Berkeley Tribe

Berkeley Tribe

Berkeley Tribe, August 15, 1969 cover
Type	Newspaper
Format	Tabloid/underground newspaper
Founder(s)	Lionel Haines, James A. Schreiber, Stew Albert, Hank Dankowski, Matthew Steen
Publisher	Red Mountain Tribe
Editor-in-chief	Matthew Steen
Founded	1969
Ceased publication	May 1972
Headquarters	Berkeley, Calif.
Circulation	60,000

The Berkeley Tribe was a radical counterculture underground newspaper published in Berkeley, California from 1969 to 1972. It was formed after a bitter staff dispute with publisher Max Scherr split the nationally known Berkeley Barb into new competing underground weeklies. In July 1969 some 40 editorial and production staff with the Barb went on strike for three weeks, then started publishing the Berkeley Tribe as a rival paper, after first printing an interim issue called Barb on Strike to discuss the strike issues with the readership. They incorporated as Red Mountain Tribe, named after a popular brand of cheap California wine.

Berkeley Tribe quickly positioned itself as more radical, counter-cultural and politically astute than Scherr's Barb; it soon became more successful, surpassing an initial press run of 20,000 reaching a high point of 60,000 copies by the spring of 1970, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The Tribe was published weekly from early July 1969 until May 1972; by that time the feminist-run newspaper went biweekly for its final issues, folding in May. Like the Barb it was sold on the streets of Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco by hippie street vendors; all staff were paid weekly with 100 copies which they too sold. Tribe was a member of the Underground Press Syndicate (UPS)—core staff were also involved with the start of UPS—and Liberation News Service.

Original contributions included cartoons by Robert Crumb, Gilbert Shelton and Spain Rodriguez; news covers and illustrations by Stanley Mouse, Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, Matthew Steen and Gary Grimshaw; poetry and prose from Marge Piercy and Diane DiPrima; feminist writings by Jane Alpert and Robin Morgan; and original works by William Burroughs, Gary Snyder, Timothy Leary, John Sinclair and Baba Ram Dass, and photographs by Stephen Shames and Alan Copeland.