Rat

Rat Subterranean News, New York's second major underground newspaper, was created in March 1968, primarily by editor Jeff Shero, Alice Embree and Gary Thiher, who moved up from Austin, Texas, where they had been involved in The Rag. Beginnings Rat immediately attained national notoriety for its exclusive inside stories from the Columbia University student uprising in the spring of 1968. Its notoriety grew further when two staff members (one of which was star reporter Jane Alpert) were arrested in connection with a series of non-lethal bombings of corporate offices and military targets in late 1969. Its reputation took a new turn when it was done over as a feminist magazine in 1970. The first women-only issue was published in January 1970 with the headline "Women Seize Rat! Sabotage Tales!". In its new incarnation as Women's LibeRATion, it lasted into the fall of 1970. While the East Village Other, published a few blocks away, represented the countercultural "establishment" with its relatively relaxed culture-oriented content, Rat embodied the raging far-left politics of the late Sixties. Unlike the orthodox Marxist press, however, it still represented the spirit of hippiedom. Its stripped-down, straightforward design (created by Bob Eisner, later a leading designer of mainstream papers) marked a sharp break with the baroque psychedelia of EVO and other first-generation underground papers. Its relatively austere aethetics were relieved by cartoons, including covers by Robert Crumb and clippings from 1940s poultry magazines found on the street and used as decorations. Notable contributions Among the memorable contents were original contributions from William S. Burroughs, an interview with Kurt Vonnegut, and insightful front-line reports on the Weather Underground's seizure of SDS written by Shero and others. There were regular in-depth stories on the Young Lords, a militant Puerto Rican youth movement, and the Black Panthers — with a focus on New York's own Panther 21 terrorism trial, and well as news of the ongoing sagas of Huey Newton, Afeni Shakur, and Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver. Jane Alpert wrote on her own experiences in the notorious New York Women's House of Detention after she was arrested for involvement in the bombings.