Type | Biweekly underground newspaper |
---|---|
Format | Tabloid |
Founder(s) | Darlene Fife and Robert Head |
Founded | 1967New Orleans | in
Political alignment | Radical |
Headquarters | New Orleans, Louisiana |
Circulation | 11,000 |
NOLA Express is a publication started in 1967 in New Orleans by the young poets Darlene Fife and Robert Head. Part the underground free press movement of the 1960s, the paper was opposed to American imperialism, racism and materialism. It protested the Vietnam War and other government policies, along with social hypocrisies.
Named after William S. Burroughs's cut-up novel, Nova Express , the paper was produced by a dedicated band of activists, poets, and illustrators based in the French Quarter; it published uncensored news, art, and literature featuring Charles Bukowski, Hedwig Gorski, and many others.
NOLA Express is considered one of the most outrageous underground papers of the 1960s. Part of the controversy was due to the paper's inclusion of graphic images that many in Sixties society deemed pornographic. Such controversies increased readership and brought attention to the political causes that editors Fife and Head supported. [1]
Editors Robert Head and Darlene Fife were part of political protests that extended the "mimeo revolution" through pamphleteering used by freedom of speech poets during the 1960s.
New Orleans was considered the Third Coast by 1960s countercultural migrants who hitch hiked between San Francisco, Austin, New Orleans, Key West, and New York City. [2] These social revolutionaries were able to find support, free housing, food, and work without commitments on the counterculture circuit. The underground press movement unified those in the anti-establishment service, social, and political movements, along with the Bohemian circuit of artists, freewheeling travelers, and hitchhikers into a force that permanently impacted American policy and culture. NOLA Express was mobilized by an ever-changing ragtag army of street vendors, at its peak selling 11,000 copies every two weeks. [3]
Bukowski's syndicated column, Notes of a Dirty Old Man, ran in NOLA Express; Francisco McBride's illustration for Bukowski's piece "The Fuck Machine" was considered sexist, pornographic, and created an uproar.[ citation needed ]
In a landmark decision in 1971, NOLA Express beat federal obscenity charges.[ citation needed ]
In 1967, the Underground Press Syndicate (UPS) cooperative was formed; the UPS allowed member papers to freely reprint content from any of the other member papers. NOLA Express was one of the most notorious UPS member newspapers, as it rallied activists, poets, and artists by giving them an uncensored voice. NOLA Express was also a member of the Committee of Small Magazine Editors and Publishers (COSMEP). These affiliations with two organizations that were often at cross purposes made NOLA Express one of the most radical and controversial publications of the counterculture movement. [3]
The contents of a single issue of NOLA Express, No. 108 from June 9, 1972, covered investigative reporting about environmental and community issues, essays about current political and social issues, bold cartoons, statements by self-styled fringe leaders, and more created for the large fringe hippie and artist society of New Orleans and Algiers:
Darlene Fife, poet, translator, and co-founder of NOLA Express, wrote a personal and insightful memoir of the paper, the people who produced it, and the community it served, titled Portraits from Memory: New Orleans in The Sixties. [3] The book includes some of the correspondence and illustrations from notable issues.
An archive of NOLA Express correspondence and issues is housed at the University of Connecticut.[ citation needed ]
Fifth Estate is a U.S. periodical, based in Detroit, Michigan, begun in 1965.
The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of a dominant group. In specific recent Asian, American and Western European context, the term "underground press" has most frequently been employed to refer to the independently published and distributed underground papers associated with the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s in India and Bangladesh in Asia, in the United States and Canada in North America, and the United Kingdom and other western nations. It can also refer to the newspapers produced independently in repressive regimes. In German occupied Europe, for example, a thriving underground press operated, usually in association with the Resistance. Other notable examples include the samizdat and bibuła, which operated in the Soviet Union and Poland respectively, during the Cold War.
Liberation News Service (LNS) was a New Left, anti-war underground press news agency that distributed news bulletins and photographs to hundreds of subscribing underground, alternative and radical newspapers from 1967 to 1981. Considered the "Associated Press" for the underground press, at its zenith the LNS served more than 500 papers. Founded in Washington, D.C., it operated out of New York City for most of its existence.
The Underground Press Syndicate (UPS), later known as the Alternative Press Syndicate (APS), was a network of countercultural newspapers and magazines that operated from 1966 into the late 1970s. As it evolved, the Underground Press Syndicate created an Underground Press Service, and later its own magazine.
The Los Angeles Free Press, also called the "Freep", is often cited as the first, and certainly was the largest, of the underground newspapers of the 1960s. The Freep was founded in 1964 by Art Kunkin, who served as its publisher until 1971 and continued on as its editor-in-chief through June 1973. The paper closed in 1978. It was unsuccessfully revived a number of times afterward.
