Underground Newspapers at UNI: 1968-1971
From both a political and cultural perspective, the late 1960’s and 2020 share too many similarities for either to be studied in isolation from each other. A crucial aspect of our study of underground newspapers at UNI from 1968-1971 will be drawing out these connections through the writings, interviews, and analyses contained within the pages of these publications. In the spirit of the student radicals in charge of these publications, this exhibit will not be a merely descriptive exercise but a critical intervention. It is my hope that this exhibit will provide both the historical background for the underground newspapers as well as a critical orientation for the viewer to situate themselves within their contemporary context.
The March on Washington, 1963 (right) and the George Floyd protests, 2020 (right)
To begin, the main difference between "underground" and mainstream media is the way in which politics and situated with respect to coverage of current events. Mainstream media attempts to remain "apolitical" or bipartisan, giving "equal legitimacy" to both sides of an argument. Underground newspapers, on the contrary, are upfront and honest about their politics, and the writing is much more politically engaged and "partisan."
This should not be taken to mean that underground campus newspapers were aligned with the Democratic Party - precisely the opposite! Radical student journalists, in general, were feminist, anti-capitalist, and avowedly pro-civil rights. This style of news offers a refreshing honesty not found in corporate media such as CNN or Fox News.
The first underground newspaper on campus was established by Doug Warrington and Bruce Niceswanger in 1968 under the title of “Campus Underground.”
Located in Cedar Falls, the fledgling paper boasted dozens of contributors and writers on college campuses across the state. Initially intended for national publication, after the tumultuous summer of 1968 and the proliferation of underground newspapers across the country, UNI’s campus became its primary audience.
Campus Underground began to wane after a particularly inflammatory incident: Carl Childress, who was a current UNI English professor, wrote the word “fuck” in a review he wrote for the paper, causing a backlash from both the community and the paper’s printer. Using such language was considered quite inflammatory at the time. The staff of Campus Underground reacted satirically, half-dismissing their greatest critic at the Waterloo Courier, Bill "the Duke" Severin.
Soon, the paper began to suffer financially, and one comical incident in the Spring of 1969 involved the editorial staff frantically rushing around campus begging for donations to cover the $100 printing cost.
After the summer of 1969, Campus Underground was replaced by the “New Prairie Primer” with Niceswanger returning as editor. It’s first edition was printed in October, 1969, and its style was heavily influenced by Woodstock and was more politically militant than the rather informative tone of Campus Underground. Never without a flare for the dramatic, Niceswanger and his comrades liked to imagine themselves to be serious political actors.
With a heavy focus on anti-war activism and campus political struggles, the Primer hosted all kinds of content ranging from student manifestos to critical works on education reform as well as a refreshingly heavy dose of political art.
Anti-police Surveillance Drawing
The Primer served as the sole voice for political struggle on campus. Its contributors were more than willing to attack the official campus publication, “The Northern Iowan,” for its unwillingness to take sides politically, which often sided with the administration and state legislature.
Eventually, the paper folded in December, 1970, citing the disappearance of radical student demands, interest in politics generally, and lack of funding. This was a common theme nationally as well, and the summer of 1969 and all the flurry around Woodstock sapped the energy from the radical student movement.
A core component of student demands concerned the operation of the University. Most representative of this theme is the “Declaration of Student Independence” published in the Primer in February, 1970.
Student demands included various concrete proposals aimed at creating more separation between administration and students’ private lives and intellectual affairs. Many pieces express similar aspirations, and one interesting development on this front was the “Free University,” envisioned as a place of learning and community not bound by the restrictive general education requirements and familial structure of the public university.
This project was ultimately a liberal one, however. For example, one editorial states: “This group feels that the student has the right to be responsible for the determination of the educational experiences that will be most rewarding to him.” But this is not to say that student radicals were wholly seduced by the free-love milieu of Woodstock, and the openness to violence as a political strategy was common.
See, for instance, Mike Bennet’s argument for using intimidation as a legitimate political strategy on campus: “You don’t confront the administration; you push that motherfucker against the wall and say, “We are [in charge], now deal with us.”
The pages of the underground campus newspapers were, of course, dominated by the Civil Rights Movement, and its impacts were directly felt on UNI’s campus. The “UNI 7” were a group of students who arrested for sitting-in on President Maucker’s home after the administration failed to comply with the demands of black students to form the “Afro-American Cultural Center”.
Various letters of support filled the columns of the Primer from community members, students, and clergymen. There was little question among the readership of the Primer that their tactics were justified, and one community member eloquently sums up the justification for direct action: “I support the ‘UNI 7’ because the oppressor has never voluntarily given to the oppressed justice. If the oppressed are to make any gain, they must demand it.”
However sympathetic the underground papers were to demands for racial justice, the culture of the New Left prevented any true solidarity from emerging between black and white students. The account given by the sole white student from the UNI 7 of his experience in jail attests to this, where he states that “jails are fun…” because he could escape the impositions of the university, the family, and the state behind bars.
Our final investigation brings us to the actions of the administration and student government, two places of intense focus and political struggle during this period. In general, the administration betrayed a very liberal, “white-moderate” approach to demands for racial justice and academic freedom.
After the Afro-American Society picketed the food service on campus and boycotted classes on November 7, 1969 to draw attention to their demands, the Faculty Senate was unwilling to engage them honestly, stating: “The atmosphere of pressure and implied intimidation blues the rational and democratic processes of decision making…”
The Student Senate was no less liberal in its approach and was an active agent in arresting student power on campus. After student radicals began planning mass mobilizations to oppose a proposed tuition hike by the Board of Regents, the Student Senate rebuffed such actions in favor of letter writing: “Mass demonstrations are riots to their minds, and would completely turn them off. Reality: they hold the purse strings. At this stage in the game, we just can’t afford that kind of action.”
The New Left and its student radicals demanded a world free of the constraints of racism, capitalism, and the state, but the failure of their project can be traced back to the understanding of those very concepts that they held. Most exemplary of this failure is a critical piece which appeared in the Primer in response to demands for a more flexible art curriculum, and its argument merits serious reflection: “Joe Siddens, art instructor, questioned the students: ‘If you’re given the freedom to do it - what will you do with it?’ The answer came from John Volker: ‘If someone has to GIVE me my freedom, then it’s obvious it’s been taken away, and that’s what I’m angry about.”
Just as the New Left could not articulate its desire outside of mere critique, so too does today’s Left suffer from a handicapped imagination, unable or unwilling to think beyond the coordinates of capitalism.
Map detailing important locations relevant to underground papers on campus.
