The Rag and the Retrograde
History repeats itself
This is a repost from Alice’s Substack The Politics of Memory. Be sure to subscribe to Alice’s Substack. Alice Embree is not only an official adjunct researcher for PHIT, but she has actually been interviewed as a participant in a couple of our documentaries—- The Rag Trilogy and The Stand-ins.
The Rag and The Retrograde
Past as Present
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Feb 12, 2025
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This just in:
“UT-Dallas students launch alternative newspaper after class with administration,” was the headline above a Texas Tribune article on February 7, 2025 by Jessica Priest. The subhead continued, “Students at the university created their own news organization — The Retrograde — after they reached an impasse with administrators regarding oversight and the firing of the campus newspaper’s editor-in-chief.”
The Texas Tribune story tells the origin story of The Retrograde,
“In late January, the University of Texas at Dallas removed most newspaper stands that once held its official student publication: The Mercury.
“The student-produced newspaper hadn’t published a physical edition since last fall after students went on strike over the firing of its editor, Gregorio Olivares Gutierrez, who defended the organization’s coverage of pro-Palestinian protests on campus.
“In the following months, Olivares Gutierrez and his colleagues launched an alternative news organization The Retrograde. The students published the first hardcopy edition Jan. 23, one day after the newsstands were removed from campus.”
Congratulations to The Retrograde from those of us who worked on The Rag, and kudos to the person or persons who thought up Retrograde as a replacement for Mercury.”
It’s appropriate that I heard about this from a Carol Neiman. Carol was co-editor (called Funella) of The Rag when the first issue was hit the Austin streets October 10, 1966.
The origin story of The Retrograde in Dallas bears some similarity to the origin of The Rag in Austin, although the professional quality of The Retrograde is light-years from the funky, first edition of The Rag nearly 60 years ago.
The Retrograde was reporting on pro-Palestinian demonstrations and The Rag covered the demonstrations against the Vietnam War. Both ran afoul of the powers that be. As reported in my Substack, The Rag was banned from campus sales and a case filed in federal court by David Richards prevailed at the U.S. Supreme Court. The Rag emerged as an alternative publication when the university paper, The Daily Texan changed editors.
The Daily Texan at the University of Texas at Austin had some very liberal editors and several skirmishes with censorship. Kaye Northcott edited the paper in the academic year prior to the election of John Economidy. Kaye went on in 1970 to edit The Texas Observer with Molly Ivins.
Kaye Northcott told the story of the new editor John Economidy in the first edition of The Rag.
“Soon after John Economidy was elected editor of the Daily Texan last spring he made a grand entrance into the newspaper office wearing an Air Force ROTC uniform and carrying a makeshift swagger stick.
“He marched to the copy desk, banked the stock on the table rim, and announced, ‘General John is HERE!’
“The Texan has not been the same since.
“During the campus-wide campaign last spring, Economidy, presented himself as a friend of Greeks, business majors, Young Republicans, the ROTC and President Johnoson’s policy in Vietnam. He offered himself as an alternative to another female editor.”
“About fashion, he wrote: “Girls with fat legs should not wear miniskirts.” (September 22, 1966) To which one wag in the Texan’s letters column replied, “People with fat heads should not edit newspapers.”
In 1966, there was an active antiwar presence on campus pioneered by members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Many SDSers, realizing that the Texan was unlikely to be friendly turf for coverage of antiwar activities, opinion pieces, or letters, decided to create an alternative newspaper.
The Rag was sixth U.S. member of the Underground Press Syndicate, and umbrella organization that eventually connected hundreds of papers. It was a trailblazer with a surprisingly long lifespan – eleven years and 374 issues. It is renown for its mix of political and counter-cultural reporting, and fostering a community that has been resilient.
A reunion in 2005 led to The Rag Blog and Rag Radio, a non-profit, New Journalism Project, a documentary by People’s History in Texas, and a second reunion in 2016. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Rag in 2016, New Journalism Project published Celebrating The Rag: Austin’s Iconic Underground Newspaper, edited by Thorne Dreyer, Alice Embree and Richard Croxdale.
Dear Retrograde staffers,
You may not know of The Rag, but now Ragstaffers will know of you.
We send you our greetings and wish you a long life.
Onward through the fog!
In solidarity,
Alice (for all Ragstaffers)