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“War” (Of Words)
sEdwin Starr (1970)
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The Florida Alligator vs. Stephen C. O’Connell: The student newspaper’s knock down, drag out fight (cage match?) for Independence.
Guerrillas In The Mist
1971 — The year The Florida Alligator staff defied UF president Stephen O’Connell‘s command not to print a list of women’s health care (Abortion) providers, the paper’s staff stood with most college students, against what they saw as an increasingly authoritative, pro-war, and anti-choice government, whether it be federal, state, or local.
In Gainesville, Anti-Vietnam War Veteran Scott Camil and the Gainesville Eight* were leading a NATIONAL MOVEMENT FOR PEACE. In their fighting for the cause, the eight were arrested, prosecuted, and in leader Camil’s case, shot by the FBI and Florida State Police.
Graham Nash, of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, was following the anti-war movement, and was inspired to write “Oh Camil,” a song he dedicated to, by then, his friend Scott. [STORY]
At the time of the Alligator insurrection (1971), staff members, like most college students in America, were against the war in Vietnam, and for a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion. Opinions that were in direct opposition to UF President Stephen C. O’Connell, his administration, and the right-wing, Christian conservative State of Florida.
The Incredible Pulp
By David Klein
Alligator Staff Writer
For The Floridian
St. Pete Times Sunday Magazine
September 9, 1979
As dawn broke on the morning of October 6, 1971, twenty young Alligator student journalists, on foot and bicycle, swept across the grassy University of Florida campus to distribute news the authorities said should not be published.
“Everybody has to realize that we can be convicted for felony,” Ron Sachs* told his student staff the night before.
Earlier, Sachs had asked his staff to stuff the regular morning papers with a mimeographed list of abortion referral agencies — after the paper was already distributed on campus.
The Alligator‘s printer refused to publish the list of agencies, citing a 103-year-old state law prohibiting any publication or advertisement of any type of abortion information. The University of Florida administration Steven C. O’Connell* already had ordered Sachs not to print the material. The editor decided to leave the decision to his staff.
The vote was unanimous.
It was the crucial event in the Alligator‘s 65-year history.
After the fallout cleared, Sachs had been arrested, the old abortion law had been overturned in court, and the Alligator itself had been booted off the University of Florida campus, its home since just after the turn of the (20th) century.
The Alligator would never be the same.
In the past, it had provided a stable breeding ground for some of the most successful newspapermen (and a few politicians, too) to come out of the southeast. Executive and/or managing editors at the Miami Herald, Washington Post, Detroit Free Press, Atlanta Constitution, St. Petersburg Times, Orlando Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Tallahassee Democrat, and the Gainesville Sun — among others — are all alumni of the old Florida Alligator.
But for six years after printing the abortion agency list, the student paper struggled simply to survive in a decrepit off-campus location with dwindling advertising revenues.
The Alligator left the comparatively plush offices of the student union (Reitz Union) for a converted short-order kitchen in the back rooms of the College Inn restaurant and pinball emporium on Gainesville’s University Avenue, (next to St. Augustine’s Church, on the corner of University and NW 18TH ST.) The business and circulation offices set up shop in converted, walk-in deep freezers once used to store meat and produce. The newsroom claimed the fancy spot — the kitchen — beneath a crumbling network of broken masonry, naked wires and shiny foil-covered ventilator pipes. Every time it rained, the carpet was flooded and delicate computer equipment was soaked. Reporters learned to negotiate the obstacle course of huge trash barrels set up around the newsroom to catch the run-off after every storm.
But if anything, the paper responded to adversity by becoming more aggressive.
I sued the university to open confidential records and conferences after its reporters were hauled out of closed administration meetings and arrested or reprimanded. It sent reporters to cover hurricanes, drug shootings, riots and budgetary scandals.
Finally it prospered. Today (1979), The Independent Florida Alligator is the fifth largest college paper in the country, with a press run of 29,000 copies, five days a week. It’s the fourth largest college paper in terms of advertising revenue. It’s parent company, the non-profit Campus Communications Inc., is a $650,000 a year business. It employs 120 people, including a full-time business manager, production manager, and two accountants, but it has NO faculty supervisors or professional editors.
Almost immediately, the Alligator flexed its new-found “independent” muscle, and built a reputation for breaking stories of fiscal mismanagement in college administration and internal university scandals, the white-collar ones of the 1970s, such as:
• The 1975 UF Business College cheating scandal, in which the Alligator sued the university to open confidential Honor Court hearings. The Florida Supreme Court eventually ruled against the paper.
• UF’s illegal over-enrollment of 600 freshman in 1974, which led a member of the Board of Regents to threaten to fire university administrators.
