Quick links to periodicals (scroll down to access those not highlighted)
Local Periodicals
Local Alternative Press
- Washington Area Spark (vintage)
- Alice – The Blacksburg Free Press
- On The Move
- The Daily Rag
- Northern Virginia Free Press
- Quicksilver Times
- Red Earth
- Voice from the Mother Country
- Washington Free Press
Local Anarchist
- Lone Wolf Bulletin
Local Antiwar
- D.C. Moratorium Newsletter
- The Mourning Dove
- The Washington Mobilizer
Local Black Liberation/Civil Rights
Local Civil Liberties
- Md/DC Committee to Oppose Political Repression Update
Local Community
- Fields of Plenty
- Letts Talk
- Voice of Mother Jones
Local GI/Veterans Press
- B.E.F. News
- Concerned Officers Movement Newsletter
- Highway 13
- Left Face (1969)
- Left Face
- Military Law Project News-Notes
- OM
- Open Sights
- The Liberated Castle
- The Oppressed
- The Pawn
- U-BAD Newsletter
Local LGBTQ
- Breadbox
- The Furies
- GLF Newsletter
- The Washington Blade
Local Labor
- Action
- AFSCME in Action
- Annapolis Report
- ATU National Capital Local Union 689 News
- Metro C.A.R.
- The Trades Unionist
- U-BAD Newsletter
- Washington, D.C. Teacher
Local Students (College and University)
- University of Md. SDS Spark
- University of Md. Route 1 Gazette
- Virginia SSOC Newsletter
Local Students (High School)
Local Women’s Movement
- Off Our Backs
- Washington Area Women’s Center Newsletter
- Washington Women’s Liberation Newsletter
- Women’s Liberation Information Bulletin
National Periodicals
National Alternative Press
National Antiwar
- The Anti Draft
- Memo
- Movin Together
- The Peace Times
- The Resistance
- The Student Mobilizer
- Vietnam Summer News
National Civil Rights & Black Liberation
- The African World
- Babylon
- The Beat Goes On
- The Black Panther
- Charter Bulletin
- Committee Against Racism National Report
- Finally Got the News
- I Am We
- Panther Trial News
- The Patriot
- Poll Tax Repealer
- Right On!
- SNCC Periodicals
- Unity and Struggle
National GI & Veterans
National Labor
- In Transit (formerly Motorman and Conductor)
- The Telephone Worker
National Social and Economic Justice
National Student
- SDS Periodicals
- The Activist
- Bulletin
- New Left Notes
- Fire
- Caw!
- Radical America
- SNCC Periodicals
- The Student Mobilizer
- USNSA Periodicals
- The American Student
- USNSA Congress News
- USNSA Newsletter
National Women’s
- Voice of the Women’s Liberation Movement
International Periodicals
Local Periodicals
Local Alternative Press
Washington Area Spark
The Montgomery Spark, The Montgomery County Spark, The Washington Area Spark and its successor publication On The Move published from 1971-75. Beginning as a radical student newspaper at Montgomery College, it morphed into a “movement” newspaper, then to a working class-based paper and finally as a publication dominated by the Revolutionary Union.
Historical Washington Area Spark (complete set)
Vol. 1 No. 1 – October 5, 1971
Vol. 1 No. 2 – October 25, 1971
Vol. 1 No. 3 – November 19, 1971
Vol. 1 No. 4 – December 10, 1971
Vol. 1 No. 5 – February 29, 1972
Vol. 2 No. 1 – September 6, 1972
Vol. 2 No. 2 – October 4, 1972
Vol. 2 No. 3 – October 31, 1972
Vol. 2 No. 4 – November 19, 1972
Vol. 2 No. 5 – December 20, 1972
Vol. 2 No. 6 – January 20, 1973
Vol. 2 No. 7 – February 21, 1973
Vol. 2 No. 12 – August 17, 1973
Vol. 3 No. 1 – October 11, 1973
Vol. 3 No. 2 – November 24, 1973
Washington Area Spark Artifacts
National Liberation Front headband – 1971-72 – worn at D.C. area antiwar demonstrations by Spark staff
Spark “bomb” headband – 1972 – Worn at D.C. area antiwar demonstrations by Spark staff
On The Move–successor to Washington Area Spark (complete set):
Vol. 1 No. 1 – April-May, 1974
Alice – Blacksburg Free Press (complete set)
Alice was a left-wing alternative newspaper that published 36 issues from May 1968-May 1970 in Blacksburg, Virginia. Though not in the immediate Washington, D.C. area, it retains a strong connection through Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech).
Alice covered student issues and campus demonstrations at Virginia Tech as well as broader emerging issues such as gay, lesbian and women’s rights, anti-Vietnam War, drugs, black liberation, police repression and the youth culture.
The paper generally used student semesters at Virginia Tech as volume numbers and initially published in an 8 ½ x 11 or 8 ½ x 14 newsletter style before switching to tabloid newsprint in 1969.
Vol. 2 No. 7 – August 12, 1968
Vol. 2 No. 9 (apparently mis-numbered) – August 19, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 1 – September 23, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 2 – September 30, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 3 – October 7, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 4 – October 14, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 7 – November 25, 1968
Vol. 4 No. 1 – January 7, 1969
Vol. 6 No. 4 – November 6, 1969
Vol. 7 No. 2 – February 6, 1970
Some originals held in the Bonnie Atwood papers, 1965-2005, Collection, Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA. Other originals are from the Virginia Tech Special Collections.
The Daily Rag
The Daily Rag published every two weeks from October 1972 until June 1974. It was a left wing tabloid that reported on local, national and international issues from a radical perspective, but was less flamboyant than the Washington Free Press or Quicksilver Times.
Its first incarnation was as the Colonial Times that published three issues beginning in October 1971 but folded thereafter. The Colonial Times billed itself as the alternative to the Quicksilver Times and the Washington Post.
The Colonial Times then began publishing the Rag in 1972 and claimed a circulation of 36,000 in 1973 for the paper that was distributed free of charge.
Vol. 1 No. 1 – Early October, 1972
Vol. 1 No. 14 – April 20, 1973
Vol. 2 No. 7 – November 16, 1973
Northern Virginia Free Press
The Northern Virginia Free Press was a brief-lived 1970 left-wing alternative newspaper that grew out of the Annandale Free Press—a high school alternative publication.
The paper’s banner featured a marijuana leaf.
The NoVa Free Press maintained an office in Springfield and had seven staff members when it published its first edition along with several contributors and several other people to assist with art work.
Original held in the Bonnie Atwood papers, 1965-2005, Collection # M 520, Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.
Quicksilver Times (nearly complete set)
This newspaper was the premier Washington, D.C. alternative newspaper from 1969 to 1972 along with the Washington Free Press (1967-70) during a period of radical and revolutionary upheaval.
Quicksilver was among the pioneers skillfully utilizing the strengths of offset printing such as color, centerfold and back cover political posters and art, attention getting headlines, large graphics and over time, using white space to focus attention.
On the negative side, its ultization of half-tone graphics overlaid on text, reversed text and a small type face made reading the content difficult at times (though attractive to glance at).
It had excellent coverage of topics such as the Weather Underground, the 1969 Moratoriums, 1970 national student strike, 1970 Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention, 1971 People’s Peace Treaty, 1971 Mayday demonstrations, the rise of the women’s liberation and gay liberation movements, the rise and decline of the Black Panther Party, campaigns to free political prisoners, the youth culture and the co-op movement.
Vol. 1 No. 6 – August 12, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 7 – August 26, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 8 – September 10, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 9 – September 21, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 10 – October 1, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 11 – October 18, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 12 – October 29, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 13 – November 13, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 14 – November 26, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 15 – December 8, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 16 – December 19, 1969
Vol. 2 No. 1 – January 9, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 2 – January 19, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 3 – January 30, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 4 – February 9, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 5 – February 20, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 10 – April 14, 1970
Vol. 2 No 13 – unavailable at this time
Vol. 2 No. 19 – August 8, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 20 – August 18, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 21 – September 1, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 22 – September 15, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 23 – September 26, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 24 – October 5, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 25 – October 19, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 26 – October 31, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 27 – November 10, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 28 – November 24, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 29 – December 8, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 30 – December 22, 1970
Vol. 3 No. 1 – January 16, 1971
Vol. 3 No. 2 – January 30, 1971
Vol. 3 No. 3 – February 17, 1971
Vol. 3 No. 15 – August 14, 1971
Vol. 3 No. 16 – August 28, 1971 (duplicate date and volume number)
Vol. 3 No. 17 – August 28, 1971 (duplicate date and volume number)
Vol. 3 No. 18 – September 16, 1971 (possibly misdated)
Vol. 3 No. 19 – October 13, 1971
Vol. 3 No. 20 – October 29, 1971
Vol. 3 No. 21 – November 12, 1971
Vol. 3 No. 22 – November 25, 1971
Vol. 3 No. 23 – December 14, 1971
Vol. 3 No. 24 – December 31, 1971
Vol. 4 No. 1 – January 14, 1972
Vol. 4 No. 2 – January 28, 1972
Vol. 4 No. 3 – February 15, 1972
Red Earth
Red Earth was the new name of Voice from the Mother Country beginning with the second issue. The last issue of Washington, D.C.-based Red Earth alternative newspaper published as a mini-manual of urban guerilla warfare circa June 1970. The politics of the paper are closely aligned with the Weathermen (later Weather Underground).
Included is a statement from the Weathermen after the bombing of the New York City police headquarters that occurred on June 9, 1970.
The 20-page tabloid also covers arms, logistics, tactics, 7 sins that a guerrilla can commit, popular support and recruitment.
The paper was apparently laid-out as a 16-page paper, but expanded to 20 pages with the inclusion of an unnumbered 4-page insert in the center of the tabloid.
Vol. 1 No. 1 – April 1970 (published as Voice from the Mother Country)
Vol. 1 No. 2 – unavailable
No Volume or Issue number – June 1970
Voice from the Mother Country
A staff split at the Quicksilver Times alternative newspaper resulted in about half the staff leaving to publish one issue of Voice from the Mother Country in April 1970. They took over the Quicksilver offices at 1932 17th Street NW that later in the year became the Community Center of the Black Panther Party.
Subsequently the paper was renamed Red Earth and published three more issues.
The start-up paper was effectively ended by an FBI raid on May 7, 1970 that was ostensibly looking for former DC Regional SDS leader Cathy Wilkerson who at the time was a fugitive member of the Weather Underground Organization. Two of the staff members of the Voice were arrested on weapons charges.
