Roz Payne, as well as famed radical lawyer, William Kunstler, who represented Berster and saw in her case an opportunity to press back against increasing legal attacks against leftist lawyers in Germany, as well as new forms of political repression in the U.S. “This case goes far beyond Kristina Berster,” Kunstler told the press. “I am very concerned with West Germany’s treatment of so-called terrorists and the so-called left wing lawyers who defend them.” Kunstler also expressed concern over the “panic” reaction in the U.S. over the “terrorist” label, which resulted in $500,000 bail for Berster, to date the largest amount ever set for a border charge. The Berster Defense Committee in Vermont conducted a regional survey to assess public perceptions of the case and mounted rallies in support of Berster.
In October of 1978, after the longest jury deliberation in Vermont history, Berster received a mixed verdict, convicted on a felony and misdemeanor charge related to her border crossing, but acquitted of the more serious conspiracy charge. Several jurors were clearly sympathetic to Berster’s political plight and expressed hope after the trial that she might still win asylum in the U.S. The judge sentenced her to 9 months in jail, all but two weeks of which she had already served. The prosecutor in the case continued to stoke public fears about Berster, revealing to the media that Berster had spent time in Yemin. Immediately, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service initiated deportation proceedings againsgt Berster. Roz Payne worked as an investigator and paralegal for attorneys Bill Knsutler, Jesse Berman, Bill Kittel and Chris Davis on Berster’s immigration case. Ultimately, in 1979, a deal was brokered between U.S. and West German officials to drop the original charges against Berster and allow her to return home without a deportation order.
Reflecting on the case years later, Guma wrote:
“What to make of the Kristina Berster case? In one sense, it was a matter of human rights. Victimized by shifting international politics, a student activist whose only crime was crossing a border to seek asylum had spent almost two years in prison, in Germany and then the US.
But there was more to it than that. Berster’s case demonstrated how a campaign against terrorism can easily go off the rails, threatening anyone who actively tries to change the way society is run – from civil libertarians and prison reformers to anti-nuclear protesters and feminists. Across the country, despite claims that the days of COINTELPRO were over, reports were surfacing – harassment, covert agents provoking violence in nonviolent groups, wiretapping, political grand juries, and intrusive surveillance. As the 1970s wound down a chill was setting in, and terrorism was becoming an excuse for virtually any tactic the government found effective…
[Berter’s] US stay had revealed a few things — for example, that officials, working in and with intelligence agents, were ready to lie in court and sanction illegal surveillance, and that some media could be used to distribute rumors and falsehoods; The evidence remained circumstantial, but it also looked like Vermont had witnessed the manufacturing of a terrorist scare, an attempt to warp public perceptions for political gain. The FBI had lied, so had the prosecutor. Anyone who supported the defendant was targeted for surveillance. Then there was the simulated terrorist ‘siege.’
In essence, it looked like a concerted effort to influence public opinion, what would soon be labeled ‘perception management’ in a Defense Department manual. Basically, this tactic involves both conveying and denying information ‘to influence emotions, motives, and objective reasoning.’ The goal is to influence both enemies and friends, ultimately to provoke the behavior you want. ‘Perception management combines truth projection, operations security, cover and deception, and psychological operations,’ according to DOD.
In the Reagan years this type of operation was euphemistically labeled ‘public diplomacy,’ which was officially expanded to include domestic disinformation during the Bush I administration. In those days it was mostly about stoking fear of communism, the Sandinistas, Qaddafi, and anyone else on Reagan’s hit list. Clinton modifications were outlined in Directive 68, which still showed no distinction between what could be done abroad and at home. When Bush II took office, the name was changed again, this time to ‘strategic influence.’
Kristina Berster Defense Committee
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1979
Button
Physical Object
Che Guevara
Cuban Revolution
The image of Latin American revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara became an icon among U.S. radicals during the 1960s, particularly after Guevara's assassination in 1967. To many activists, Guevara symbolized Third World solidarity in a global liberation struggle.
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s
poster
Free the Panther 21
Black Power
In April of 1969, after a lengthy, coordinated effort by local and federal law enforcement to infiltrate and disrupt the New York chapter of the Black Panther Party, District Attorney Frank Hogan indicted 21 members of the organization, claiming a widespread conspiracy to murder policemen and blow up four police stations, five department stores, railroad lines, the Queens Board of Education building, and the Bronx Botanical Gardens. Ultimately, 13 Panthers, including Afeni Shakur and Dhoruba Bin Wahad, stood trial in a case that became a cause celebre among black militants and the broader New Left. For ten months prior to the trial, the jailed Panthers were held in solitary confinement with lights on 24 hours a day and denied reading materials, recreational facilities and family visitation. Several were not given mattresses and the two female Panthers were limited to four sheets of toilet paper per day. It was also reported that prison officials harassed Panther attorneys. Famed composer, Leonard Bernstein, helped raise bail money for the “New York 21.” During the court proceedings, District Attorney Hogan referred to the Panthers as a “terrorist organization,” read from Mao Zedong’s “Little Red Book.” showed jurors the film, “The Battle of Algiers” and attempted to introduce political posters from one of the defendant’s apartment into evidence. In what was, at the time, the longest and most costly trial in New York state history, the Panthers were acquitted of all 156 charges on May 12, 1971. In the wake of the failed prosecution, local law enforcement and the FBI continued to target the New York Black Panther Party.
