Kaleidoscope, April 26-May 9, 1969

“In the 1960s, investigative journalists, poets, novelists, political activists, community organizers, and artists formed an unprecedented alliance for change in the vigorous underground press movement that flourished in the United States. This network of counterculture, campus, and other alternative media brought larger political issues into communities, awakening citizens to their own power to influence national policy. Surprisingly, the rapid growth in the number of underground newspapers and readership was mirrored by a sudden, equally rapid, decline in the early 1970s. The fate of the underground press followed that of the Movement, in general. The end of that great incubator of dissent, the Vietnam War, and the dismantling of the draft reduced the sense of immediacy felt by many people. Disagreements over strategy and goals fragmented the nascent New Left. While alternative journals belonging to the older traditions of muckraking, Left political commentary and party papers…