Vol. 1 No. 1 – April 1970 – Note pages 3 and 4 are damaged
Vol. 2 No. 1 – May 1970 – unavailable (published as Red Earth)
Vol. 1 No. 3 – May 29, 1970 (published as Red Earth
No Volume or Issue number – June 1970 (published as Red Earth)
Washington Free Press
The Washington Free Press published from 1966 to 1969 and became the first of the 1960s “underground” newspapers in the Washington, D.C. area.
It began as an intercollegiate newspaper in the area in 1966 and in April 1967 began publishing as an area-wide alternative newspaper.
It started as an eight-page weekly tabloid publishing investigative pieces and exposes not covered by the mainstream press but in a writing style not much different from than the three daily newspapers that served the city.
By 1968 it was publishing a 24 or 28-page issue every two weeks or so and had adopted a more free-form style of journalism where opinion was mixed freely with reporting. Its politics evolved from a left-liberal bent to youth culture to revolutionary over a three-year span.
Under pressure from authorities, internal issues, and from the start-up alternative newspaper Quicksilver Times, the Free Press began faltering in its last year of publication. It moved to a monthly and then abandoned a regular schedule. Its once lively content began to fade and it ceased publication in December 1969.
This collection needs work. Most issues of the area-wide paper are represented, but many are missing pages and the quality of the scans is less than desirable. If you have copies of the Washington Free Press or know where to obtain them, please e-mail washington_area_spark@yahoo.com
Vol. 2 No. 2 – April 2, 1967 – missing pages
Vol. 2 No. 3 & 4 – April 19, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 10 – Not available at this time
Vol. 2 No. 11 – June 30, 1967 – missing page
Vol. 2 No. 13 – August 4, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 14 – August 20, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 15 – September 3, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 16 – October 14, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 17 – October 31, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 18 – November 3, 1967 ca. – Extra
Vol. 2 No. 19 – November 23, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 20 – December 12, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 21 – December 31, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 22 – January 14, 1968
Vol. 2 No. 23 – February 3, 1968
Vol. 2 No. 24 – February 20, 1968
Vol. 2 No. 25 – February 29, 1968 – pages 1 & 2 from color scan
Vol. 2 No. 27 – Not available at this time
Vol. 2 No. 28 – March 27, 1968
Vol. 2 No. 29 – Not available at this time
Vol. 2 No. 31 – May 18, 1968 – missing pages
Vol. 2 No. 32 – Not available at this time
Vol. 2 No. 33 – Not available at this time
Vol. 2 No. 35 – July 26, 1968 Special Edition
Vol. 2 No. 36 – July 27, 1968, Special Edition
Vol. 2 No. 37 – August 1, 1968
Vol. 2 No. 38 – Not available at this time
Vol. 2 No. 39 – September 1, 1968
Vol. 2 No. 40 – September 15, 1968 – missing pages
Vol. 2 No. 41 – October 1, 1968 – missing pages
Vol. 2 No. 42 – Not available at this time
Vol. 2 No. 43 – November 1, 1968 – missing pages
Vol. 2 No. 44 – November 15, 1968 – missing pages
Vol. 2 No. 45 – December 1, 1968 – missing page
Vol. 2 No. 46 – December 16, 1968
Vol. 2 No. 47 – January 1, 1969 – missing pages
Vol. 2 No. 48 – January 16, 1969 –missing pages
Vol. 2 No. 49 – February 1, 1969 – from color scan
Vol. 2 No. 50 – February 15, 1969 – from color scan
Vol. 2 No. 51 – Not available at this time
Vol. 2 No. 52 – March, 15, 1969 – from color scan
Vol. 3 No. 1 – April 1, 1969 –missing page
Vol. 3 No. 2 – Not available at this time
Vol. 3 No. 4 – May 16, 1969 –missing pages
Vol. 3 No. 5 – June 1, 1969 – from color scan
Vol. 3 No. 6 – July 1, 1969 – missing pages
Vol. 3 No. 7 – August 1, 1969 – missing pages
Vol. 3 No. 8 – August (late) 1969 – missing pages
Vol. 3 No. 9 – September (early) 1969 – missing pages
Vol. 3 No. 10 – October (early) 1969 – missing pages
Vol. 3 No. 11 – November (early) 1969 – pages 11-14 from color scan, missing pages
Vol. 3 No. 12 – December (Christmas) 1969
Local Anarchist
Lone Wolf Bulletin
Lone Wolf was the publication of the Washington, D.C. anarchist collective Lone Wolf that explained their views on the theory and practice of anarchism in a series of short tracts 1981-82.
In their own words:
“The Lone Wolf Collective strives to help in building a conscious revolutionary anarchist movement and do outreach, spreading general information about the practicality of anarchism.”
The issues of Lone Wolf covered the principles and goals of the collective, a brief history of anarchism, a critique of Marxism, and an explanation of anarchism.
Local Antiwar
D.C. Moratorium Newsletter
The Newsletter of the D.C. Vietnam Moratorium Committee, the local arm of the organization that sponsored perhaps the largest anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in the October and November 1969 Moratoriums (or strike) against the war that involved upwards of two million people, publishes a newsletter in January 1970.
The national Committee was not able to duplicate its success and the organization disbanded after antiwar protests set around the April 15th tax day largely fizzled. In an April 20, 1970 letter to supporters the organizers wrote there was “little prospect of immediate) change in the Administration’s policy in Vietnam.”
Unbeknownst to its organizers, President Richard Nixon would set off a firestorm of protest just 10 days later on April 30, 1970 when he ordered U.S. troops to invade Cambodia. Students at college campuses across the country staged strikes and mass demonstrations and over 100,000 people rallied against the war in Washington, D.C. with less than a week’s notice.
The Mourning Dove
The Mourning Dove was the newsletter of the Washington Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, a broad coalition that sponsored local peace demonstrations as well as organizing for national demonstrations like the October 1967 march on the Pentagon and the August 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention.
The local group was most active in 1967 and 1968 and served as the local arm of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, often called the Mobe.
It grew out of the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam that was organized to build for a large anti-Vietnam War demonstration in New York City in April 1967.
The newsletter was mimeographed on 8 ½ x 11 paper. Issues currently available are:
Vol. 1 No. 3 – (mis-numbered as No. 2) – June 23, 1967
The Washington Mobilizer
The Washington Mobilizer (1966-68) was the newsletter of the Washington Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, a local umbrella antiwar coalition that was an affiliate of the National Mobilization Committee of the same name.
The organization was first organized as the Spring Mobilization Committee in 1966 and organized several antiwar and anti-draft rallies and demonstrations, including organizing attendance at the large April 1967 New York city march.
The group sought permanence by replacing its name “Spring” with “Washington” and organized locally the large October 1967 March on the Pentagon and April 1968 protests against the draft, among other activities.
Vol. 2 No. 1 – November 6, 1967
Vol. ? No. ? – February 17, 1968
Local Black Liberation/Civil Rights Press
Baltimore Panther Trial News
The Baltimore Panther Trial News was published by the Committee to Defend Political Prisoners in Baltimore, Md. and focused its work on members and a supporter of the Baltimore Black Panther Party accused in the July 1969 slaying of an alleged police informant.
The group expanded its efforts holding rallies in support of prison rebellions. It was composed of Black Panther Party sympathizers, some of whom were involved with the Mother Jones collective that operated in the city 1970-72.
No Volume or Issue Number – circa May 1971
Finally Got the News
Published by the Washington, D.C. African Liberation Support Committee. This issue reflects the group’s turn toward the working class and Marxism-Leninism.
Third World
Third World was an independent Washington, D.C. area periodical tabloid dedicated to black liberation that began publishing in September 1969 and continued through the early 1970s.
The paper concentrated on news of black liberation, pan-Africanism and providing news stories and interviews related to black political thought. It also published poems, photographs and other artwork and reviewed performances of black artists.
The paper was financed through both sales (25 cents per copy) and advertisements, although donations played a major role.
Distribution was through both street sellers who were usually children who kept a portion of the sales money, subscriptions and through retail outlets. The paper’s goal was 24 issues per year, but it does not seem like that frequency was met.
Vol. 2 No. 1 – Oct. 1970
Vol. 2 No. 6 – Apr. 1971
U-BAD Newsletter
United Blacks Against Discrimination (U-BAD) was a group of civilian workers and GIs at Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital 1972-? that attacked issues of racial discrimination at the sprawling facility located in NW Washington, D.C.
It was headed by Nell Pendleton who filed a number of lawsuits against the facility for bias and organized demonstrations against white supremacy.
Vol 2 No 57 – October 1975 ca.
Local Civil Liberties
Md/DC Committee to Oppose Political Repression Update
The Md/DC Committee to Oppose Political Repression publishes its sixth update In August 1972 detailing the state’s case against six anti-Vietnam War activists at the University of Maryland.
The Committee was a University of Maryland College Park-based group formed after an anti- Vietnam War demonstrations at the school during April and May 1972.
The Committee, influenced by Youth Against War and Fascism, continued to support those prosecuted for their political beliefs at least until 1974. Their activities included support for the D.C. Jail inmates who were prosecuted for a 1972 uprising after being promised immunity for returning to their cells.
Local Community Press
Fields of Plenty
Fields of Plenty Community Newsletter was published by a cooperative that operated a healthy food and drug store and at 2447 16th Street NW.
The coop saw itself as part of a broader movement that could demonstrate a better future through cooperative effort. It sought to bring low cost food to city residents through an anti-profit enterprise.
The coop also sought to build political support to oppose a food tax in the city and encouraged building tenants unions.
It was first established in March 1974 and continued operation at least through 1981.
Letts Talk
The August 18, 1968 edition of the YMCA Camp Letts newsletter Letts Talk shows the spread activist sentiment among youth at this point in time when a newspaper class at the camp interviewed campers and staff on their one wish—see page 4.
The peace symbol clearly indicates the editors’ point of view. In the interviews one staff member calls for an “End to the war in Indochina” while another staff member calls for “An end to pollution.”
The camp had been founded in 1906 as a relatively low-cost summer camp for white boys. It was nominally integrated in 1961 and began co-ed operations in 1975. Many of the counselors and staff of the camp were drawn from University of Maryland students.
Vol. 1 No. 10 – August 18, 1968
The Voice of Mother Jones
The Voice of Mother Jones was the community newspaper of the Mother Jones Collective in Baltimore, Md. The collective functioned as a predominantly white organization organized similar to and parallel with the Baltimore Black Panther Party.
The organization existed circa 1970-72 after which many of its members joined the Revolutionary Union—a predecessor organization to the Revolutionary Communist Party.