• UF President Robert Marston’s confidential letters in 1977 to state university system Chancellor E.T. York, insisting the university was being short-changed, causing serious cutbacks in services.
• The recent Alpha Phi Omega fraternity hazing scandal, subsequently picked up by several major state newspapers and magazines.
And if that weren’t enough, the independent paper drew continued criticism from Marston and his staff for carrying on a running feud over the interpretation of the (Florida Government in the) Sunshine Law.
Last year (1977) the Alligator made national news when several student reporters, on different occasions, refused to leave closed meeting in Tigert Hall, the administration building. One was my brother Barry Klein*, who received the stiffest penalty. University police were called in to escort him away and place him under arrest, though the charges were dropped the next day.
“I was ordered by Tom Julin (then editor) to pick my spot and take a stand,” Barry explained. “It was just a matter of sneaking around until I found the right meeting. Then I just kind of knocked, and they let me in.”
Barry was already well known to university administrators for a previous story he had written in which he deliberately lied about his identity to prove security was so lax he could fraudulently obtain another student’s private records.
Barry, in the spirit of an honestly “independent” newspaper had pissed the administration off.
“I’ve got a nasty records file myself,” Klein said. “For a while it seemed I got an official reprimand after every story. But it was a kick. I was sitting on the front page every day.”
That was the motivation, of course. Maybe the president of the biggest university in Florida is criticizing you in public … “But at least he’ll take your calls,” Barry said.
“I remember when I walked in the first day,” recalled Dennis Kneale, 1978 Alligator editor-in-chief, who later interned at the Washington Post. (Kneale was Forbes Magazine editor (1998-2007).
“All these phones were ringing, there was the clackety-clack of typewriters, all these people screaming at each other across this crumbling room — I was overwhelmed. It gave me a real sense of the 1960s counterculture; all these grubby, hardworking, longhaired kids putting out this really aggressive paper.”
It’s like BINGO! Suddenly your a newspaper kid. And if you don’t know what to do, fake it.
—30—
“All Along The Watchtower”
Bob Dylan
April 25, 1976 @ Florida Field
Rolling Thunder Review
w/ The Band
1974 — Before The Flood
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bill day
When Stephen O’Connell* suddenly and surprisingly announced his retirement in 1973, the Alligator‘s Carl Hiaasen sat down with UF’s controversial president, asking about his reasons to retire, plans for the future, and more thoroughly, his more than contentious, tenure, including his “personal” fight with the Alligator. O’Connell ceremoniously had editor Ron Sachs arrested for the Alligator “illegally” printing a list of womens’ health care providers, and after, prosecute the journalist, and fought to have his student sent to jail.
At the time of the interview, the Alligator had received a positive judgement in it’s case with O’Connell. It was ruled that the Alligator had a First Amendment right to publish the abortion-related information.
With a renewed confidence, the Alligator moved quickly to sever its ties with the university. Just before O’Connell’s resignation, the paper had moved off campus, and into its long-time office behind the Old College Inn, and next to St. Augustine’s Church on the corner of University Avenue and
The Alligator was “Independent,” and it immediately set out to light Gainesville and the University of Florida on journalistic fire.
[STORY]
Dead Presidents
ALBERT A. MURPHREE* (THE HOLY SPIRIT)
Murphree’s Opening Message (alt.)
Best Bible College in the Land. CHRISTIAN SOUTHLAND THAT IS.
STEPHEN C. O’CONNELL (SUDDEN DEPARTURE)
by CARL HIAASEN
ROBERT Q. MARSTON* (THE FUNDRAISER)
NIXON (“GOODBYE DICK”)
GERALD FORD (“SUBSTITUTE”)
JIMMY CARTER (“EVEN THE LOSERS”)
CARTER “RAINY NIGHT IN GEORGIA”
RONALD REAGAN (“JUST SAY OH NO”)
“Absolutely Right”
The Revolt Heard ’round the Journalistic World.
Five Man Electrical Band
1971 — Coming of Age
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alligator
January 15, 1971 — The Alligator and General Manager Ed Barber get dragged into the fight. [STORY HERE]
The Incredible Pulp
by Alligator Staff Writer David Klein
september 9, 1979
for The St. Petersburg Times
Insurrection Day
thursday
october 6, 1971
vol 65 no 75
Independence Day
thursday
february 1, 1973
vol 65 no 75
50 YEARS AFTER (2022)
The Tallahasse Democrat talked to two lead characters in The Independent Florida Alligator’s fight for both First Amendment and Abortion rights. Ron Sachs and Jean Chance explained, from their perspective, the circumstances of the day (1971) and pondered the implications of the right-wing Christian Nationalists making it a crime again for a woman to exercise her right to choose an abortion rather than birth.