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1969-1971
Button
Physical Object
Free the San Quentin 6
Prisoner's Rights Movement
The San Quentin 6 were six prisoners at the San Quentin State Prison in California - Hugo Pinell, Willie Tate, Johnny Larry Spain, David Johnson, Fleeta Drumgo and Luis Talamantez- accused of participating in the 1971 escape attempt that resulted in six deaths, including celebrated black radical, George Jackson, as well as three guards, Frank DeLeon, Paul Krasenes and Jere Graham, and two white inmates, John Lynn and Ronald L. Kane. After the longest trial in California history, a preceding that garnered widespread national publicity, the San Quentin 6 received a mixed verdict.
Jane Norling
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1973
poster
Free Vermont
Anti-Vietnam War Movement
A New Left poster from Burlington, Vermont, that offers a variation on German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller's poem, "First they came ..." The poem offers a critique of the cowardice of German intellectuals who failed to act as the Nazis rose to power, targeting group after group, until the tragedy of fascism and holocaust was upon them. In this case, activists were protesting a visit by President Richard Nixon to Burlington in 1970. In Nixon's arrival speech, he said:
October 17, 1970
Governor Davis, Senator Prouty, Congressman Stafford, all of the distinguished guests on the platform, and all of the distinguished members of this audience:
As you probably are aware, this is the first campaign stop that I have had the opportunity to make in 1970, and I am proud that it is in the State of Vermont. There are personal reasons for that statement that would be of interest, I am sure, to the young people here. My two daughters have very fond memories of their visit to this State to Camp Teela Wooket. I am glad to be back because of that.
The other reason is that as I look back on the record of the State of Vermont, in a personal sense, again, on all the occasions that I have been on the national ticket, I have lost some States but I have always carried Vermont. Thank you very much.
A third reason is that I am very proud to be here on a special day which is nonpolitical in one respect, certainly, the homecoming day of the University of Vermont. I also want to say that, speaking of the university, lets pay our respects to the Rice Memorial [High School] Band over here. How about that? And to the Canadian Geese 1 in the back. The Vermont Turkeys are going to go up to Canada on an exchange visit for the Canadian Geese next week.
1 The Canadian Geese Rock Band of Saint Michael's College, Winooski, Vt.
But there is a more fundamental reason in this year 1970 that I am very happy to be here to open this campaign in Vermont. It has to do with the fact that I have enormous respect for the men who are candidates on your ticket here this year. Let me mention them each briefly. Bob Stafford, who has been formerly your Governor, then a Congressman.
One thing that you know about the people from Vermont is this--and it is true of all of those representing Vermont in Washington and in the statehouse-whether it is George Aiken, who is a man whose wise counsel I have benefited from as President of the United States and prior to that time, or whether it is a case of Bob Stafford, a man who came to the Congress in the 87th Congress, and all of the Congressmen in the country who were elected that year elected him as their leader.2
2Representative Robert T. Stafford was president of the 87th Club which was made up of freshmen Republican Members of the 87th Congress.
That is an indication of what they think of Vermont and Bob Stafford in Washington, D.C.
I have had the opportunity to meet all the Governors of the 50 States at various Governors' Conferences, and I respect them all. But there are some who stand out and one who stands out is your Governor because he has courage, the courage to do what is right for his State, to take a mess fiscally and clean it up in the State of Vermont.
There is another reason that I admire your Governor and also your Congressman and your Senator, and that is their tenacity. When anything involves the State of Vermont, they are down there in my office pounding on that door until we do something about it.
For example, over these past 2 weeks they have expressed concern about a possible fuel oil shortage in the State of Vermont. Let me tell you I talked to General Lincoln, the head of the Office of Emergency preparedness before I left Washington.
There will be no fuel oil shortage--we will see to that, thanks to what your Governor has told us and your Senator and your Congressman--in the State of Vermont.
Now I come to your Senator, Win Prouty, the man who is running in this State for reelection. Can I speak to all of you now about the importance of this one man, this one vote, and your one vote in this State of Vermont?
Let us understand that in 1968 the country elected a new President, called for new leadership. We also recognized that at that time we had the Congress, both the House and the Senate, under the control of Members of the other party. Nevertheless, we worked with that Congress. Sometimes they voted against, sometimes for.