The collective operated under a “serve the people” philosophy and ran a free lunch program for children in a working class community, a “liberation school,” a film program and a recreation program for children.
Politically, a spokesperson once described it as “Marxist-Maoist” and the group carried out demonstrations against conditions in the city jail, against rising bread prices, and in support of a bakery strike.
Local GI/Veterans press
B.E.F. News
Two of the first issues of the B.E.F. News published June 25, 1932 and July 9, 1932 by the Bonus Expeditionary Force-BEF-or Bonus Army are published for the estimated 50,000 people that made up their encampments around the Washington, D.C.
Concerned Officers Movement Newsletter
The Concerned Officers Movement newsletter was a result of one officer’s participation as a marshal in the November 15, 1969 Moratorium anti-Vietnam War march where he was featured in the Washington Post and later received an unsatisfactory notation for loyalty in his fitness report. Other officers rallied to this officer.
From the group’s first newsletter:
“COM is opposed to the preponderant share of national resources devoted to the military. While Americans go hungry, while cities decay, while our natural resources become more despoiled, the Pentagon is able to get billions of dollars for an ABM [anti-ballistic missile] system that may not even work. National defense is important, but so are poverty, education, and the environment. It is time to reexamine our priorities.”
“Within the military structure itself, COM supports the free expression of dissenting opinion. GI movements with legitimate grievances have too long been suppressed. By a military hierarchy that considers honest questioning a threat to its power. The military can no longer consider itself a closed, private sector of society; the constitutional right of free speech must be guaranteed for all servicemen”
Highway 13
Highway 13 was a tabloid published periodically from 1972-75 for Maryland veterans and GIs and one of the longer running GI-oriented newspapers in the country.
Excerpts from the May 1974 issue:
“Highway 13 is an independent newspaper written and distributed by a working collective of GIs, veterans, and concerned people living in the Baltimore/Washington area.
“The primary purpose of Highway 13 is to promote GI empowerment by rank and file unity.
“The fundamental political position of Highway 13 is anti-imperialist.
“We stand for a military justice system which is not part of the chain0-of-command and that gives us full constitutional and civil rights.”
Vol. 1 No. 1 – circa August 1972
Vol. 3 No. 3 – Unavailable at this time
No Volume or Issue Number – Undated
Left Face
Left Face was an alternative newsletter directed toward GIs published in Washington, D.C. in 1969. It does not appear to be related to a later publication of the same name.
Only one issue was apparently published and there is little in the newsletter to indicate who published it. The newsletter advocates revolutionary views.
Left Face
Left Face was a newsletter published in the Washington, D.C. area for active duty military personnel 1975-77. It was initially a project of the Military Law Project which itself was a project of the National Lawyers Guild. It was published by the Enlisted People’s Organizing Committee.
The newspaper acted as an antiwar vehicle, provided legal advice for military personnel and advocated for organizing servicemembers into a union. It does not appear to be related to an earlier publication of the same name.
Vol. 2 No. 1 – March. 1977 – misdated and mis-numbered
Military Law Project News-Notes
The Military Law Project News-Notes was published in 1975 by the organization of the same name. The MLP was an off-shoot of the National Lawyers Guild funded by the American Friends Service Committee and operated in the Washington, D.C. area. During the mid-1970s. A drive to unionize GIS spawned the MLP to form the Enlisted People’s Organizing Committee which published a successor publication called Left Face.
A lengthy explanation of why the Military Law Project was formed is published in the July 1975 issue of News-Notes.
July 1975 – (no volume or number)
September 1975 – (no volume or number)
November 1975 – (no volume or number)
OM
OM newsletter was published by Roger Priest, a seaman apprentice journalist assigned to the Pentagon and the Washington Navy Yard 1969-70 that criticized the brass, opposed the war in Vietnam and urged military personnel to form a union and had a national circulation of about 1,000.
Its publication resulted in a court martial for Priest where he faced charges of soliciting fellow soldiers to desert, urging insubordination and making statements disloyal to the United States that could have resulted in up to six years hard labor, forfeiture of pay and grade and a dishonorable discharge.
Priest was ultimately convicted of promoting disloyalty and given a reprimand, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge. At the time it was regarded as a victory for Priest.
In 1971, a panel of Navy appeals judges reversed that conviction and awarded Priest an honorable discharge, A later review of the case by Rear Admiral George Koch, commandant of the Washington Naval District, dropped the reprimand.
Vol. 1 No. 4 – October 1, 1969
Thank You to Subscribers -= April 8, 1970
Open Sights
Open Sights was a GI tabloid newspaper published from 1969-72 in the Washington, D.C. area. First based in Laurel, Md., its offices later moved to Washington, D.C.
The newspaper was loosely affiliated with the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam in its early years and later loosely affiliated with the Washington Area Military & Draft Law Panel.
Vol. 2 No. 1 – February 1, 1970
Vol. 2 No. 5 – Early summer 1970
Vol. 2 No. 6 – September 1970 ca.
No Volume or Issue No. – April 1972
No Volume or Issue No. – May 1972
No Volume or Issue No. – June 1972
No Volume or Issue No. – July 1972
The Liberated Castle
The Liberated Castle was a newsletter put out by GIs out Fort Belvoir in Virginia in 1971. Real names were often signed and at least two active duty personnel were interviewed on the record by The Liberated Castle. It was an antiwar and soldiers’ rights publication.
From their second issue:
“We began meeting at the Friends’ Meeting House one month ago. We were eight GIs. Over the past month we put out our first issue of The Liberated Castle. We have begun to teach ourselves—about our Rights, about the conditions of our lives, about the nature of rank and caste systems. But mostly we are beginning to learn about ourselves and the power that we have when we liberate our thinking and act together.”
The Oppressed
The Oppressed was published by GI’s stationed at Walter Reed Hospital, then located in the District of Columbia, in 1971.
“The Oppressed arose from the frustration and anger toward the oppressive military system of a group of GI’s stationed here at Walter Reed Hospital…Since basic training, all of us have felt strongly the powerlessness of the GI in the army and we realize the need to express the ultimate freedom that not even the military can take from us.
“At its roots anti-war and anti-army, the Oppressed is an outlet for the individual to voice anything he has to say.”
–from the Oppressed, June 14, 1971
The Pawn
The Pawn was published by the Frederick GIs United during 1969-70 “for the purpose of promoting free speech and GI rights.” The publication was mainly based at Ft. Detrick in Maryland.
U-BAD Newsletter
United Blacks Against Discrimination (U-BAD) was a group of civilian workers and GIs at Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital 1972-? that attacked issues of racial discrimination at the sprawling facility located in NW Washington, D.C.
It was headed by Nell Pendleton who filed a number of lawsuits against the facility for bias and organized demonstrations against white supremacy.
Vol 2 No 57 – October 1975 ca.
Local LGBTQ
Breadbox
Breadbox was a tabloid publication published weekly by the Washington, D.C. Gay Liberation Front, an integrated group of gay men who advocated revolution and took part in the November 1970 Black Panther Party-sponsored Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention.
The newspaper lasted at least 14 issues and saw itself as part of a broader revolutionary movement in the United States.
The D.C. Gay Liberation Front was one of the few gay organization that sprung up across the country in the early 1970s that was interracial and based in the working class.
Original held in the Bonnie Atwood papers, 1965-2005, Collection # M 520, Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.
Vol. 1 No. 1 – August 1970, ca.
The Furies
The Furies was published by a Washington, D.C. lesbian separatist collective 1972-73. All issues are available at the Independent Voices website.
Collective member Ginny Berson wrote in the first issue “… Sexism is the root of all other oppressions, and Lesbian and woman oppression will not end by smashing capitalism, racism, and imperialism. Lesbianism is not a matter of sexual preference, but rather one of political choice which every woman must make if she is to become woman-identified and thereby end male supremacy.”
Vol. 1 No 1 through Vol. 2 No. 3 – January 1972 through May 1973 (off-site at Independent Voices)
GLF Newsletter
GLF Newsletter was the publication of the D.C. Gay Liberation Front (1970-72), a radical, left-wing gay organization that was formed through letters and articles in the Quicksilver Times alternative newspaper.
From the Washington History Center description:
“DC GLF participated in a variety of political and social activities in Washington D.C. before fading after 1972. Political activities included handing out thousands of “Are You a Homosexual?” awareness leaflets to passersby; protesting carding policies at D.C. gay bars that were biased against African Americans, women, or men in drag; disrupting an anti-gay Catholic psychiatrist’s speech during a conference on religion and the homosexual at Catholic University; and protesting against the listing of homosexuality as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) during the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) annual conference in 1971.
“D.C. GLF also took part in participating in the Gay Mayday protests against the Vietnam War as part of the larger Mayday protests in May 1971; participating in both the Philadelphia plenary session (September 1971) and the Black Panthers’ Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention in DC (November 1971); protesting the expulsion of GLF members from the Zephyr Cocktail Lounge on the weekend of the RPCC; marching in Christopher Street Liberation Day parades in New York City; protesting police arrests of cruising gay men at Arlington’s Iwo Jima Memorial; and the formation of the first D.C. Gay Pride Week from May 2-7, 1972, organized by DC GLF members Chuck Hall, Bruce Pennington, and Cade Ware.
Vol. 1 No. 4 – August 25, 1970
The Washington Blade
Originally published as the Gay Blade, the periodical has covered the Washington, D.C. area’s LBGTQ community since 1969 and as of 2020 continues to publish an online version
The District of Columbia Public Library has digitalized copies from 1969 – 1996
Vol. 1 No. 1 through Vol. 25 No. 53 – October 1, 1969 through December 30, 1994 – (off-site at the D.C. Public Library)
Local Labor Press
Action
The Metro Workers Rank and File Action Caucus was formed in the wake of the 1978 cost-of-living wildcat strike that paralyzed bus service and the embryonic subway service for a week in July 1978. At least two caucuses arose out of the strike. One was influenced by the Progressive Labor Party and the other was the Action Caucus.
AFSCME in Action
The first issue of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 1072’s AFSCME in Action newsletter from September 1973.
The union represented about 1300 University of Maryland College Park campus workers but did not have collective bargaining rights at that time.
The first issue covers campus layoffs, racial discrimination, a rival employee association, the union picnic, safety, a call to impeach Nixon and other issues.
Annapolis Report
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Maryland Public Employees Council 67 legislative newsletter.
ATU National Capital Local Union 689 News
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, which at that time represented most workers (about 6,000) of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), published this 8 1/2 x 11, black & white newsletter monthly from 1973-2000. We have a few issues from the 1980s. In this century, the union began organizing other transit units in the D.C. area and it now counts over 10,000 members.
