Written Revolt
AMERICA'S BLUNDERS ABROAD AND THEIR EFFECTS AT HOME - AS TOLD BY THE GREAT SPECKLED BIRD
The Great Speckled Bird was an underground counterculture newspaper based in Atlanta, GA. Publishing from 1968 to 1976, "The Bird" joined similar publications like The Berkeley Tribe in serving as an outlet for New Left voices. It was birthed out of one of the most tumultuous times in American history, where conflict regarding the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War saturated the airwaves. This simultaneously exposed the underside of American society, causing students and leftists alike to question the direction and leadership of the country. Characteristic of the New Left movement's progressive views, the newspaper rejected the mainstream newspapers' insistence on objectivity, opting instead for opinionated accounts of local, national, and global events. Adamantly unwilling to allow federal propaganda to monopolize Atlantans' news, The Bird was a medium for these taboo voices to broadcast raw views that would've otherwise been edited out of mainstream publications.
Written Revolt is a selection of columns published in Volume 1, Issue 2 of The Great Speckled Bird in April, 1968. Click below to explore the issue's themes of anti-Vietnam sentiment, racism, and America's moral corruption.
Written Revolt is a selection of columns published in Volume 1, Issue 2 of The Great Speckled Bird in April, 1968. Click below to explore the issue's themes of anti-Vietnam sentiment, racism, and America's moral corruption.
The Importance of The Great Speckled Bird
Bob Goodman, Stephanie Coffin and Bob Malone in the first office of The Great Speckled Bird on 14th Street.
The significance of underground newspapers like The Great Speckled Bird during the 1960s was that they injected a human voice into a news space dominated by a fervent worship of objectivity. The Bird did not exist to tell both sides of the story. It existed to capture the humanity of world events, national and local politics, and social movements; replacing the "how it happened" with "what is means for us all." Most important of all, however, was the paper's ability to broadcast the silenced voices, support the radical causes, and advertise the alternative that otherwise would have been lost in history. Without The Bird, we would be unaware of the passionate calls for change. Today, we like to bask in our hindsight, comfortably assured that, had Americans been as enlightened then as we are now, the needless loss of Vietnam, the enormous suffering endured during the Civil Rights Movement, and the political chaos of the decade would've been minimized. The Bird reminds us that, though time has dulled our memory of this decade, people were painfully aware of the chaos, discrimination, and misdirection of the U.S. It was not a lack of will on the part of the American people that perpetrated these hardships, but rather an ignorant unwillingness by those in the power structure to heed the voices of the people.
