For this assignment:
1. Choose a topic that interests you from the topics listed below.
2. Find one article in the UPS Underground Newspaper Collection on your topic. These articles were written by counterculture youth. Many of the articles, because they were written by young activists who were also pushing the limits of freedom of expression, often use profanity accompanied by comix that you might find inappropriate. Although college is a place where we should feel comfortable investing all points of view, please read the disclaimer below if you are not comfortable with the assignment. Please see the Librarian for assistance in using the Underground Newspaper Collection.
3. Find one article in the New York Times Database on the same topic.
4. Compare the articles. Were there differences in how the events were portrayed? Is this a topic that is still being debated in the news today? How so?
DISCLAIMER! IF YOU FEEL OFFENDED OR UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THIS ASSIGNMENT, the librarian will help you locate a topic that does not upset you. This assignment is not meant to push political or ethical views on you. The purpose of the assignment is to understand the feelings and sentiment of the 1960s counterculture movement and compare their version of events to the version set forth in the mainstream media at the time.
Civil Rights Movement
Student Protest & the New Left
Women’s Liberation
Gay Rights Movement
The Beat Generation
Anti-war Movement
“Hippie” & anti-Establishment Culture
Politics and Protest
Environmental Movement
American Indian Movement (AIM)
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) VIDEO
The Black Panther Party & Black Power VIDEO
Emory Douglas: Artist of the Black Panther Intercommunal News Service VIDEO
Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) VIDEO
Ken Kesey & the Merry Pranksters: Counterculture Road Trip VIDEO
Malcolm X, Human Rights Activist VIDEO
The Vietnam Day Committee & Anti-war Demonstrations VIDEO
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 VIDEO
National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam (1967) VIDEO
1967 March on the Pentagon VIDEO
1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention Demonstrations VIDEO
Richard Nixon: Perspectives from the Counterculture
J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI's Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) and the Assault on the Civil Rights and the Counterculture
Kent State Shootings (1970)
Jackson State Shootings (1970)
The Watts Riots & Police Brutality (1965)
The Summer of Love in San Francisco (1967)
Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Timothy Leary, "Turn on, Tune in, and Drop Out"
Canada and Vietnam War Resisters from the United States
Stop the Draft Week (1967)
The Detroit Race Riot (1967)
My Lai Massacre in Vietnam (1968) & Public Reaction
The Tet Offensive in Vietnam (1968) & Public Reaction
The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (1968)
The Whole Earth Catalog (1968), Mother Earth News (1970), Earth Day(1970), and the rise of the Environmental/ Green Movement
Bloody Sunday & the Selma To Montgomery Marches (1965)
Lowndes County (Alabama) Freedom Organization
The Weather Underground (You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows)
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963)
The Young Lords Party and Puerto Rican Activists
The American Indian Movement (AIM) & the Occupation of Wounded Knee at Pine Ridge Reservation (1973)
The White Panther Party (1968)
The Diggers & Community Activism (1967)
The San Francisco Mime Troupe and Guerilla Theater Activism
The Anti-nuclear Movement & the Cold War
Woodstock Music and Art Fair (1969)
The Altamont Free Concert (1969)
John Sinclair's "Liberation Music" (December 1970) Perspective about Rock n' Roll
The 1968 Miss America Pageant & the Women's Liberation Movement
Robin Morgan's "Goodbye to All That" & the Women's Takeover of Rat (Underground Newspaper) (1970)
Emory Douglas & Revolutionary Art in the Black Panther Intercommunal News Service
Underground Comix: Revolutionary Art, Freedom of Expression, and Sexism
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Port Huron Statement
Southern Students Organizing Committee (SSOC) (1964-1969)
The Yippies, Zippies, and the 1972 Democratic (and Republican) National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida
John Wilcock, Thomas King Forcade, and the Underground Press Syndicate
Counterculture Underground Newspapers in the South: The Great Speckled Bird (Atlanta), The Kudzu (Jackson, Mississippi), NOLA ( New Orleans), and The Rag (Austin, Texas)
Human Be-In in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park (1967)
Abbie Hoffman & the Protest on Wall Street at the New York Stock Exchange (1967)
The Columbia University Protests of 1968
The Peoples Park Protest at Berekely, California (1969)
The Assassination of Fred Hampton (Activist & Black Panther Member) in 1969
Elridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice (1968)
Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book (1971)
"Hippie" or "Flower Children" Lifestyle of the 1960s Counterculture Youth
The Stonewall Riots (1969) and the Gay Liberation Movement
Tuli Kupferberg, the "World's Oldest Hippie"
Drop City, the Fort Hill Community, and Communal Living
The Underground Newspaper Collection
(Page 45-70)