Vol. 10 No. 4 – April 1984 (wrong volume number, should be 11)
Vol. 11 No. 9 – September 1985
Vol. 11 No. 10 – November 1985
Vol. 11 No. 11 – December 1985
Metro C.A.R.
Metro C.A.R. was published by a rank-and-file caucus at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) that existed for a number of years from approximately 1978 to 1996. It published periodic newsletters and flyers. We currently have one issue published after a wildcat strike by workers in July 1978
No volume or issue number – Aug. 1978 ca.
The Trades Unionist
The Trades Unionist was published by the Washington, D.C. Central Labor Council since 1896, but the shrinking of union membership eventually forced it to end publication. It was replaced in the 21st Century with a daily online newsletter by the umbrella labor group for unions in the greater Washington area.
The Central Labor Council is now known as the Washington Metropolitan Council, AFL-CIO.
No Vol. or Issue – Oct. 15, 1976
U-BAD Newsletter
United Blacks Against Discrimination (U-BAD) was a group of civilian workers and GIs at Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital 1972-? that attacked issues of racial discrimination at the sprawling facility located in NW Washington, D.C.
It was headed by Nell Pendleton who filed a number of lawsuits against the facility for bias and organized demonstrations against white supremacy.
Vol 2 No 57 – October 1975 ca.
Washington, D.C. Teacher
The Washington, D.C. Teacher was the newsletter of the Washington Teachers Union (American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 6).
The issues available include articles on new methods of education, anti-Vietnam War activities, a demonstration against red-baiting surrounding Antioch College, contract talks and other local union business.
The following issues of the Washington Teacher, usually published as a tabloid, are currently available:
Local Student (College and University)
University of Maryland SDS Spark
The University of Maryland College Park Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) published a newsletter 1967-68 that inspired the later Montgomery College Spark, some of whom had attended UMD SDS meetings.
In August 1967, the UMD SDS began publishing a daily edition of a newsletter named Spark directed toward the delegates to a National Student Association (NSA) convention that was being held on campus shortly after the revelations that NSA had been partially funded by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
We currently have one issue:
Thereafter, the Spark became a semi-regular SDS publication on campus. We have four issues:
In addition, the UMD SDS published an internal newsletter called Snark. We have two issues:
An internal organizing letter from Gregory Dunkel that served the same purpose as Snark:
University of Maryland Route One Gazette
After the Students for Democratic Society splintered in the Fall of 1969 and the student strike of 1970, left-wing UMD students formed the Democratic Radical Union of Maryland (DRUM) to take the place of SDS. It lasted through the school year of 1970-71. They published The Radical Guide to the University of Maryland and the Route One Gazette:
Virginia SSOC Newsletter
The Virginia state organization of the Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC) published its second newsletter in February 1969.
At the time, SSOC maintained offices in Richmond and Charlottsville and had chapters on about a dozen campuses across the state, including Eastern Mennonite, George Mason, Lynchburg, Mary Washington, University of Virginia, Hollins, William and Mary, and Old Dominion.
Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC), organization of students from predominantly white colleges and universities in the American South that promoted racial equality and other progressive causes such as anti-Vietnam War, pro-labor organizing and opposing in loco parentis 1965-69.
Local Student Publications (High School)
MCSA Newsletter
The MCSA Newsletter was the publication of the Montgomery County Student Alliance, a brief-lived coalition of students from different high schools in the county seeking educational reform.
The Alliance issued a 17-page report and lobbied the county’s board of education to make changes.
The group was composed of about 1,000 individual members and operated openly, publishing the names of its contacts at each school and seeking the approval to distribute its newsletter in the schools and pledging not to change content to satisfy administrators.
In 1987 It was revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted surveillance of the group and its members. The surveillance was conducted under the Bureau’s Cointelpro program of disruption of left-leaning groups in the United States.
A Freedom of Information request by Norman Solomon a former leader of the group led to a heavily redacted disclosure that somewhere between 15-30 students were targeted at a minimum of six high schools: Montgomery Blair, Walt Whitman, Winston Churchill, Springbrook, Wheaton and Northwood.
A later individual Freedom of Information request by Spark contributor Craig Simpson revealed that he was one of those targeted while a student at Springbrook High School.
Outcry
The only issue published of a Springbrook High School student-produced newsletter where students signed their names to the articles and challenged the administration to discipline them.
Spark contributors Robert “Bob” Simpson and Craig Simpson are among the authors. Articles critique high school suppression of expression, the dress code, the 1968 elections, school presentation of drug information and a call for a student bill of rights.
The newsletter was published with assistance of the Washington Free Community. Springbrook H. S. is located in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Vol. 1 No. 1 – January 12, 1969
Resistance
Resistance was produced by and for greater Washington, D.C. area high school students with the assistance of members of the Democratic Radical Union of Maryland (DRUM)—a successor organization to the Students for Democratic Society on the College Park campus.
Articles cover the Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention, reports from Northwestern, Blair and Oxen Hill High Schools, a critique of the Montgomery County student smoking policy, an essay on discrimination and sexism against high school women, an anti-ROTC article, and draft counseling.
Truth
A newsletter named “Truth” by and for high school students is produced in connection with the University of Maryland Students for a Democratic Society chapter in October 1967.
The newsletter had little local high school news but instead covered political topics.
It would be the first of a number of attempts to do outreach to high schools in the greater Washington, D.C. area by SDS
Local Women’s Movement
Off Our Backs
Off Our Backs was a long-running women’s news journal published from 1970-2008. The publications was based in Washington, D.C. and in its early years widely covered events in the city. All issues are available on the pay site JSTOR. The site linked to here is Independent Voices and has 69 issues posted from 1970 – 1976.
Vol. 1 No. 1 through Vol. 5 No. 11 – February 1970 through January 1976 – (off-site at Independent Voices)
Washington Area Women’s Center Periodicals
The initial newsletters of the Washington Area Women’s Center (1972-late 1980s) represented here reflect the effort to draw together different women’s organizations and programs under one roof.
Description of the Women’s Center from the George Washington University Library’s collection:
“The Washington Area Women’s Center developed naturally from the high level of activism in the Washington area related to feminism and women’s rights taking place.
“Specifically two parallel movements led directly to its formation. First, the Magic Quilt was a coalition of projects and discussion groups. Second, the Women’s Liberation Office, an activist group, rented space that it used for meetings, abortion counseling, a telephone hotline, and an information center.
“During its time from 1972 through the late 1980s, the Washington Area Women’s Center served both as a space where women could explore aspects of feminism and work on projects dedicated to furthering feminist theory and also practical work to serve as a clearinghouse of advisors and information to help women in the Metropolitan Area explore all options related to changing their lives and asserting their rights.”
Originals held in the Bonnie Atwood papers, 1965-2005, Collection, Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.
Women’s Phone Bulletin
Washington Area Women’s. Center Newsletter
February 1973 – (pages damaged and missing)
June 1973 – (possibly missing pages)
December 1973 – (missing pages)
Washington Women’s Liberation Publications
Washington Women’s Liberation published two periodicals in their name—a newsletter and a bulletin 1969-72.
Washington D.C. Women’s Liberation was formed early in 1968 after women participating in the Jeanette Rankin Brigade protest against the Vietnam War January 15, 1968 decided to form an organization that linked feminism with the broader struggle against capitalism.
Washington Women’s Liberation participated in the protest demonstration at a “Distinguished Ladies” event during President Richard Nixon’s January 1969 Inaugural weekend activities in one of the first women’s liberation marches in the country.
Another high profile activity in their first year was joining other women’s liberation groups in protesting the Miss America beauty pageant in Atlantic City, N.J. Jan. 31-Feb 1, 1969.
A year after their formation, Washington Women’s Liberation had three groups—two in northwest Washington and one in southeast. Its membership was predominantly white and came mainly out of the anti-Vietnam and civil rights movements.
A Women’s Liberation office was set up where abortion counseling, women’s health outreach, and newsletter publication took place and also served as a focal point for left-wing women’s meetings through the D.C. metropolitan area.
In the fall of 1969, Washington Women’s Liberation joined with the National Welfare Rights Organization in several actions, including occupying the office of the secretary of the U.S. Health, Education and Welfare department and forming a contingent in the Moratorium antiwar demonstrations.
Members of Washington Women’s Liberation began also publishing the feminist journal Off Our Backs that would continue until 2008, though the journal was not an official WWL publication.
Washington Women’s Liberation members spent a good deal of time analyzing how oppression of women fit into capitalist exploitation of labor and how that oppression and exploitation affected their lives and the lives of other women.
The group initially opposed the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment fearing it would roll back laws that protected women, but joined with mainstream women’s groups in August 1970 in the first large feminist march in Washington, D.C. since the suffragettes early in the 20th century.
The group also sponsored a break-away march that day to the Women’s House of Detention to show solidarity with imprisoned sisters.
Internal fissures began surfacing in 1970—those who favored joining with mainstream women’s organizations in specific actions, lesbian separatism and a perception of newer members that older members did not value them.
The internal issues and a lack of overall direction led to the closure of the Women’s Liberation office in 1971 and Washington Women’s Liberation folded circa 1972 following the establishment of a Women’s Center in the city that focused on specific women’s issues forgoing an anti-capitalist ideology.
Prominent members of Washington Women’s Liberation included Marilyn Salzman Webb and Charlotte Bunch.
Washington Women’s Liberation Newsletter
No. 2 – August 25, 1969 (missing pages)
Women’s Liberation Information Bulletin
Unnumbered – November/December 1971
Originals held in the Bonnie Atwood papers, 1965-2005, Collection, Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.
National Periodicals
National Alternative Press
Hard Times (formerly Mayday)
Hard Times had its beginnings in October 1968 when three Washington, D.C. journalists produced a weekly four page investigative and opinion tabloid called Mayday.
In April 1969 the publishers changed its name to Hard Times after receiving a request from the trademark holder of the international distress call to change their name.
The tabloid-size paper was more traditional journalism than “underground,” but it pursued topics of a left-leaning nature of interest to a national audience.
The paper folded in 1970 and several of its staff went to work for Ramparts Magazine, producing a supplement to the magazine that was also named Hard Times.
National Antiwar
The Anti Draft
The Anti Draft was the publication of the Committee Against Registration and the Draft (CARD) 1980-88 that helped to organize resistance to the re-introduction of the selective service system that had ended following the Vietnam War in and the institution of all-volunteer armed services in the United States in 1975.
CARD was formed in 1979 as a national coalition and immediately organized a series of demonstrations both the 1980 Republican and Democratic Conventions and at local post offices around the country. CARD was also part of an unsuccessful lawsuit challenging draft registration.