But in the United States Senate particularly-and all of you, particularly you who studied political science at the university and those who studied it also in high school will know, and all of you who read your papers and listen to television-the United States Senate on the great issues, the issues that involve whether we are going to have a program to bring lasting peace in the world, the issues that involve whether or not we are going to have a program that will stop the ruinous inflation that is robbing your pocketbooks and making it impossible to balance your family budget--when we look at all of these problems we find that in the United States Senate on vote after vote a majority of one determines the outcome.
A shift of one Senator, sometimes two, will determine whether the President's program goes through or whether it doesn't go through. I want to say to you, without Win Prouty's vote I couldn't stand here today and speak with pride of a record of accomplishment in this great field. He is providing that majority of one.
I would like to take the three issues, and I think I am going to take the hardest one first. I hear some of the young people here say stop the war, and I heard it said outside. I understand that.
Let me tell you what we found and then you judge the record and you judge Win Prouty on the basis of that record. When we came into office, we found 550,000 Americans in Vietnam. There was no plan to bring them home. There was no plan to end the war. There was no peace plan that had been submitted.
And what have we done? Let me tell you. We have implemented a plan to bring Americans home, and during the spring of next year half of the men that were in Vietnam when we got there will be coming home. That is what we are going to do.
Second, we wound down the fighting by the strong stand that we took to clean up the sanctuaries in Cambodia. We have cut American casualties to the lowest level in 4 ½ years.
I am not going to be satisfied until not one American is killed in Vietnam, but we are cutting them down and we are going to continue on that course.
And third, my friends, we have presented to the North Vietnamese, over national television--and I am sure many of you heard it--a far-reaching peace plan. We have offered a cease-fire without conditions. We have offered to negotiate all the political settlements with regard to South Vietnam, one that would allow all those in that country to participate in the making of that settlement. We have offered also a plan that would provide for the release of war prisoners on both sides. We have offered a conference on all of Indochina.
Now let me tell you exactly where it stands today. As I stand before you today, I can say confidently the war in Vietnam is coming to an end, and we are going to win a just peace in Vietnam. It will come to an end either--if the enemy accepts our proposal for a cease-fire, it can come to an end more quickly.
If it does not accept that proposal, then we will bring it to an end by continuing to withdraw Americans and replacing them with Vietnamese and allowing the Vietnamese to have the right to choose their own government without having it imposed by North Vietnam or by the United States. Now, isn't that the fair thing to do?
Now let us see what the other side of the argument is. I know the people in this State. My good friend Consuelo Bailey, 3 who has always advised me about Vermont, she has said to me from time to time, "The people up in this State, they want to hear both sides of the argument and want to make up their minds."
3 Consuelo Northrop Bailey, National Republican Committeewoman for Vermont and Secretary of the Republican National Committee.
Let me tell you the other side. I know there are people who say: Why this long road? Why don't we just end the war? I could have done it the day I came into office.
I could have brought all the Americans home. Let me tell you ending a war isn't very difficult. We ended World War I. We ended World War II. We ended Korea. And yet, in this century we have not had a generation of peace.
My friends, what we want to do is to end the war so that the young people that are shouting "Stop the War" will have a generation of peace, and that is the kind of plan that we are trying to implement. So that is what we are doing.
We are ending the war in a way that will discourage those who might start a war.
We are ending the war in a way that will bring permanent peace in the Pacific. It is that kind of program that Win Prouty has stood firmly by.
So I say let us work for what all of us want, not just peace for the next election but peace for the next generation so that the younger brothers and the sons of those who have fought in Vietnam won't have to be fighting in some other Vietnam sometime in the future.
So there is the choice. It is a clear one. Win Prouty, who stands for a just peace and a generation of peace, and those on the other side who say without regard to the future, let's simply end the problems that we are in today.
This is real statesmanship. That is one of the reasons I am here for him.
Let me turn to another subject of equal interest, equal interest in the sense that it affects the pocketbooks of everybody and every family budget. You all know what has happened to prices. You know that when we came into office we found prices going up and up.
You will find also that the reason they were going up and up was that in the years previous to our coming into office that the previous administrations had spent $50 billion more than the economy would have produced in terms of taxes at full employment.
And what did that do? Because Washington spent more than it was taking in or that it could have taken in in full employment, it raised the prices for everybody.
I said when we came into office we were going to stop that. That is why I had to veto some measures--that I felt people were poor in many instances.
Let me just say this: What we have to realize is that we need Senators and Congressmen who have the courage to vote against spending programs that may benefit some of the people but that raise prices and taxes for all people. That is the kind of a program that we stand for. That is the kind of fiscal responsibility that your Governor stands for. It is the kind of fiscal responsibility that Win Prouty stands for.
And we come to a third area, the area of progress. The great choice that the American people had in 1968 and that we now have a chance to reaffirm in 1970 is this: Do we continue to pour good money into bad programs so that eventually we end up with both bad money and bad programs or do we reform the programs of America? That is why this administration says let's reform the welfare system, let's reform our educational system, let's reform our health system, so that America can move forward on a new road. That is the kind of proposal that we offer.
