Today’s Lansing City Pulse used a few copies of the “Joint Issue†from my counter-culture collection for an article on author Ken Wachsberger’s new book, “Voices from the Undergroundâ€Â on the history of the underground press in the U.S. The book is published by the MSU Press.
In the article and the book, Wachsberger tells how being locked up in jail for participating in an anti-war demonstration at MSU radicalized his politics and life. It propelled him into the burgeoning underground newspaper scene where he dug right in, making a lot of friends along the way.
When he decided to write a history of the underground press in America he called on these old friends to write their “stories†which he then edited and compiled in a four-volume collection. Wachsberger will be doing a reading, discussion and signing at EVERYbody Reads, 7 p.m., Thursday March 3.
Quite a number of local stalwarts in the arts, music and cultural scene worked on local underground newspapers in the sixties and seventies including Bob Baldori of Woolies fame, Ray Walsh owner of Curious Book Shop and Archives Bookshop in East Lansing and artist and illustrator Dennis Preston whose art appears above. Read more about the book and Wachsberger in a previous post on Mittenlit.com.
Wachsberger has been able to gather together, in his book, a collection of first-person “stories†from key players in the underground newspaper and anti-war movement, providing needed insight into a time that seems uncannily like the present. He was able to get two notable anti-war fixtures Tom Hayden and Bill Ayers to provide blurbs for his first volume.
 Ayers, professor of education, University of Illinois Chicago, and a founding member of the Weather Underground, called the book “extraordinary†and said it was a “deep and calibrated examination of an alternative media exploding onto the scene in the midst of an exuberant and turbulent uproar.â€
Forewords are by “Chicago Seed†veteran Abe Peck, attorney William Kunstler, and Markos Moulitsas, founder of dailykos.com, one of the most important progressive blog sites of today’s new media.
In what is an amazing coincidence, or great minds thinking alike, MSU grad John McMillian has published another credible book “Smoking Typewritersâ€Â on the history of the underground newspaper movement in the U.S. Read a review on Mittenlit.com.
