Speakers, Films, and Online Access
The Rag and Space City! continue to be of interest to students and teachers and to activists interested in participatory journalism. New Journalism Project (NJP) has compiled a brief outline of material available in print, video, and online. NJP and another non-profit, People’s History in Texas (PHIT) can make speakers available for class and community presentations.
Contact: editor@newjournalismproject.org
Alice Embree, a founder of The Rag, participated in a panel organized by People’s History in Texas at the May 2025 Alliance for Texas History convention. Her presentation emphasized the importance of the underground press as a resource for teachers and students of history:
The underground press has information unlikely to be found in other media, in a voice that is authentic to participants in 60s and 70s social movements. The papers offer a glimpse into the politics, community, and culture of the 60s and 70s.
New Journalism Project and People’s History in Texas
New Journalism Project (NJP), a non-profit, has published two books about Texas underground newspapers. Celebrating The Rag: Austin’s Iconic Underground Newspaper (2016) and Exploring Space City!: Houston’s Historic Underground Newspaper (2021) include original articles and contemporary essays. A third book, Notes From the Underground: 77 Articles That Bring the Past to Life (2025) is a compilation of writing by Thorne Dreyer. It includes articles from both The Rag and Space City! as well as writing from the Liberation News Service.
People’s History in Texas (PHIT), a non-profit, has a fifty-year track record collecting oral histories. PHIT was recorded Rag staffers’ recollections at a 2005 Rag reunion and produced a documentary about The Rag.
Resources for Presentations and Online Access
Celebrating The Rag: Austin’s Iconic Underground Newspaper
Celebrating The Rag tells the remarkable story of the legendary underground newspaper that sparked a political and cultural revolution and helped make Austin weird. The book features more than 100 articles from The Rag’s 11-year history plus contemporary essays and eye-popping vintage art and photography. This collection captures the radical politics and subversive humor that marked the pages of this upstart newspaper between 1966 and 1977.
The Rag: Austin Underground Press 1966-1977
The Rag: Austin Underground Press 1966-1977 is a three-part documentary (55 minutes total) produced by People’s History in Texas (PHIT).
Exploring Space City!: Houston’s Historic Underground Newspaper
Exploring Space City! brings the story of Houston’s historic underground newspaper back to life. The book features more than 100 articles from Space City!’s three-year history plus contemporary essays by original staffers and a prominent historian, and compelling vintage art and photography. This collection captures the radical politics and subversive humor that marked the pages of this historic newspaper between 1969 and 1972, helping to shape the diversity that Houston is known for today.
A three-minute promotional video for the Space City! book project produced by People’s History in Texas (PHIT).
Digital access to all 106 issues of Space City! provided by New Journalism Project on the Internet Archive. The site has had more than 20,000 views.
Independent Voices represents the largest digital collection of alternative press titles, with complete runs of more than 1,000 titles and 750,000 pages. The collection includes the complete runs of newspapers, magazines, and journals drawn from the special collections of source libraries.
Independent Voices is composed of ten series on the alternative press focusing on that transformative period of the 1960s to the 1980s.
The flood of publications from an alternative press in the late 1960s expressed the upsurge of dissent and of aspiration of American youth. Feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals and the New Left, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Latinos, and members of the LGBT communities all began to publish newspapers and periodicals.
Liberation News Service
Under the Ground: The Story of LIberation News Service is a 80-minute documentary produced in 2021 by Dorothy Dickie and aired by PBS.
Called the ‘AP of the underground press,’ Liberation News Service printed news from hundreds of underground papers in the ’60s and ’70s. LNS reporters were ‘soldiers of the revolution who happened to use typewriters’ providing news to a generation of readers ignored by the mainstream press. The film includes interviews with former staffers, journalists, and activists, as well as archival footage.
Notes From the Underground: 77 Articles That Bring the Past to Life
Notes from the Underground is a collection of author Thorne Dreyer’s writing from 1966 to the present. Earlier work is taken from the 60s and 70s underground press – The Rag in Austin, Liberation News Service, and Space City! in Houston. The articles demonstrate the power of participatory journalism.
A syndicated weekly radio show associated with The Rag Blog and New Journalism Project, is produced in the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM. With Host Thorne Dreyer and roots in the Sixties underground press, Rag Radio features hour-long in-depth interviews with public figures.
The Rag Blog is a digital-age rebirth of the pioneering underground newspaper, The Rag, published in Austin, Texas, from 1966-1977. The Rag Blog has published more than 10,000 articles since it began in 2006.
Glenn Scott Papers: 1948-2018
Glenn Scott left a legacy of leadership, commitment to social justice, and kindness that inspires us today. Her papers have been donated to the Briscoe Center for American History at UT Austin. People’s History in Texas is asking for your help to make her collection accessible to everyone.
Glenn Scott was a labor organizer, socialist feminist, and advocate for housing rights. Her union work included the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), American Clothing & Textile Workers Union (ACTWU), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the merger of AFT and National Education Association (NEA), to form Education Austin, the Texas AFL-CIO, National Nurses United (NNU), and Texas Alliance for Retired Americans (TARA). Glenn will be inducted into the Texas Labor Hall of Fame in January 2026.
Glenn was a board member of the Bread and Roses School for Socialist Education as well as an original 1982 board member of the newly created Democratic Socialists of America. Glenn was the director of the Austin Texas Tenants Rights Union. She co-founded and served as Board chair for decades of People’s History in Texas, a non-profit 501(c)(3) research and publishing organization that brings to life the stories of people and social movements left out of the history books.
Please consider donating to People’s History in Texas to fund an intern position to catalog Glenn’s papers.
- Donate via PayPal. In Note box, please write: Glenn Scott’s papers.
- Write a check. In Memo field, please write: Glenn Scott’s papers. Mail to People’s History in Texas / 7521 Northcrest Blvd. / Austin, TX 78752
New Journalism Project 