And here the issue is clear. On the one side there are those who say keep pouring the same amount of money, billions, into the welfare program. Let me tell you what I think. I say that when a program makes it more profitable for a man not to work than to work, it is time to get rid of it and get another program. And that is why Win Prouty's strong support of the Family Assistance Program in which we provide help for all of those who need it, but in which we provide that those who are able to work will not only have an incentive to work but a requirement to work--let them work, I say, and if they cannot work then, of course, the welfare will be provided. It is that kind of reform that we stand for.
I could go on in other fields. Take the environment. I noticed that as the plane came down and I looked down on this magnificent countryside, and I know that pretty soon the tourists, the winter tourists, will be coming in, the summer influx having gone home. I can only say to you this, that as I look over America, and I fly over it many, many times, of course, on the way to California, to Florida, and to other States, this is a beautiful country. But, my friends, what we have to realize is that because of our wealth, what we are doing is that we are poisoning our water. We are also poisoning our air. We are having our cities choked with traffic and terrorized by crime. So what we have to do now is to clean up the environment of America.
That is why we have presented to the Congress an historic new program to clean up the air, to clean up the water, to provide open spaces for these young people to go to in the years ahead.
And, my friends, that is the kind of progressive legislation that Win Prouty supports, and that is another reason we need him in the United States Senate.
Then one other program I should mention-and Governor Davis, you will be interested in this and all of your fellow Governors--I think back to the history of this country, to the fact that Vermont has played a proud role from the time of the beginning of America. I think back to the fact, too, that when America was young the States felt that they had responsibilities and then power began to flow, particularly in this century, from the people and the counties and the cities and the States up to Washington, D.C. And Government in Washington got bigger and bigger and bigger, and government in the States found that they didn't have the funds to handle their problems, and taxes, particularly on your property, went up and up and up. So I said this has got to change.
That is why we have authorized and asked the Congress to approve, and they will not yet act on it, a program of revenue sharing, where the Federal Government will turn over to the States funds that the States can use to handle their own problems.
Let me tell you why this is important. For 190 years, my friends, power has been flowing from the people, from you, and from the States, to Washington. I say that it is time now for power to flow back from Washington to the States and to the people of America. That is the kind of a program, again, that Win Prouty supports.
Now one final point. I realize that in this year 1970 there are those who have very deep disagreements with our country's policy, whether it is abroad or at home. I know there are those who demonstrate and say that America is a sick society, that everything is wrong.
Just let me say this: I can tell you, my friends, I have seen this country, and I have also been abroad. I have just finished a trip to Europe. I was in a Communist country, Yugoslavia, and 350,000 people stood out in the rain cheering, not for me but for the United States of America. I was in Spain, in Italy, in Ireland, in England, and the same thing happened. The same thing happened in Asia last year, in India, and other countries.
Let me tell you something: Yes, there are those that criticize America, many abroad among leaden criticize our policies. But to millions of people ca this earth we can be proud of the fact that the United States of America--not because simply we are the strongest country and the richest country but because we are a country that provides the greatest freedom and the greatest opportunity for people in the history of the world--the United States is respected, and let's be worthy of that respect.
Now the question is: The voices are being heard in the year 1970. You hear them. You hear them night after night on your television, people shouting their obscenities about America and what we stand for. You hear those who shout against speakers and shout them down, who will not listen. And then you hear those who engage in violence. You hear those, and see them, who, without reason, kill policemen and injure them, and the rest. And you wonder: Is that the voice of America?
I say to you it is not. It is a loud voice, but, my friends, there is a way to answer: Don't answer with violence. Don't answer by shouting the same senseless words that they use. But answer in the powerful way that Americans have always answered. Let the majority of Americans speak up, speak up on November 3d, speak up with your votes. That is the way to answer.
My friends, the people in this great State may well determine whether or not on the great issues which will determine whether we can have a program that will bring lasting peace for a generation, progress in the field of the environment and welfare, and all these other areas that I have described, a program of strong and fair law enforcement whether or not we have that majority of one in the United States Senate, a majority that crosses party lines, may well determine on what you do in the State of Vermont. I say this to you because Win Prouty not only provides that vote but because this quiet, confident man has such enormous respect among his colleagues.
Let me tell you something. I have known the Senate and the House, served in both, and anybody who has known those bodies will agree with me that there are the doers and the talkers. Win Prouty isn't a talker; he is a doer. He gets things done. He works for the elderly. He works for progress. He works for education. He is a man who for 20 years has given his life. There isn't a man in that Senate that works harder than he does for Vermont and America.
And because he is a doer and not a talker, send him back and give us that majority of one.
Thank you.
