The Rag

THE RAG. An underground newspaper published in Austin, Texas, from 1966 to 1977, The Rag was the first paper of its type published in the South and easily the most influential across the United States. Setting the example in content but also in style for the other tabloids that rose into the hundreds before 1970, it also had a substantial impact on the local scene, especially but not only pressuring the mainstream media to cover issues previously ignored.

The Rag began as an unofficial project of Austin’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), one of the largest and most active chapters anywhere. The Austin chapter distinguished itself as a pioneer of the “Prairie Power” tendency in the national organization, urging de-centralization and adaptation to local circumstances over ideological fine points. The paper’s founders included national SDS figures such as Jeff Shero (later Jeffrey Nightbyrd) and Robert Pardun. Historian Abe Peck called The Rag “the first independent undergrounder to represent… the participatory democracy, community organizing and synthesis of politics and culture that the New Left of the mid-sixties was trying to develop.” The paper’s founding editors, Thorne Dreyer and Carol Neiman, came to be called “funnels,” in a nod to the anti-authoritarian leanings of the group.

Austin had been known for decades as a haven for writers, artists, and iconoclastic thinkers in the otherwise conservative state of Texas. “Keep Austin Weird,” a slogan popularized in The Rag, captured the ambience of live music, filmmaking, and progressive politics. The Rag built upon and expanded traditions including local early civil rights actions, the legendary “stand-ins” that integrated theaters on the University of Texas “Drag,” demonstrations against the War in Vietnam that drew as many as 25,000 people, and radical organizing at nearby military bases where soldiers notoriously trained to be sent to Vietnam.

The Daily Texan, the award-winning school newspaper at the University of Texas (UT), had long boasted a tradition of crusading editors. Part of the inspiration for The Rag came with the election of an ultra-conservative, pro-war Daily Texan editor whose campaign slogans included “No more women editors.” The Rag quickly moved into the void left by the Texan, which had become little more than a PR sheet for the school administration. The Rag sold out its first press run within hours, making an immediate impact on the campus and in the community.

The Rag made its mark especially with its fusion of political and countercultural content, in a locus where it had early become difficult to distinguish political radicals from “hippies.” The paper carried in-depth analytical reporting from a New Left perspective, substantial coverage of the 1960s counterculture, raucous Texas humor and psychedelic art. Gilbert Shelton’s “Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers,” perhaps the best known of the 1960s “comix” strips, began in The Rag in 1968. According to Forbes Magazine in 2019, the Freak Brothers “have been translated into 14 languages with more than 40 million copies sold.” Starring three Texas characters, Gilbert Shelton’s strips introduced a new kind of personality, down-home hippies, to the world of young readers seeking a different kind of comic art. Surrealistic armadillos, styled by another iconic Austin artist, Jim Franklin, graced the covers and center spreads of many issues.

The Rag staff helped to conceive and organize the legendary Gentle Thursday events, “Be-In” type gatherings designed to introduce antiwar sentiment and the Left to UT students. The first Gentle Thursday, in 1966, was so successful without administration approval that the next year the administration banned the event. Organizers responded by extending the second Gentle Thursday into a week, achieving a remarkable success. Visiting speakers included Allen Ginsberg and Stokely Carmichael. Many credited these gatherings with transforming the campus atmosphere, with a major ripple effect outward. Gentle Thursday quickly spread to other campuses around the country. The second Gentle Thursday had already transitioned into the University Freedom Movement, a free speech movement that galvanized the campus with demonstrations that drew thousands to the UT Main Mall. Of the six organizers singled out and placed on disciplinary probation, five happened to be members of The Rag staff.

The Rag far outlasted longer other Underground papers and evolved with the times. In its early days, the paper had reported on and organized around civil rights, student power, and especially the Vietnam War, later placing much of its emphasis on community organizing, the environment, city politics, the cooperative movement, and the burgeoning women’s liberation movement. By the 1970s, The Rag became a center for women’s liberation organizing and abortion counseling. Staffers like Judy Smith and Glenn Scott brought a strong woman’s perspective to the paper. Working with attorney Sarah Weddington, The Rag staffers were instrumental in crafting the landmark abortion rights case, Roe v. Wade, which Weddington then successfully argued before the US Supreme Court. The Rag involved itself in one more major Supreme Court case when the University of Texas Board of Regents sued in 1970 to prevent The Rag from being sold on campus. Texas civil rights attorney David Richards successfully argued the case, upholding The Rag’s First Amendment rights.

The Rag also developed a national following and provided a role model for many papers that came at the end of the 1960s or later. Two leading underground papers, Space City! in Houston and Rat in New York, were modeled after and started by veterans of the original The Rag. Decades later, two The Rag reunions, in 2005 and 2016, featured forums, concerts, and art shows, creating new energy resulting in something of a digital-age rebirth.

The “People’s History in Texas” project made a three-part movie about the paper. The Rag veteran Alice Embree spearheaded the New Journalism Project, a nonprofit that published The Rag Blog and sponsored Rag Radio, the The Rag’s successor, and which produced a critically-acclaimed book, Celebrating The Rag: Austin’s Iconic Underground Newspaper. The Rag Blog, which began publishing in 2006, became an important progressive forum with an international audience. Rag Radio, syndicated and based at Austin’s KOOP-FM, succeeded as a cooperatively-run community radio station hosted by original The Rag funnel Thorne Dreyer and featured interviews with writers, artists, and public figures, as well as major leftist and counterculture types. Many of the guests, such as Tom Hayden, Carl Davidson and Paul Krassner, themselves carried back their own memories from the 1960s.

Dreyer, Thorne, Alice Embree, and Richard Croxdale (editors). Celebrating The Rag: Austin’s Iconic Underground Newspaper. Austin, Texas: New Journalism Project, 2016.

Moretta, John A.: “Political Hippies and Hip Politicos: Countercultural Alliance and Cultural Radicalism in 1960s Austin, Texas.” Austin, Texas: Southwestern Historical Quarterly. January 2020.

Peck, Abe: Uncovering the Sixties: The Life and Times of the Underground Press. New York: Citadel Press, 1991.

Rag Radio. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/search.php?query=%22rag%20radio%22%20AND%20mediatype%3Aaudio&sort=-date