Local coalitions of CARD were formed around the country that carried out local protests. Most lapsed after the initial wave of protests 1979-82, although CARD continued to exist into the late 1980s.
Vol. 1 No. 9 – November-December 1980
Vol. 1 No. 10 – January-February 1981
Vol. 3 No. 2 – January-March 1988
Memo
Memo was the bulletin of Women’s Strike for Peace, a group which sprang up almost overnight staging a national demonstration of 50,000 women and supporters to demand nuclear disarmament in 1961.
The group staged a number of high-profile demonstrations and was at least partially responsible for the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. WSP was also notable for its leader Dagmar Wilson’s skillful rebuke of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
WSP would become early opponents of the Vietnam War and continue its opposition to the Gulf War and for nuclear disarmament in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.
Prominent members included founder Dagmar Wilson, U.S. Rep. Bella Abzug, Barbara Bick who edited the group’s bulletin and Edith Villastrigo who served as WSP’s legislative director and who was previously the personal secretary to William Z Foster, head of the Communist Party USA.
The group occupied a unique position as a women’s organization between the first and second wave feminism.
Issues are courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society and issues purchased by Washington Area Spark:
Vol. 3 No. 5 – September 28, 1964
Vol. 3 No. 7 – October 30, 1964
Vol. 3 No. 8 – November 13, 1964
Vol. 3 No. 16 – March 31, 1965
No Volume or Issue No. – July 1966
Vol. 5 No. 4 – December 1966 ca.
No Volume or Issue No. – October 1967
No Volume or Issue No. – January 1968 ca.
No Volume or Issue No. – January 1969
No Volume or Issue No. – April 1969
No Volume or Issue No. – Fall 1969
No Volume or Issue No. – Summer 1970
Movin’ Together
Movin’ Together was the newsletter of the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice (PCPJ) that included various peace, anti-poverty, and labor groups. These groups worked together to confront the related issues of war in Southeast Asia and racism, sexism, poverty, and repression in the United States 1970-72.
The national antiwar movement split into two large coalitions in 1969-70. The other coalition to arise was National Peace Action Coalition (NPAC). They two were distinguished by PCPJ’s embrace of other issues besides the Vietnam War and PCPJ’s willingness to engage in civil disobedience.
NPAC had a single demand, “Out Now,” and did not endorse civil disobedience.
PCPJ and NPAC jointly sponsored the May 9, 1970 march on Washington after President Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia and the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University and an April 24, 1971 mass march on Washington the following year.
PCPJ was founded in 1970 as National Coalition Against War, Racism, and Repression and also organized several specific campaigns including People’s Peace Treaty, Citizen’s Action Pledge, and Nixon Eviction campaign; reports, speeches, and resolutions pertaining to the Assembly for Peace and Independence of the People of Indochina held at Versailles, France, February 1972.
Issues are from the Spark collection and the Wisconsin Historical Society
The Peace Times
The Peace Times was the short-lived newsletter of the Vietnam Moratorium Committee, the organization that sponsored perhaps the largest anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in the October and November 1969 Moratoriums (or strike) against the war that involved upwards of two million people.
The Moratorium’s principal organizers (Sam Brown, David Hawk, David Mixner and Marge Sklencar) and volunteers were mainly veterans of the 1968 Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy campaigns for president who turned to grassroots organizing when Richard Nixon was elected president in November 1968.
The Committee was not able to duplicate its success and a few weeks after its second newsletter issue, the organization disbanded after antiwar protests set around the April 15th tax day largely fizzled. In an April 20, 1970 letter to supporters the organizers wrote there was “little prospect of immediate) change in the Administration’s policy in Vietnam.”
Unbeknownst to its organizers, President Richard Nixon would set off a firestorm of protest just 10 days later on April 30, 1970 when he ordered U.S. troops to invade Cambodia. Students at college campuses across the country staged strikes and mass demonstrations and over 100,000 people rallied against the war in Washington, D.C. with less than a week’s notice.
The Resistance
The Resistance newsletter was the national publication of the draft resistance group The Resistance thrived from 1967-68 urging young men to refuse to cooperate with the Selective Service System in protest of the Vietnam War.
The group was formed in early 1967 on the West Coast by prominent antiwar activists David Harris, Dennis Sweeney, Steve Hamilton and Lenny Heller and spread across the nation.
The group organized draft card turn ins and burnings—actions which could result in five years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. They organized demonstrations to support draft refusers and set an example themselves by publicly refusing to cooperate with the draft.
The Student Mobilizer
The Student Mobilizer (1967-72) was a newspaper published irregularly by the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (1965-73).
The SMC originally acted as the arm of the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (1966-67) and the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (1967-68).
With the internal splits within the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1969, the SMC had chapters on dozens of campuses and was often the only national mass organization active at a school. On many campuses, it was also often the largest radical student organization.
The SMC had chapters on dozens of campuses across the United States and also did outreach to active duty GIs, including the establishment of the GI Press Service that had a couple dozen local GI newspapers and newsletters affiliated with it.
Vol. 1 No. ? – December 1, 1967
Special Wallposter Issue No. 1 – January 18, 1969
Wallposter No. 2 – March 14, 1969
Wallposter No. 3 – April 5, 1969
Vietnam Summer News
Vietnam Summer News was the national publication of Vietnam Summer, a temporary coalition of a number of groups in 1967, but primarily backed by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) to convince non-student Americans to oppose the war in Vietnam.
The project expanded to 48 states and Vietnam Summer News reached a circulation of 65,000 during its six issue run. It was modeled after the 1964 civil rights Freedom Summer.
Two staff members paid by AFSC coordinated the national office while 26,000 volunteers worked in 700 local projects across the country.
The effort involved door-to-door canvassing, teach-ins, counseling on draft resistance, local antiwar demonstrations, working to get antiwar referenda on the ballot, and the dissemination of antiwar literature.
The group only published six issues during the summer of 1967 and the group disbanded thereafter, although many local efforts continued.
National Civil Rights/Black Liberation
The African World
The African World was published by the Youth Organization for Black Unity (YOBU) as a national tabloid newspaper 1971-74 covering U.S. black liberation struggles, African liberation struggles and acting as a forum for theoretical articles and speeches on black liberation.
Publication began In 1971 when the Student Organization for Black Unity (SOBU), led by Nelson Johnson, launched the SOBU Newsletter, which it soon renamed The African World. SOBU changed its name shortly thereafter to YOBU. The group developed chapters in a number of cities across the U.S., including Washington, D.C.
The newspaper, along with the organization took a leftward turn and began embracing Marxism-Leninism before disbanding with many of its most dedicated cadre forming the brief-lived Revolutionary Workers League in 1974.
Vol. 2 No. 2 – October 14, 1972
Babylon
Babylon was published by the Revolutionary People’s Communication Network that was created by Kathleen and Eldridge Cleaver and their allies after a dispute in the Black Panther Party leadership led to the expulsion of the Cleavers, the other Panthers in exile, Geronimo Pratt and almost the entire New York City branch from the group in 1971.
Kathleen Cleaver returned from exile in Algeria to set up the communications network that published Babylon and other revolutionary tracts. The Cleavers saw their role as providing the above-ground political support for the armed struggle.
Newspapers published by the group also included Voice of the Lumpen, published in West Germany, and Right On!—which replaced Babylon as the chief newspaper of the group in 1972.
We currently hold one issue of Babylon:
Vol. 1 No. 3 – December 15, 1971
The Beat Goes On
The Beat Goes On was the newsletter of the December 4th Committee headed by Akua Njeri (formerly Deborah Johnson), a Chicago Black Panther and the fiancé of slain Panther leader Fred Hampton.
The Committee was formed to expose the truth of the December 4, 1969 killing orchestrated by Cook County State’s Attorney Edward Hanrahan, who was assisted by Chicago police and the FBI, and to keep Fred Hampton’s political contributions alive.
Vol. 1 No. 1 of the newsletter recounts Fred Hampton’s history, the events of the raid and a timeline of developments up until August 1975. It also contains an advertisement for a commemoration of the Attica prison uprising, urging amnesty for prisoners.
The Black Panther
The Black Panther the official organ of the Black Panther Party and was published from 1967 to 1980. The newspaper was most popular from 1968-1972, and during this time sold a hundred thousand copies a week. A total of 537 issues were published during its lifespan.
The Panthers initiated community service programs in the black community such as free breakfast for children, free clothing, pre-school classes, and organizing buses for visitors to prisoners. They also were strident defenders of the black community against police violence and advocated armed self-defense. The group was violently attacked by police forces across the country, most famously when Chicago Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were assassinated by police in 1969. Much of their activity was consumed by legal defense of their members in high profile trials of two of their leaders–Huey Newton and Bobby Seale–as well as defenses of chapter members in New York, New Haven, Baltimore, New Orleans and elsewhere.
Copies of the newspaper are from our own files, The Wisconsin Historical Society, Freedom Archives, It’s About Time website and the Roz Payne Sixties Archive.
