Rat (newspaper)

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.

Probably more than any other underground paper, Rat was in the eye of the political hurricane, making news as well as reporting it. 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 a couple of staff members (including 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 another few issues into the fall of 1970.

While the East Village Other, published a few blocks away, represented the countercultural "establishment" with its arty covers and 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 fun-loving, free-wheeling 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. But its relatively austere aethetics were relieved by abundant cartoons, including covers by Robert Crumb and clippings from 1940s poultry magazines found on the street and used as decorations wherever they fit.

Among the memorable contents were original contributions from William S. Burroughs, an interview with Kurt Vonnegut, and insightful front-line reports on the Weatherman 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 Women's House of Detention after she was arrested for involvement in the bombings. Like most underground papers, Rat shared articles through the Underground Press Syndicate, allowing regular coverage of distant events like the Native American takeover of Alcatraz Island — and of course, looming over everything, the Vietnam War.

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