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1970
poster
Frente Unido - Marcha a Washington de Octobre 30
Puerto Rican Nationalism
This leaflet encourages New Yorkers to participate in an upcoming march in Washington, D.C., to support Puerto Rican Nationalism, as well as "political prisoners" in the U.S. associated with the cause. The flyer features five imprisoned nationalists. Four - Lolita Lebrón, Irvin Flores, Andrés Figueroa Cordero, and Rafael Cancel Miranda - had been imprisoned after entering the U.S. Capitol Building on March 1, 1954, and opening fire with automatic pistols, wounding five congressmen. The fifth, Oscar Collazo, attempted to assassinate President Harry S Truman on November 1, 1950. The 1950s were a time of insurgent Puerto Rican nationalism, with a variety of actions on the island and in the U.S. On October 30, 1950, the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party organized a series of uprisings in various Puerto Rican cities. The date for the 1954 attack on the U.S. Capitol was chosen because it coincided with the inauguration of the Conferencia Interamericana (Interamerican Conference) in Caracas. The activists hoped to call attention to Puerto Rico's independence cause, particularly among the Latin American countries participating in that conference. During the late-1960s, Puerto Rican nationalism saw a resurgence along with other struggles for self-determination and liberation.
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s or early-1970s
mimeograph
leaflet
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
John Brown
Anti-Racist Activism
John Brown was a militant anti-racist activist during the Civil War era, known best for his failed raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia. During the 1960s-era, some looked at Brown as an icon of white anti-racist militancy.
unknown
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
unknown
Physical Object
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
Leviathan, vol. 1, no. 8, 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. 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 focuses on political repression against radicals, including a lengthy introductory essay on political repression; articles on “torture” by New York City police; the relationship of white revolutionaries to Third World liberation struggles; systematic repression of white radicals; repression against the Black Panther Party; a prison letter from John Sinclair; an interview with correction officer; an essay about the jail experience of Columbia University activists.
Leviathan Publications, Inc.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1969
underground press
Liberation, July 8, 1966, no. 83
New Left
Liberation was a left periodical published in Paris during the 1960s that served a wider European audience..
Liberation
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
July 8, 1966
newspaper
National Liberation Front (NLF) Flag
Anti-Vietnam War Movement
During the late-1960s and early 1970s, the flag of the North Vietnamese National Liberation Front (NLF) became an increasingly visible symbol at U.S. anti-war demonstrations, particularly among radicals. The presence of the flag was controversial.
Paul Saba, of the revolutionary Youth Movement II, wrote an essay, "Why We Carry the N.L.F. Flag," in 1969, which offered his justification for the use of the flag:
A lot of people get mad when they see young people carrying the flag of the National Liberation Front (NLF) in demonstrations. They call us traitors. They call the NLF the “enemy.” We carry the NLF flag because we believe that the fighting National Liberation Front of South Vietnam is the best friend of the people of America. We carry the flag to make a concrete show of our support for the victory of the Vietnamese fighting to drive the U.S. out of their nation.
The Vietnamese people have fought for 40 years to drive foreign invaders out of their land. First the Japanese, than they whipped the French, and now the United States. The Vietnamese have stated: “We shall never put down our guns until the last American soldier has left our soil.”
We oppose those politicians who call for a “just peace,” and “honorable peace.” There will be peace in Vietnam only when the Vietnamese have full control of their nation.
The Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) believe that Americans must support the right of self-determination for all nations.
The American people are hurt and hurt bad by the Vietnam war. We pay for it in every way with soaring taxes and prices, anti-strike laws and falling real wages, and most of all, with the blood and lives of our loved ones, who are killed in Vietnam. But the rich, who are the only ones who profit from this war, can continue to oppress and rob American workers only for as long as we will stand for the oppression and exploitation of other nations around the world.
These same fat cats who wage the Vietnam war will be drafting our men to South American and African countries where the people are fighting to throw out American businesses and landlords; and once again the people’s war against the imperialists will win. We can see that Vietnam is leading the struggle for self-determination, and that all the oppressed rations will follow. The ruling class in this country will try to use the American people to keep down the people in other nations. Just as here in the U.S. the rich have always played poor whites off against oppressed black people, and men against women.
We believe that there are only two sides in the struggle against exploitation and oppression. On one side, are the rising people of the oppressed nations. On the other side are the imperialists – the only ones who benefit from these wars. WE MUST CHOOSE THE SIDE OF THE OPPRESSED PEOPLE. A victory for the Vietnamese people will be n victory for us! This is why we carry the flag of the National Liberation Front of Vietnam.
VIETNAM WILL WIN!
U.S. OUT OF VIETNAM NOW!
SUPPORT THE NATIONAL LIBERATION FRONT AND THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT!
Revolutionary Youth Movement II
507 North Hoover
Los Angeles, Calif
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s and early-1970s
flag
New Left Notes, vol. 1 no. 40 and 41, October 28, 1966
New Left
New Left Notes was the official newspaper published by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). This issue includes articles about a migrant labor strike in Wisconsin; reactionary radicals; peace candidates; anti-draft activism; internal education; university reform and revolution; Vice-President’s report; Black Power ad; chapter contact list; College Young Democratic Clubs controversy.