Vol. 1 No. 6 – November 23, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 2 – May 4, 1968 (page missing)
Vol. 2 No. 5 – September 7, 1968 (some pages missing)
Vol. 2 No. 6 – September 14, 1968
Vol. 2 No. 9 – October 19, 1968
Vol. 2 No. 10 – October 26, 1968
Vol. 2 No. 15-17 – December 1968
Vol. 2 No. 19 – January 4, 1969
Vol. 2 No. 20 – January 15, 1969
Vol. 2 No. 21 – January 23, 1969 –
Vol. 2 No. 21 – February 2, 1969 – (incorrect number)
Vol. 2 No. 23 – February 17, 1969
Vol. 2 No. 30 – April 20, 1969
Vol. 3 No. 17 – August 16, 1969
Vol. 3 No. 18 – August 23, 1969
Vol. 3 No. 19 – August 30, 1969
Vol. 3 No. 20 – September 6, 1969
Vol. 3 No. 21 – September. 13, 1969
Vol. 3 No. 22 – September 20, 1969
Vol. 3 No. 23 – September 27, 1969
Vol. 3 No. 27 – October 25, 1969
Vol. 3 No. 29 – November 6, 1969 –
Vol. 3 No. 29 – November 15, 1969 – (Incorrect number)
Vol. 3 No. 31 – November 22, 1969
Vol. 3 No. 32 – November 29, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 1 – December 6, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 2 – December 13, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 3 – December 20, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 4 – December 27, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 5 – January 3, 1970
Vol. 4 No. 6 – January 10, 1970
Vol. 4 No. 7 – January 17, 1970
Vol. 4 No. 8 – January 24, 1970
Vol. 4 No. 17 – March 28, 1970
Vol. 4 No. 21 – April 25, 1970
Vol. 4 No 25 & 26 – May 31, 1970
Vol. 4 No. 1 – July 4, 1970 (incorrect volume, should be Volume 5)
Vol. 5 No. 9 – August 21, 1970
Vol. 5 No. 11 – September 12, 1970
Vol. 5 No. 12 – September 19, 1970
Vol. 5 No. 15 – October 10, 1970
Vol. 5 No. 16 – October 17, 1970
Vol. 5 No. 18 – October 31, 1970
Vol. 5 No. 21 – November 21, 1970
Vol. 5 No. 22 – November 28, 1970
Vol. 5 No. 23 – December 5, 1970
Vol. 5 No. 24 – December 14, 1970
Vol. 5 No. 26 – December 26, 1970
Vol. 5 No. 27 – January 2, 1971
Vol. 4 No. 28 – January 9, 1971 – (incorrect volume number)
Vol. 4 No. 29 – January 18, 1971
Vol. 5 No. 30 – January 23, 1971
Vol. 6 No. 1 – January 30, 1971
Vol. 6 No. 2 – February 6, 1971
Vol. 6 No. 3 – February 13, 1971
Vol. 6 No. 4 – February 20, 1971
Vol. 6 No. 5 – February 27, 1971
Vol.. 6 No. 9 – March 27, 1971
Vol. 6 No. 11 – April 10, 1971
Vol. 6 No. 12 – April 17, 1971
Vol. 6 No. 13 & 14 – May 1, 1971
Vol. 6 No. 27 – August 2, 1971
Vol. 6 No. 28 – August 9, 1971
Vol. 7 No. 2 – September 4, 1971
Vol. 7 No. 3 – September 11, 1971
Vol. 7 No. 4 – September 18, 1971
Vol. 7 No. 5 – October 4, 1971
Vol. 7 No. 6 – October 9, 1971
Vol. 7 No. 8 – October 16, 1971
Vol. 7 No. 9 – October 23, 1971
Vol. 7 No. 12 – November 13, 1971
Vol. 7 No. 14 – November 29, 1971
Vol. 7 No. 16 – December 11, 1971
Vol. 7 No. 17 – December 18, 1971
Vol. 7 No. 19 – January 1, 1972
Vol. 7 No. 22 – January 22, 1972
Vol. 7 No. 23 – January 29, 1972
Vol. 7 No. 24 – February 5, 1972
Vol. 7 No. 29 – March 11, 1972
Vol. 8 No. 22 – August 19, 1972
Vol. 8 No. 23 – August 23, 1972
Vol. 8 No. 24 – September 2, 1972
Vol. 8 No. 25 – September 9, 1972
Vol. 8 No. 27 – September 23, 1972
Vol. 8 No. 29 – October 7, 1972
Vol. 9 No. 1 – October 21, 1972
Vol. 9 No. 5 – November 16, 1972
Vol. 9 No. 7 – November 30, 1972
Vol. 9 No. 9 – December 16, 1972
Vol. 9 No. 10 – December 23, 1972
Vol. 9 No. 18 – February 17, 1973
Vol. 9 No. 27 – April 21, 1973
Vol. 10 No. 11 – July 28, 1973
Vol. 10 No. 13 – August 11, 1973
Vol. 10 No. 20 – September 29, 1973
Vol. 10 No. 24 – October 27, 1973
Vol. 10 No. 26 – November 10, 1973
Vol. 10 No. 27 – November 17, 1973
Vol. 10 No. 30 – December 8, 1973
Vol. 10 No. 32 – December 22, 1973
Vol. 11 No. 16 – April 13, 1974
Vol. 11 No. 25 – June 15, 1974
Vol. 13 No. 19 – June 30, 1975
Vol. 16 No. 1 – November 13, 1976
Charter Bulletin
Charter Bulletin was the newsletter of the Civil Rights Congress (1946-56), a nationwide organization that had 60 chapters and 10,000 members at its peak.
It took up the high profile racial justice cases of the Martinsville 7, Rosa Lee Ingram, the Trenton 6 and Willie McGee. It helped lead the fight for a federal anti-lynching law and a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission.
It laid charges of genocide against black people in the United States at the United Nations.
The CRC defended the U.S. Communist Party and attacks on civil liberties. It was declared a subversive organization by the U.S. government in 1947 and many of its leaders were jailed during the Red Scare.
Committee Against Racism National Report
The Committee Against Racism (CAR) published their National Report beginning in December 1974 after the organization was formed in late 1973 out of the remnants of the Worker-Student Alliance of the Students for Democratic Society.
CAR had chapters across the country and attacked pseudo-scientific theories of black racial inferiority, organized and called for demonstrations against racism during the Boston busing crisis of 1975 and confronted the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi organizations.
The committee later changed its name to the International Committee against Racism (InCAR) and replaced its newsletter with a magazine called Arrow.
InCAR’s mission statement (reprinted on the inside front cover of every Arrow issue) said that it “recognizes the absolute necessity of unity of communists and non-communists in this struggle” against both societal and organized racism.
The Progressive Labor Party saw the organization as “a radical organization led by the Party which the Party builds in order to advance the struggle for communism.”
The group disbanded in 1996 as the Progressive Labor Party abandoned an attempt to gradually win activists to communism through INCAR and instead pursued recruiting them directly into the party.
Finally Got the News
Published by the national African Liberation Support Committee based in Washington, D.C. Similar to the local ALSC, this newsletter also reflects a turn toward the working class and Marxism-Leninism.
I Am We
The Committee for Justice for Huey P. Newton and the Black Panther Party based in Oakland, Ca. published a national newsletter, I Am We.
By this time, the Black Panther Party was pulling most of its remaining cadre in cities across the country to its base in Oakland, Ca.
Panther Trial News – What’s Really Happening at the Trial of Bobby and Ericka
The Panther Trial News was a periodic newsletter detailing events surrounding the trial of Black Panther chair Bobby Seale and New Haven Panther leader Ericka Huggins who were charged with kidnapping and murder of an alleged police informant.
The newsletter was published from October 1969 until May 1971 when the jury deadlocked 11 to 1 for Seale’s acquittal and 10 to 2 for Huggins’ acquittal. Prosecutors dropped the charges shortly afterward. Copies are from Spark files and the Roz Payne Sixties Archive.
The Patriot
The Patriot was the national newspaper of the Patriot Party, a white left-wing revolutionary organization aligned with the Black Panther Party, that was distributed in the greater Washington, D.C. area in 1970.
The Patriot Party was initially formed as the Young Patriots Organization in Chicago and later expanded nationwide as the Patriot Party. It was one of the component organizations of Black Panther Fred Hampton’s original Rainbow Coalition in Chicago.
They rejected white supremacy but wore a confederate flag patch on their shirts.
They organized in the Washington, D.C. area 1970-71 out of the Panther office on 18th Street NW and their Community Center on 17th Street NW focusing are far southeast Washington where working class whites still lived and the inner suburbs of Prince George’s County.
There were three issues of The Patriot. We currently have one. For a PDF of this 16-page tabloid, see:
Poll Tax Repealer
The Poll Tax Repealer was the national newsletter of the National Committee to Abolish the Poll Tax.
The national campaign against the poll tax began in the early 1940s and continued through the end of the decade. The campaign had some success at the local level as some states repealed their poll tax, including Georgia in 1945.
The civil rights movement wasn’t successful at ending the tax until the 24thAmendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1964. Poll taxes in state elections were outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1966
Vol. 4 No. 6 – First July issue, 1945
Vol. 4 No. 9 – Second August issue, 1945
Vol. 4 No. 11 – Second September issue, 1945
Vol. 4 No 12 – First October issue, 1945
Vol. 4 No 14 – First November Issue, 1945
Vol. 4 No. 15 – Second November issue, 1945
Vol. 4 No. 16 – December, 1945
Vol. 5 (No number) – August, 1946
Right On!
Right On! was initially published by the New York chapter of the Black Panther Party after a split within the Black Panther Party. Panther leader Huey Newton expelled Kathleen and Eldridge Cleaver, the entire International section, the entire New York branch, Geronimo Pratt and several others from the group in early 1971.
The first issue of Right On! provides what it says is a telephone transcript of a conversation between Newton and E. Cleaver after the split. While personalities played a role, the political differences (perhaps oversimplified) can be characterized as the Cleaver faction advocating armed struggle while the Newton faction wished to emphasize community service and electoral politics.
Kathleen Cleaver returned from exile to the U.S. to create the Revolutionary People’s Communication Network that ultimately published Right On!, Babylon and Voice of the Lumpen. Right On! replaced Babylon as the chief newspaper of the Network in 1972. Cleaver saw her role as the above-ground support for the underground armed struggle against the United States.
Issues are from the Spark collection and the Wisconsin Historical Society
Vol. 1 No. 4 – September 1, 1971
Vol. 1 No. 5 – September 15, 1971
Vol. 1 No. 6 – October 1, 1971 ca.
Vol. 1 No. 7 – November 1, 1971
Vol. 1 No. 8 – November 16, 1971
Vol. 1 No. 9 – December 4, 1971
Vol. 1 No. 11 – January 1, 1972
Vol. 2 No. 1 – February 29, 1972
Vol. 2 No. 7 – January 15, 1973
SNCC Periodicals
SNCC published a number of periodicals that evolved over the years beginning with The Student Voice in 1960 later changing its name to The Voice. The SNCC Newsletter replaced The Voice in 1967. Internal Newsletters were also published.
~ The Student Voice
The Student Voice was published from 1960-65 changing its name to The Voice in 1965. It covers SNCC campaigns, local SNCC news and analysis of national and international events.
Vol. 1 No. 1 – June 1960 through Vol. 6 No 6 – December 1965 – (off-site at the CRMV website) – SNCC internal newsletters also available
~ SNCC News of the Field
News of the Field replaced the Voice in 1966 and acted as more of an internal newsletter reporting chapter news and campaigns
No. 3 – March 9, 1966 through No. 11 May 8, 1966 – (off-site at the CRMV website) – some issues missing
~ SNCC Newsletter
The successor publication to The Student Voice and The Voice began publishing in 1967 while Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture) was chair of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and continued publishing under new chair H. Rap Brown (later Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin).
The July 1967 edition contains a controversial opinion piece on Palestine, published shortly after the Third Arab-Israeli War, which caused the organization to be labeled anti-Semitic.