Hedwig Irene Gorski is an American performance poet and an avant-garde artist who labels her aesthetic as "American futurism." The term "performance poetry," a precursor to slam poetry, is attributed to her. It originated in press releases for experimental spoken word and conceptual theater Gorski created during 1979. She is a first-generation Polish American academic scholar and accomplished creative writer. The innovative poetry, prose, drama, and audio works are published and produced in a variety of media using standard and experimental forms.
The Berkeley Barb was a weekly underground newspaper published in Berkeley, California, during the years 1965 to 1980. It was one of the first and most influential of the counterculture newspapers, covering such subjects as the anti-war movement and Civil Rights Movement, as well as the social changes advocated by youth culture.
Barry Miles is an English author known for his participation in and writing on the subjects of the 1960s London underground and counterculture. He is the author of numerous books and his work has also regularly appeared in leftist newspapers such as The Guardian. In the 1960s, he was co-owner of the Indica Gallery and helped start the independent newspaper International Times.
The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon and political movement that developed in the Western world during the mid-20th century. It began in the early 1960s, and continued through the early 1970s. It is often synonymous with cultural liberalism and with the various social changes of the decade. The effects of the movement have been ongoing to the present day. The aggregate movement gained momentum as the civil rights movement in the United States had made significant progress, such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and with the intensification of the Vietnam War that same year, it became revolutionary to some. As the movement progressed, widespread social tensions also developed concerning other issues, and tended to flow along generational lines regarding respect for the individual, human sexuality, women's rights, traditional modes of authority, rights of people of color, end of racial segregation, experimentation with psychoactive drugs, and differing interpretations of the American Dream. Many key movements related to these issues were born or advanced within the counterculture of the 1960s.
The Chicago Seed was an underground newspaper published biweekly in Chicago, Illinois from May 1967 to 1974; there were 121 issues published in all. It was notable for its colorful psychedelic graphics and its eclectic, non-doctrinaire radical politics. Important events covered by Seed writers and artists were the trial of the Chicago Eight, Woodstock, and the murder of Fred Hampton. At its peak, the Seed circulated between 30,000 and 40,000 copies, with national distribution.
The Outsider was a 1960s literary magazine published by Loujon Press. "The Outsider" brought the work of Charles Bukowski to national attention, in addition to publishing work by such notable writers as Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, along with artwork by Noel Rockmore.
The Rag was an underground newspaper published in Austin, Texas from 1966–1977. The weekly paper covered political and cultural topics that the conventional press ignored, such as the growing antiwar movement, the sexual revolution, gay liberation, and drug culture. It encouraged these political constituencies and countercultural communities to coalesce into a significant political force in Austin. As the sixth member of the Underground Press Syndicate and the first underground paper in the South, The Rag helped shape a flourishing national underground press.
The Paper was a weekly underground newspaper published in East Lansing, Michigan, beginning in December 1965. It was one of the five original founding members of the Underground Press Syndicate.
San Francisco Express Times was a counterculture tabloid underground newspaper edited by Marvin Garson and published weekly in San Francisco, California from January 24, 1968, to March 25, 1969, for a total of 61 issues, covering and promoting radical politics, rock music, arts and progressive culture in the Bay Area. It was a member of the Underground Press Syndicate, and sold for 15 cents.
The Berkeley Tribe was a counterculture weekly underground newspaper published in Berkeley, California, from 1969 to 1972. It was formed after a staff dispute with publisher Max Scherr and split the nationally known Berkeley Barb into new competing underground weeklies. In July 1969 some 40 editorial and production staff with the Barb went on strike for three weeks, then started publishing the Berkeley Tribe as a rival paper, after first printing an interim issue called Barb on Strike to discuss the strike issues with the readership. They incorporated as Red Mountain Tribe, named after Gallo's one gallon finger-ringed jug of cheap wine, Red Mountain. It became a leading publication of the New Left.
Open City was a weekly underground newspaper published in Los Angeles by avant-garde journalist John Bryan from May 6, 1967 to April 1969. It was noted for its coverage of radical politics, rock music, psychedelic culture and the "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" column by Charles Bukowski.
Illustrated Paper was a monthly psychedelic underground newspaper published in Mendocino, California from June 1966 to April 1967. Initially issued under the title The Paper, it became the Illustrated Paper with its third issue. Philip A. Bianchi and Walter D. Wells were the editors. It was one of the earliest members of the Underground Press Syndicate (UPS).
Tuesday's Child was a short-lived counterculture underground newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, in 1969–1970. Self-described on its masthead as "An ecumenical, educational newspaper for the Los Angeles occult & underground," it was founded by Los Angeles Free Press reporter Jerry Applebaum, Alex Apostolides, and a group of Freep staffers who left en masse after disagreements with Art Kunkin to found their own paper. Tuesday's Child was edited by Chester Anderson.
Thorne Webb Dreyer is an American writer, editor, publisher, and political activist who played a major role in the 1960s-1970s counterculture, New Left, and underground press movements. Dreyer now lives in Austin, Texas, where he edits the progressive internet news magazine, The Rag Blog, hosts Rag Radio on KOOP 91.7-FM, and is a director of the New Journalism Project.