Students for a Democratic Society
Bruce Pech
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
October 28, 1966
underground press
New Left Notes, vol. 1, no. 29, August 5, 1966
New Left
New Left Notes was the official newspaper published by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). This issue includes articles about the upcoming SDS national convention in Clear Lake, Iowa; a debate over electoral politics and the National Council for a New Politics; a burglary at the Chicago headquarters of the DuBois Clubs of America; definitions of radicalism; an update from the Iowa City chapter; a discussion of the intersection of race and poverty and ERAP; a response to a previous article on the Communist Convention; SDS and ideology; “derisive terminology”; the radical tradition in America; the “crisis of Cold War ideology”; an Cleveland gathering of anti-war groups; “representative democracy” vs. “referendum democracy”; recent racial conflict on Chicago’s West Side; an upcoming Socialist Scholars Conference; grape strike; SSOC; a response to a critique of the New Left by Tom Kahn; letters to the editor.
Students for a Democratic Society
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
August 5, 1966
underground press
New Nation
Counterculture
This flyer by the White Panther Party and Red Star Sisters encourages the radical redefinition of identity as a key to revolution. It also advertises a screening of several Newsreel films on the Boston University campus.
White Panther Party and Red Star Sisters
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. early-1970s
mimeograph
flyer
Osawatomie, April-May 1976, vol. 2, no. 1
Weather Underground
Newsletter of the Weather Underground summarizing the latest happenings in the underground, including articles about Puerto Rican Nationalism; political prisoners; the crisis of imperialism; organizing in economic crisis; solidarity with the Angolan Revolution American War; G.I. organizing; toolbox self-determination; Zionism and racism; Paul Robeson; Panama.
Weather Underground
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
April-May 1976
underground press
Osawatomie, Autumn 1975, no. 3
Weather Underground
Newsletter of the Weather Underground summarizing the latest happenings in the underground, including articles about the Weather Underground’s class analysis; the Prisoner’s Rights Movement; book reviews on radical women; the power of film; the Weather Underground bombing of Kennecott Corporation; Portuguese Revolution; toolbox on socialism; Boston busing crisis; Korea; fiction; country music.
Weather Underground
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Autumn 1975, no. 3
underground press
Osawatomie, June-July 1976, vol. 2, no. 2
Weather Underground
Newsletter of the Weather Underground summarizing the latest happenings in the underground, including a notice for an anti-colonial march in Philly, San Fran and L.A. on the bicentennial; news briefs including a short obituary of Phil Ochs; and articles about U.S. meddling in Cuba’s upcoming election; unemployment; the history of Reconstruction and its failure; “anti-imperialism vs. opportunity: a self-critique”; racism in Boston; indigenous sovereignty; and a piece of serialized fiction, “The People, The People.”
Weather Underground
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
June-July 1976, vol. 2, no. 2
underground press
Osawatomie, Spring 1975, no. 1
Weather Underground
Newsletter of the Weather Underground summarizing the latest happenings in the underground, including articles about solidarity on the left; racism and school desegregation crisis in Boston; poetry; population control; a toolbox on internationalism; Puerto Rican nationalism; an analysis of the roots of the economic crisis; the energy crisis; indigenous rights and the Bicentennial; the Chilean resistance; a book review of Cuban Women Now; International Women’s Day.
Weather Underground
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Spring 1975, no. 1
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
Osawatomie, Winter 1975-76, no. 4
New Left
Newsletter of the Weather Underground summarizing the latest happenings in the underground, including articles about women and class; class struggle in New York; a short story about the Black Liberation Army; a reflection on John Brown; reparations for Vietnam; United Farm Workers elections; the impact of budget cuts in Massachusetts; Berkeley teachers strike; surplus labor; health hazards at work; book review; armed struggle and the Symbian Liberation Army; Puerto Rican independence.
Weather Underground
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Winter, 1975-76, no. 4
underground press
Rat Subterranean News "Up Against the Wall"
New Left
This button was created by Rat Subterranean News, the second of two major underground newspapers coming out of New York City and features the paper's mascot. Rat was published from 1968-1970. It gained notoriety for its reporting on the siege of Columbia in 1968, the take-over of SDS by the Weather Underground, the Panther 21 trial in New York, the take-over of Alcatraz Island by the American Indian Movement and early ecology reportage. Several Rat contributors were arrested after a series of non-lethal bombings of corporate offices and military targets in late-1969 and the newspaper was overtaken by radical feminists in 1970 because of its sexism. According to an FBI report on the underground newspaper written shortly after its founding, “Only a handful of the papers strike me as having a distinct character, useful, original material, and rich, imaginative writing… The paper, named after the small, tough, and durable rodent of the underground, defined itself in a first anniversary editorial last March as an ‘experiment in participatory journalism.’”