SNCC released a more formal statement in response on August 15, 1967, entitled “The Middle-East Crisis.” It incorporates many of the points that were made in the June-July article, but within an added context that acknowledged the horrors of the Holocaust, the suppression of American Jewish voices that protested Zionism, and the critical support given to Zionism by the United States.
This incarnation of the SNCC newsletter published as a full-size newspaper:
Vol. 1 No. 5 – September 1967 (missing pages 3, 4, 5, 6)
Unity & Struggle
The national newspaper of the Congress of Afrikan People which had moved from a pan-Africanist perspective toward Marxism-Leninism. The group was led by the poet and black activist Imamu Amiri Baraka.
National GI & Veterans
GI Alliance Newsletter
The GI Alliance, a network of two dozen groups among active duty GIs. with its office in Washington, D.C., publishes its first newsletter circa June 1970
The GI Alliance was formed May 29-30, 1970 at a conference in Atlanta, Georgia of 50 GI and civilian delegates from 24 military bases around the country.
The Alliance appears to have lapsed later in 1970 after publishing several newsletters.
GI Press Service
The GI Press Service acted as a national clearinghouse and news service for a number of alternative GI newspapers around the country from 1969-71. It was affiliated with the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam.
The press service was originally based in Washington, D.C. but moved its operations to New York in June 1970. Thereafter it began to decrease in frequency and content.
Vol. 1 No. 5 – August 21, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 6 – September 4, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 7 – September 18, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 8 – October 2, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 9 – October 16, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 10 – October 30, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 11 – November 13, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 12 – November 27, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 13 – December 11, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 14 – December 25, 1969
Vol. 2 No. 1 – January 21, 1969
Vol. 2 No. 2 – February 4, 1969
Vol. 2 No. 3 – February 26, 1969
Special Issue – May 8, 1970 ca.
Vol. 2 No. 9 – September 21, 1970
Vol. 3 No. 1 – February 1, 1971
Winter Soldier
Winter Soldier was the national publication of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) from 1973-75. It was the successor publication to 1st Casualty (1971–1972).
VVAW started fairly small, but a number of high-profile actions caused many to flock to the organization and by 1973 had perhaps 20-30,000 members and added another 10-20,000 supporters when it opened its doors to non-veterans.
Vol. 3 No. 2 through Vol. 4 No. 3 – April 1, 1973 through March 1, 1974 (off site at Independent Voices)
National Labor
In Transit (formerly Motorman and Conductor)
In Transit is the monthly journal of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), that principally represents bus, rail and paratransit employees in the U.S. and Canada, has been published since 1892.
The journal was originally named The Motorman and Conductor.
The union was originally named the Amalgamated Association of Street Electric Railway Employees of America, it later became the Amalgamated Association of Street Electric Railway and Motorcoach Employees before its current ATU.
Locally the union represents most employees at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, D.C. Circulator, D.C. Streetcar, Fairfax Connector, Alexandria DASH, Greyhound and several paratransit units.
Available issues include most from 1902-1928 and scattered thereafter. Some volumes are missing issues::
Vol. 10 Nos. 1-12 – March 1902 – February 1903 (1st two issues have wrong volume number) –
Vol. 11 Nos. 2-12 – April 1903 – November 1903
Vol. 12 Nos. 1-12 December 1903 – November 1904
Vol. 13 & 14 Nos. 1-12 – December 1904 – November 1906
Vol. 15 & 16 Nos. 1-12 – December 1906 to November 1908
Vol. 17 & 18 Nos. 1-12 December 1908 – November 1910
Vol. 19 Nos. 1-12 – December 1910 – November 1911
Vol. 20 Nos. 1-12 – December 1911 – November 1912
Vol. 21 & 22 Nos. 1-12 – December 1912 – November 1914
Vol. 23 & 24 Nos. 1-12 – December 1914 – November 1916
Vol. 25 Nos. 1-12 – December 1916 – November 1917
Vol. 26 Nos. 1-12 – December 1917 – November 1918
Vol. 27 Nos. 1-12 – December 1918 – November 1919
Vol. 28 Nos. 1-12 – December 1919 – November 1920
Vol. 29 & 30 Nos. 1-12 – December 1920 – November 1922
Vol. 31 & 32 Nos. 1-12 – December 1922 – November 1924
Vol. 33 & 34 Nos. 1-12 – December 1924 – November 1926
Vol. 34, 35 & 36 Nos. 1-12 – December 1925 – November 1928
Vol. 91 No. 9 – September 1983
Vol. 93 Nos. 7-8 – July-August 1985
Vol. 93 No. 9 – September 1985
The Telephone Worker
The Telephone Worker was the national publication of the National Federation of Telephone Workers (1939-47), the predecessor union to the Communications Workers of America.
The NFTW grew out of the old AT&T company union, the American Bell Association, after the Wagner Act passed I 1935 outlawing company unions. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Act in 1937.
The Telephone Worker was published irregularly ion the early years, but grew into a monthly 8 1/2 x 11 magazine format publication featuring national labor news, local telephone union news and the internal affairs of the union such as conventions, seminars and meetings.
The NFTW grew to over 250,000 members and reached a national agreement with AT&T on wages in 1946. However, political conditions changed by 1947 and AT&T pushed the union Into a national strike.
The loose federation of union in the NFTW had 10 demands and held together for more than 3 weeks before local unions started to cut their own deals with local telephone companies.
The six-week strike failed and the NFTW passed out of existence less than a month later when most of the affiliates came together to form the Communications Workers of America in June 1947.
The Congress of Industrial Organizations set up a Telephone Worker Organizing Committee at the same time and attracted a minority of old NFTW affiliates.
The two union slugged it out in raids and representation elections over the next two years before making peace and merging–forming a single national telephone union.
National Social and Economic Justice
The Welfare Fighter
The Welfare Fighter was the national newspaper of the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) that was created in 1966 to fight for greater assistance and control over welfare regulations.
NWRO, which had four goals: adequate income, dignity, justice, and democratic participation, was active from 1966 to 1975. At its height in 1969 it had a membership of as many as 25,000 people, with thousands more participating in NWRO protests. The majority of the members were African American women who often were on public assistance.
The organization popularized the slogan $5,500 or fight, later amending it to $6,500 or fight because of inflation. The slogan represented the demand for a guaranteed yearly national income.
The funding for the organization dried up in the early 1970s and in March 1975, the NWRO went bankrupt and the organization came to an end.
National Student
Fight Back
Fight Back was the monthly publication of the Attica Brigade (later Revolutionary Student Brigade) and organization affiliated with the Revolutionary Union and later the Revolutionary Communist Party.
The Attica Brigade was based among college students and at its peak had dozens of chapters across the country. It was part of the New Communist Movement that arose in the early 1970s.
Jailbreak
Jailbreak was a publication of the High School Youth Against War and Fascism from at least 1970-71 that sought to educate and involve high school students in the broader movement for social justice.
Youth Against War and Fascism (YAWF) traces its roots back to 1962 when it was formed by the Workers World Party—a split off from the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party.
Jailbreak was a term used by both YAWF and the late phases of the Students for a Democratic Society in an appeal to high school students to break out of the “jail” of high school regimen and thought.
On a few occasions, including at Western High School in Washington, D.C., SDS attempted to enter the school and encourage a student jailbreak (walkout).
SNCC Periodicals
SNCC published a number of periodicals that evolved over the years beginning with The Student Voice in 1960 later changing its name to The Voice. The SNCC Newsletter replaced The Voice in 1967. Internal Newsletters were also published.
~ The Student Voice
The Student Voice was published from 1960-65 changing its name to The Voice in 1965. It covers SNCC campaigns, local SNCC news and analysis of national and international events.
Vol. 1 No. 1 – June 1960 through Vol. 6 No 6 – December 1965 – (off-site at the CRMV website) – SNCC internal newsletters also available
~ SNCC News of the Field
News of the Field replaced the Voice in 1966 and acted as more of an internal newsletter reporting chapter news and campaigns
No. 3 – March 9, 1966 through No. 11 May 8, 1966 – (off-site at the CRMV website) – some issues missing
~ SNCC Newsletter
The successor publication to The Student Voice and The Voice began publishing in 1967 while Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture) was chair of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and continued publishing under new chair H. Rap Brown (later Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin).
The July 1967 edition contains a controversial opinion piece on Palestine, published shortly after the Third Arab-Israeli War, which caused the organization to be labeled anti-Semitic.
SNCC released a more formal statement in response on August 15, 1967, entitled “The Middle-East Crisis.” It incorporates many of the points that were made in the June-July article, but within an added context that acknowledged the horrors of the Holocaust, the suppression of American Jewish voices that protested Zionism, and the critical support given to Zionism by the United States.
This incarnation of the SNCC newsletter published as a full-size newspaper:
Vol. 1 No. 5 – September 1967 (missing pages 3, 4, 5, 6)
SDS Periodicals
Though its roots went back to the League for Industrial Democracy established in 1905, the Students for a Democratic Society was formally constituted in 1960.
It became the largest mass organization of the New Left from 1964-69. At its 9th convention in the summer of 1969, the organization split into three factions—the Progressive Labor dominated Worker-Student Alliance faction, Revolutionary Youth Movement I (the Weathermen) and Revolutionary Youth Movement II, which would itself split into competing Maoist factions.
At its peak, SDS had chapters at over 300 colleges, universities and high schools and had upwards of 100,000 members and supporters.
~The Activist
The Activist began as a civil rights newsletter of the Midwestern Student Coordinating Committee in 1960. By 1961 it became an independent journal of political opinion associated with the Students for a Democratic Society and became a publication of SDS from 1962-63 before becoming an independent journal again.
The Activist continued publishing until at least 1974 and issues after its split from SDS can be found at the Independent Voices website.
The volume and number of some issues were printed incorrectly, but these are believed to be in chronological order:
~ Bulletin
SDS Bulletin published from 1962-65 that was more of a traditional 8 ½ x 11 newsletter, but contained opinion pieces, news and acted as a forum for debate within the organization. Please contact us if you have issues missing from this collection.
