A tradition continues: The history of East Lansing's underground press, 1965-present

Abstract

Wachsberger is a freelance journalist as well as author of the novel Beercans on the Side of the Road: The Story of Henry the Hitchhiker (Ann Arbor, MI: Azenphony Press, 1988), and member of the National Writers Union. He also teaches writing at Eastern Michigan University and is managing editor of Serials Review and Reference Services Review in Ann Arbor. This article is dedicated to my hometown of Lansing, Michigan. I was born in Detroit and I was raised in Cleveland. At present, I live in Ann Arbor. But I call Lansing my hometown because I became politically and philosophically aware there in 1970 after the murders at Kent State and Jackson State, the student strikes that followed, and my first political arrest. I thank then-Michigan State University President Clifton Wharton, a black member of the white power structure in this country, who ordered that student participants in a discussion on racism that was being held in the Michigan State Union (and that he had been invited to) be arrested for loitering and trespassing. My brief incarceration in solitary confinement that evening was just good educational and literary fortune. My subsequent involvement in the local underground press transformed my life. The Lansing area has a long tradition of underground and alternative newspapers, going back to December 3, 1965, when The Paper debuted on the campus of Michigan State University and in the East Lansing area. The Paper's staff were former staff members of MSU's student newspaper, State News, who rebelled against its refusal to deal with issues of the day. On the organizational level, they adopted the basic hierarchical structure of the State News, but their articles contained a new element, called substance, and they didn't shy away from expressing opinions. The generally accepted definition of objective journalism involves the idea that an article should