The Underground Press: How 1960s Counterculture Built Its Own Media Revolution

The mid-1960s was a time when three television networks, two wire services, and a string of plain-vanilla daily newspapers held an iron grip on what Americans could read, see, and know. Then, beginning in the basements of Berkeley and the East Village, a new kind of publication began to appear—tabloid-format weeklies and monthlies with wild designs, uncompromising articles, and a name borrowed from the resistance presses of totalitarian Europe: the underground newspaper. As the Civil Rights and Labor History Consortium at the University of Washington notes, these papers “broke open the information monopoly” and “established the parameters of radical politics and the meanings of ‘counterculture’ for this pivotal decade.” They were not just a protest against the establishment—they were an alternative infrastructure, a network of voices that would amplify the antiwar movement, the Black Panthers, feminism, and environmentalism. To be alive in that moment was to feel the ground shifting, as the underground press turned readers into participants and made the counterculture visible to itself.

What Happened?

The term “underground newspaper” had long described the clandestine publications of resistance groups in totalitarian societies. But in the mid-1960s, American activists repurposed it for a new kind of radical, countercultural press. The first wave appeared in 1964 and 1965 in cities like Berkeley, New York, and Los Angeles. The Berkeley Barb, founded in 1965, was one of the earliest and most influential, celebrating the “Greatest Anti War Protest” in its October 22, 1965 issue, as recorded by the Mapping American Social Movements project. By 1968, the underground press had exploded into a network of hundreds of publications, including the East Village Other, the Seed, the Realist, and the Black Panther newspaper. These papers were not simply newspapers—they were social media networks of their time, connecting the civil rights movement, feminist organizations, environmental activists, and antiwar GIs.

The growth was rapid and geographic. The University of Washington’s Mapping American Social Movements project has mapped underground and alternative newspapers from 1965 to 1975, showing how they spread through hundreds of communities. They were printed on cheap newsprint, sold on street corners and at head shops, and passed hand-to-hand. Their distribution relied on the same networks they helped create: the GI antiwar papers, the Black Panther chapters, the women’s liberation groups. They were not just reporting on the movement; they were the movement’s nervous system.

How It Was Seen at the Time

Contemporaries understood the underground press as a direct challenge to the media establishment. The University of Washington project states that the undergrounds “challenged the conventions of journalism and politics with wildly new designs and uncompromising articles.” The language of the era was one of breaking open, of liberation. The papers were seen as a way to “break open the information monopoly” dominated by the three networks, two wire services, and the daily press.

“The underground press… broke open the information monopoly dominated by three TV networks, two wire services, and a string of plain-vanilla daily newspapers.” — Mapping American Social Movements Project

This was not a fringe phenomenon. The Berkeley Barb celebrated the “Greatest Anti War Protest” in its October 22, 1965 issue, a headline that captured the sense of a new era of protest and reporting. The paper’s very existence was a statement: the counterculture would tell its own story, on its own terms.

Historical Snapshot

What People Knew at the Time

Contemporary Newspaper Coverage

The underground press itself was the most direct contemporary coverage. The Berkeley Barb, for example, published its October 22, 1965 issue celebrating the “Greatest Anti War Protest,” a headline that captured the growing anti-war sentiment. The East Village Other, the Seed, and the Realist all covered the counterculture, the war, and the movement from a perspective that mainstream papers ignored. As the Columbia Journalism Review article notes, the underground papers were not just a historical artifact—they were a source of inspiration for a later generation of journalists. The CJR article describes a 2016 exhibit at Babylon Falling bookstore in San Francisco, where vintage newspapers covered the walls, and former Ramparts publisher Warren Hinckle mingled with young store owner Sean Stewart. The exhibit was a testament to the enduring power of these papers.

“The Seed, the Berkeley Barb, the East Village Other, the Realist, The Black Panther.” — Columbia Journalism Review, describing the walls of the Babylon Falling exhibit

Mainstream coverage of the underground press was often dismissive or alarmed, but the underground press itself was a form of journalism that was self-consciously radical. It was not objective; it was committed. It was not corporate; it was collective.

Aftermath

The underground press did not disappear overnight. By the mid-1970s, the network had peaked and began to decline, but its influence was permanent. The Village Voice began scanning and posting its archives online, and the Chicago Reader dug up its founding manifesto, posting it as a blog item—a sign that the legacy was being preserved. The underground press also influenced the rise of alternative weeklies, the graphic design of radical press, and the very idea that the media could be decentralized. The Columbia Journalism Review notes a “bona fide resurgence of interest in the Vietnam-era radical press,” with the Village Voice scanning its old archives and Geoff Kaplan’s book Power of the People: The Graphic Design of Radical Press documenting the design legacy. The underground press taught a generation that media could be a tool of the people, not just a corporate product.

How Historians See It Today

Contemporary observers saw the underground press as a radical alternative to the mainstream. Today, historians see it as a critical part of the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The Mapping American Social Movements project, a modern scholarly effort, maps the newspapers as evidence of the network of movements. They note that “the social movements of 1960s and 1970s would not have been possible without the underground press.” This is a shift from the earlier view that the underground press was just a side effect of the counterculture. Instead, historians now argue that the underground press was a necessary infrastructure—a kind of social media network that allowed the movements to grow. The project’s title, “The social media networks of the 1960s and 1970s,” is a modern framing that highlights the role of these papers in organizing and spreading ideas.

Common Misconceptions

Related Primary Sources

• The Mapping American Social Movements project at the University of Washington provides maps and charts of underground newspapers from 1965-1975.
• The Berkeley Barb archives, including the October 22, 1965 issue with the “Greatest Anti War Protest” headline.
• The Village Voice archives, which are being scanned and posted online.
• The Chicago Reader founding manifesto, posted as a blog item.
• The collection at Babylon Falling bookstore in San Francisco, which displayed seventy radical and underground newspapers from the 1960s and ’70s.