Vol. 2 No. 1 – October 1963 – missing pages 9-10
Vol. 2 No. 2 – November 1, 1963
Vol. 2 No. 4 – January 1, 1964
Vol. 2 No. 9 – June 1964 – missing pages 27-28
Vol. 3 No. 3 – November-December 1964
Vol. 3 (No number, Special Edition) – October 1965
Vol. 4 No. 1 – circa November 1965
Vol. 4 No. 2 – circa January 1966
~ New Left Notes
New Left Notes replaced the Bulletin in January 1966 and published until 1969. It was tabloid-sized and more free-form than the Bulletin, but served much of the same purpose containing opinion pieces, news and a forum for debate. We have all copies of New Left Notes, except possibly Vol. 4 No. 10 that we believe is a phantom issue and does not exist and that subsequent issues are simply mis-numbered. These digital copies are drawn from our own hard copies and from The Independent Voices website, the SDS website and the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Vol. 1 No. 1 – January 21, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 2 – January 28, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 3 – February 4, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 4 – February 11, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 5 – February 18, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 6 – February 25, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 10 – March 25, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 13 – April 15, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 14 – April 22, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 15 – April 29, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 22 – June 17, 1966 –
Vol. 1 No. 26 & 27 – July 15 & 22, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 29 – August 5, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 30 – August 12, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 31 – August 19, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 32 – August 24, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 33 – September 2, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 34 – September 9, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 35 – September 16, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 36 – September 23, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 37 – October 1, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 38 – October 7, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 39 – October 14, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 40, 41 – October 28, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 42 – November 4, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 42 – November 11, 1966 – mis-numbered
Vol. 1 No. 44 – November 18, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 45 – November 25, 1966
Vol. 1 No 46 – December 2, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 47 – December 9, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 48 – December 16, 1966
Vol. 1 No. 49 – December 23, 1966
Vol. 1 No 49 – December 30, 1966 (mis-numbered)
Vol. 2 No. 1 – January 6, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 2 – January 13, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 3 – January 20, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 4 – January 27, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 5 – February 3, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 6 – February 13, 1967
Vol. 2. No. 7 – February 20, 1967
Vol. 2. No. 8 – February 27, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 10 – March 13, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 11 – March 20, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 12 – March 27, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 14 – April 13, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 15 – April 17, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 16 – April 24, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 21 – May 22, 1967 – (mis-dated)
Vol. 2 No. 28 – August 7, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 29 – August 21, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 30 – September 4, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 31 – September 11, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 32 – September 18, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 33 – September 25, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 34 – October 2, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 35 – October 9, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 36 – October 16, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 37 – October 23, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 38 – October 30, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 38 – November 6, 1967 – (mis-numbered)
Vol. 2 No. 39 – November 13, 1967 – (mis-numbered)
Vol. 2 No. 41 – November 27, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 42 – December 4, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 43 – December 4, 1967 – (mis-dated)
Vol. 2 No. 44 – December 18, 1967
Vol. 2 No. 45 – December 25, 1967
Vol. 3 No. 1 – January 8, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 2 – January 15, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 3 – January 22, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 4 – January 29, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 5 – February 5, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 6 – February 12, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 7 – February 19, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 7 – February 26, 1968 – (mis-numbered)
Vol. 3 No. 8 – March 4, 1968 – (mis-numbered)
Vol. 3 No. 10 – March 18, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 11 – March 25, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 13 – April 15, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 14 – April 22, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 15 – April 29, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 24 – August 5, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 25 – August 12, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 26 – August 19, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 27 – September 9, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 28 – September 16, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 29 – September 22, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 30 – September 30, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 31 – October. 7, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 32 – October 18, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 33 – October 25, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 34 – November 11, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 35 – November 19, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 36 – December 4, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 37 – December 11, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 38 – December 18, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 39 – December 23, 1968
Vol. 3 No. 40 – January 8, 1969 (mis-numbered volume and number)
Vol. 4 No. 2 – January 15, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 3 – January 22, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 4 – January 29, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 5 – February 5, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 5 – February 5, 1969 (mis-numbered and mis-dated)
Vol. 4 No. 7 – February 21, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 8 – February 28, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 10 – unavailable at this time – possibly a phantom issue that does not exist and subsequent issues are incorrectly numbered
Vol. 4 No. 11 – March 13, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 12 – March 20, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 14 – April 10, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 15 – April 17, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 16 – April 24, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 25. – July 24, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 26 – August 1, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 27 – August 8, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 28 – August 23, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 29 – August 29, 1969
Vol. 4 No. 29 – August 29, 1969 (supplement)
~ Fire
Fire replaced New Left Notes after the 1969 convention of the organization where it split into three factions—the Weathermen (later Weather Underground) that controlled the national office, the Progressive Labor Party dominated rival SDS headquartered in Boston and the Revolutionary Youth Movement II which in turn split into competing Maoist factions. Fire published three issues as an SDS publication before the group dropped the SDS name. We have all three issues
Vol. 1 No. 1 – November 7, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 2 – November 21, 1969
Vol. 1 No. 3 – December 6, 1969
Related to SDS Fire
1969 11 The Second Battle of Chicago 1969
~ Radical America
Radical America began publication as an SDS-sponsored history journal in 1967 and outlived the organization, publishing until 1992.
Vol. 1 No. 2 – September 1967 through Vol. 24 No. 4 – September 1990 – (off site at the Brown University Library) – some issues missing
~ Caw!
CAW! was a brief-lived SDS magazine that published four issues 1968-69 that contained poetry, songs, art and in-depth articles. We have all four issues.
Special Cuba Supplement – Jan 1969
The Student Mobilizer
The Student Mobilizer (1967-72) was a newspaper published irregularly by the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (1965-73).
The SMC originally acted as the arm of the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (1966-67) and the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (1967-68).
With the internal splits within the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1969, the SMC had chapters on dozens of campuses and was often the only national mass organization active at a school. On many campuses, it was also often the largest radical student organization.
The SMC had chapters on dozens of campuses across the United States and also did outreach to active duty GIs, including the establishment of the GI Press Service that had a couple dozen local GI newspapers and newsletters affiliated with it.
Vol. 1 No. ? – December 1, 1967
Special Wallposter Issue No. 1 – January 18, 1969
Wallposter No. 2 – March 14, 1969
Wallposter No. 3 – April 5, 1969
USNSA Periodicals
The United States National Student Association published a number of periodicals during its existence including USNSA News, USNSA Congress News and The American Student.
USNSA was an umbrella group for student governments in the U.S. established in the late 1940s that was revealed in 1967 to have been partially funded by the Central Intelligence Agency. Following this scandal, the group broke all ties by 1969 and became a leading voice in the student antiwar movement.
~ The American Student
The American Student was the magazine published by the United States National Student Association (USNSA) during the mid 1960s.
Issue No. 1 covers the campus free speech fight, civil rights, Vietnam War. This was a time when the USNSA’s international affairs were controlled and directed by the CIA and the magazine reports on South West Africa, apartheid, Latin America, international university sports and a U.S. student visit to Yugoslavia.
Issue No. 3 provides an overview of the state of campus politics in late 1966.
It profiles campus organizations and activists such as Paul Booth and the Students for Democratic Society, the Young Americans for Freedom, The non-activist Association of Student Governments, the Southern Student Organizing Committee, a member of the Progressive Labor Party and the Vietnam War and the debate over it at the USNSA’s own annual congress.
It also contains a brief description of non-single issue campus activists groups including Campus Americans for Democratic Action, Intercollegiate Society of Individualists, May Second Movement, Student Peace Union, Students for Democratic Society, W. E. B. DuBois Clubs of America, Young Americans for Freedom, Young Democratic Clubs of America, Young Socialist Alliance and Youth Against War and Fascism.
The available issues:
~ USNSA Congress News
The United States National Student Association held an annual congress and published a daily newsletter during the week-long event. The August 16, 1970 edition of its convention in Minneapolis, MN recounts the passage of a resolution that mandated the organization to organize civil disobedience against the Vietnam War beginning May 1, 1971–the Mayday protests in Washington, D.C. that resulted in over 12,000 arrests. The issue was first debated on August 13th and reported in the August 14th issue.
– USNSA Newsletter
The United States National Student Association published a monthly newsletter from 1947 until at least 1972 that covered news from campuses across the country, political events of interest to students and internal NSA programs and offerings.
The January 12, 1971 issue contains a first hand account of the negotiation of the People’s Peace Treaty and lays plans for the Ann Arbor Michigan conference that launched the organizing effort for the Mayday 1971 demonstrations that resulted in the arrest of over 12,000 demonstrators–the largest mass arrest at a protest in U.S. history.
Vol. 22 No. 1 – October 17, 1969
Vol. 24 No. 1&2 – January 12, 1971
National Women’s
Voice of the Women’s Liberation Movement
Voice of the Women’s Liberation Movement was the first newsletter of the women’s liberation movement trend during the second wave feminist movement, publishing seven issues from 1967-69. It was initiated by Chicago women’s activist Jo Freeman.
The sixth issue, currently the only issue in the Spark collection, was important because It reflected the split of the women’s liberation movement from the larger antiwar and civil rights movement and exposed differences within the women’s liberation movement itself.
The sixth issue was published in February 1969 after a debacle at the Counter-Inaugural protest of President Richard Nixon in Washington, D.C. where feminist speakers were booed and vulgar comments directed toward them.
The newsletter recounts the Counter-Inaugural events, publishes the speeches by Marilyn Saltzman Webb and Shulamith Firestone and contains accounts and perspectives on the events and different schools of thought within the women’s liberation movement.
Original held in the Bonnie Atwood papers, 1965-2005, Collection, Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.
International Periodicals
The Irish People
The Irish People was a weekly newspaper which served as the “Voice of Irish Republicanism in America” from 1972-2004 and was published in New York.
Published by volunteers who supported an Irish Republican political analysis, the paper provided weekly reports and analysis of events in Ireland related to the struggle against British rule. It also served as a contemporary weekly record and organizer of Irish-American political activity in the United States.
Vol. 5 No. 36 – September 11, 1976
South Vietnam in Struggle
The English-language version of the Central Organ of the South Vietnam National Liberation Front (NLF, often called Viet Cong)
Vol. 7 No. 219 – October 22, 1973
Vol. 7 No. 220 – October 29, 1973
United Irishman
The United Irishman was the publication of the Irish Republican Army until 1970 and for the “Official” Irish Republican Army (OIRA) thereafter until it was replaced with the Irish People and the Workers Weekly in 1980.
The “Official” IRA got its name after the “Provisional” Irish Republican Army (Provos) split from the OIRA after the August 1969 raids by the paramilitary Ulster Defense Force (a group of loyalists to the British Crown in Northern Ireland that carried out attacks on Catholics) that burned out several Catholic neighborhoods.
The IRA had for several years taken a Marxist position that the working class Protestants were not the enemy and refrained from engaging them in combat except in limited defensive situations.
Vol. 36 No. 9 – September 1977
Unity
Unity is a weekly newspaper, slightly smaller than tabloid size, produced by the Belfast office of the Communist Party of Ireland(CPI).
Vol. 1 No. 15 – January 3, 1976