RAT Subterranean News
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1968
Button
Physical Object
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
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
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
Revolution Revolution
Anti-Vietnam War Movement
This poster features a photograph from an anti-war demonstration with a participant holding a poster from Guerrilla: Free Newspaper of the Streets that read, "Revolution Revolution - Eldridge Cleaver for President." The image underscores the growing radicalism and the interconnections between various movements in the New Left
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. 1968
poster
Revolutionary Letters, by Diane di Prima
New Left
A group of poems by Diane di Prima that explore radical activism and social justice.
Diane di Prima
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
April-May 1968
mimeograph
poetry
Smash Imperialism!
New Left
By the late-1960s, it was common for some New Left organizations and anti-war activists to talk about U.S. foreign policy as a form of "imperialism" needing to be destroyed, or "smashed," through "revolutionary action" in order to bring about the "radical change" they desired.
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s
Button
Physical Object
Stop the War Against Vietnam
Anti-Vietnam War Movement
The militant youth wing of the Workers World Party, the Youth Against War and Fascism opposed American military interventionism as early as 1962, when the group set up a picket line in mid-town Manhattan to alert the public to the danger of sending U.S. military advisers to Southeast Asia. Later in the 1960s and beyond, the socialist YAWF continued its anti-war activism and also supported the black liberation struggle in America and Africa.
Youth Against War & Fascism
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Button
en-US
Physical Object
ca. 1970s
The Fat Capitalist's Song on the Death of Che Guevara
Anti-Capitalism
This satirical song is written from the perspective of the "big fat capitalists" about the death of Latin American revolutionary, Che Guevara.
Times Change Press
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1970
booklet
To the People of the Salmon River Mountains from the People of Black Bear Ranch
Environmentalism
A letter opposing the clear-cut logging of land in Idaho by a California commune, the Black Bear Ranch. According to the historian Timothy Miller, the community bought the property for $22,500 using money from a variety of sources including from supporters in the entertainment industry, as well as "one large unexpected angelic gift" and the "proceeds from a major LSD deal." The commune had a variety of contacts with radical groups.
the People of Black Bear Ranch
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s or early-1970s
mimeograph
leaflet
Viva Che
New Left
On an orange field, this button contains the words, “Viva Che,” in black. Representing the cult of personality Che Guevara developed internationally following his death in 1967, this button signifies the international appeal of Guevara, particularly his armed involvement in the Cuban Revolution and Bolivia campaign. Guevara embodied the image and philosophy of intellectual Marxism coupled with guerilla warfare tactics. Wearing a Che t-shirt or button, or hanging a Che poster on the wall of a bedroom or office, was meant to signify a person's own (aspired to) radicalism.
unknown
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
ca. late-1960s
Button
Physical Object
Why We Strike
Anti-Vietnam War Movement
The “Siege at Columbia,” as some called it, refers to the 1968 take-over of two buildings at Columbia University by white and black student radicals. It was a part of the broader global student revolt of that year.
In early March of 1967, Columbia SDS activist, Bob Feldman, uncovered documents that linked the university to U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, sparking a year of anti-war protests on campus. Around the same time, opposition grew to a plan by Columbia to construct the Morningside Park gymnasium. Some were critical of the university’s appropriation of public park land in Harlem to build the new facility, while others labelled a proposal to create a separate “back-door” entrance for local community members, most of whom were African American and Puerto Rican, “Gym Crow,” claiming it was segregationist and discriminatory. Columbia, a major land-owner in the area, had a decades-long history of displacing local black and brown residents and applying stricter scrutiny to community members who used their facilities.
On March 27, 1968, student anti-war activists staged a peaceful demonstration inside Low Library. In response, university administration placed six activists on probation for violating a Columbia ban on indoor protests. Tensions grew between university administrators and student activists. On April 12, Columbia University president, Grayson Kirk, stated, “Our young people, in disturbing numbers, appear to reject all forms of authority, from whatever source derived, and they have taken refuge in a turbulent and inchoate nihilism whose sole objectives are destruction. I know of no time in our history when the gap between the generations has been wider or more potentially dangerous.” On April 22, Columbia SDS leader, Mark Rudd, replied, “Dear Grayson, . . . You call for order and respect for authority; we call for justice, freedom, and socialism. There is only one thing left to say. It may sound nihilistic to you, since it is the opening shot in a war of liberation. I’ll use the words of LeRoi Jones, whom I’m sure you don’t like a whole lot: “Up against the wall, motherfucker, this is a stick-up.”
On April 23, members of SDS and Columbia’s Student Afro Society (SAS) led a second attempt to protest inside Low Library, but were prevented by university police. Following the campus confrontation, activists marched to the gymnasium construction site and attempted to block work there, resulting in scuffles with local police and some arrests. SDS and SAS members then returned to campus, where they occupied Hamilton Hall, which housed classroom, as well as administrative offices. Activists detained Dean Henry Coleman (and released him 24 hours later) and issued six demands:
1) Disciplinary actions against the six originally charged must be lifted and no reprisals taken against anyone in this demonstration.
2) Construction of the Columbia gym on Harlem land must stop NOW.
3) The University must use its good offices to see that all charges against persons arrested at the gym site be dropped.
4) All relations with IDA must be severed, including President Kirk’s and Trustee William Burden’s membership on the Executive Board.
5) President Kirk’s edict on indoor demonstrations must be dropped.
6) All judicial decisions should be made in an open hearing with due process judged by a bipartite committee of students and faculty.
Soon after the occupation began, though, racial friction among the activists emerged. Black student activists requested that white radicals separate themselves from African American demonstrators. Black militants wanted to maintain a single focus on the construction of the new gymnasium, whereas white student activists also wanted to protest the broader issue of the university’s links to the war effort. In addition, members of SAS opposed the destruction of property, whereas SDS members did not. African American militants were concerned that destruction of property would play into long-standing racial stereotypes about black people. Ultimately, the two groups came to an agreement with white activists retreating from Hamilton Hall and occupying, instead, the President’s office in Low Library, along with three other buildings on campus. The siege at Columbia attracted significant national and even international attention, as well as the participation of community members, students from other campuses, and other activists, like SDS founder, Tom Hayden. On Friday, April 26, Black Power leaders, Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown arrived on campus.
The stand-off between occupying student activists and the administration continued for a week, with wrangling over terms of a possible resolution. An Ad Hoc facultuy committee desperately tried to broker a deal, but student activists, administrators and local politicians consistently rejected their efforts. Despite a majority of students and local community seeming to support the occupying students, a groups of student athletes and conservative students formed what they called the “Majority Coalition” and formed a cordon around the occupied buildings in an effort to block food and water from entering the buildings to “starve out” the activists. In response, supportive faculty created a buffer between the Majority coalition and the buildings.
On Tuesday, April 30, an estimated 1,000 police entered campus to clear the occupied buildings. Fearful of a race riot in Harlem just a few weeks after civil disorder had hit the community in the wake of Dr. King’s murder, a contingent of African American law enforcement dealt gingerly with SAS activists. As SAS leader, Raymond Brown recalled, “They must have had half the black senior officers in New York on-site at Hamilton Hall, led by Assistant Chief Inspector Waithe. I think there was a great determination that they were not going to kick any black students in their butts.” Barnard SAS member, Karla Spurlock-Evans said, “The police came into Hamilton Hall and handled us very gently—not at all characteristic of police officers in general. They loaded us onto buses and took us downtown to the Tombs.” By contrast, police stormed the buildings controlled by white radicals with clubs swinging indiscriminately. According to Columbia faculty member, Michael Rosenthal, “They started beating the shit out of people. No one was resisting. I was standing next to the 64-year-old English professor Fred Dupee when he was punched in the face.” Future New York governor, Goerge Pataki, who was a Columbia law student at the time and member of the “Majority Coalition,” remembered, “From around the back of Low library comes this wave of T.P.F. guys just clubbing everybody in sight. I guess their orders were to clear the campus, which was incredibly stupid and counterproductive because many of the people outside the buildings were the anti-radicals—the pro-cop people. The radicals were all inside the buildings.” Nancy Biberman, a Barnard SDS member, stated, “I saw the university rabbi being beaten by police, and I saw random students who were beaten for just being outside on campus. These cops had been sitting on the perimeter of campus all week, pent up, waiting and waiting. As soon as they were allowed on campus, there was a mêlée. It was called a police riot, and I believe it. It was terrifying.” Police officer, Gary Beamer, agreed, saying, “The police were forced to stand outside the campus for several days and watch crimes being committed—assaults, destruction of property, and preventing students who wanted to get an education from going to class. It didn’t sit well with most of the police. So naturally, when the green light finally came for the police to go in and restore order, they were pretty eager to do it.” And Columbia student, Hilton Obenzinger, told reporters years later, “I remember vividly a cop with a frozen grin on his face going up to a girl, a Barnard student. He lifted up his very long utility flashlight and slammed it on her head. And it wasn’t just once—it was again, and again, and again. She fell down and he kept beating her.” Conflict between students and police continued into the next day. In the end, 132 students, 4 faculty members and 12 police officers were injured and roughly 700 arrested. An estimated 30 students were suspended. After another round of campus protests between May 17-22, police beat 51 and arrested 177 more students.. Following the spring demonstrations, Columbia university did scrap the Morningside Park gymnasium and severed some of their ties to the military-industrial complex.
This pamphlet, written by the Columbia Strike Committee, to “help explain and clarify the position of the striking students at Columbia.”
Columbia Strike Committee
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1968
pamphlet