You Shook Me
Jeff Beck
The English Persuasion
w/ Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood
1968 — Truth
((( >>> )))
“Where Have All The Flowers Gone“
The Kingston Trio
1961 —
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Ball of Confusion
Temptations
1970 —
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Cloud Nine
Temptations
1968 —
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Papa Was A Rolling Stone
Temptations
1970 —
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Abraham Martin and John
Dion
1970 —
((( >>> )))
What’s Going On?
Marvin Gaye
1971 —
((( >>> )))
I Wonder
Humble Pie
1972 — Smokin’
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War Pigs
Black Sabbath
1970 — Paranoid
((( >>> )))
I Heard It Through The Grapevine
Gladys Knight & the Pips
1967 — Single
((( >>> )))
“I Heard It Through The Grapevine”
Marvin Gaye
1968 — In the Groove
((( >>> )))
“I Heard It Through The Grapevine”
Creedence Clearwater Revival
1970 — Cosmo’s Factory.
((( >>> )))
“Cloud Nine”
Marvin Gaye
1970 — Motown Gets High
((( >>> )))
“Abraham Martin and John”
Marvin Gaye
1970 —
((( Only The Good Die Young
“Absolutely Right”
The Revolt Heard ’round the World of Student Journalism.
Five Man Electrical Band
1971 — Coming of Age
((( >>> )))
Hännafin
In 1971, Stephen C. O’Connell was president of the University of Florida, and in his mind, that meant he was THE LAW. O’Connell was a former Florida Supreme Court Justice, middle-weight boxing champion. When Alligator editor Ron Sachs, on behalf of his newspaper and its staff, defied O’Connell’s authority, and distributed a printed list of Abortion providers, O’Connell was pissed off. O’Connell was a Pro-Life, Christian Democrat, and when asked, he had forbade Sachs printing THE LIST.
So angered was O’Connell, that he had Sachs arrested and prosecuted. At the trial, O’Connell argued that Sachs (his student) should be imprisoned for his journalistic sin.
After winning the First Amendment argument, Sachs and the Alligator took immediate advantage of its ability to speak freely. To end the paper’s first “independent” week, illustrator Hännafin spoke for a unified and victorious Alligator staff, when he depicted O’ Connell, UF’s “good” Christian president, as working with The Grim Reaper to kill the soon-to-be “Independent” Florida Alligator.
RON SACHS: 50 YEARS LATER (2022)
The Tallahasse Democrat talked to two lead characters in The Independent Florida Alligator‘s fight for First Amendment and Abortion rights. Ron Sachs and Jean Chance talk about how the circumstances of 1971 are similar to those today, and how the fight is far from over.
Since that day (October 6, 1971), when editor Ron Sachs inserted “THE LIST” inside the Alligator, and spread 30,000 copies across the University of Florida campus, the Alligator has been a, thoughtful, honest, and professional daily newspaper, and worked hard everyday to prove it.
“What’s Going On?”
21st Century Freedom Riders
2015 — Art Deco Weekend
Allan Harris and Doug Wimbish
((( >>> )))
January 15, 1971 — The Alligator and General Manager Ed Barber get dragged into the fight. [STORY HERE]
The Incredible Pulp
by Alligator Staff Writer David Klein
september 9, 1979
for The St. Petersburg Times
Insurrection Day
thursday
october 6, 1971
vol 65 no 75
Independence Day
thursday
february 1, 1973
vol 65 no 75
50 YEARS AFTER (2022)
The Tallahasse Democrat talked to two lead characters in The Independent Florida Alligator’s fight for both First Amendment and Abortion rights. Ron Sachs and Jean Chance explained, from their perspective, the circumstances of the day (1971) and pondered the implications of the right-wing Christian Nationalists making it a crime again for a woman to exercise her right to choose an abortion rather than birth.
a.lligator*
PG1 — FROM THE BEGINNING
PG2 — RIDE CAPTAIN RIDE
PG3 — INTO THE ’80S
PG4 — TO THE MOON
PG5 — LOST IN SPACE
Ball of Confusion
1968 (ASSASSINATION, VOODOO, WAR)
1969 (LURE OF THE MOON)
1970 (VIETNAM JUNGLE FUNK)
1971 (INSURRECTION DAY)
1972 (SEX DRUGS ROCK N ROLL)
1973 (INDEPENDENCE DAY)
1974 (DICK NIXON, WATERGATE, AND IMPEACHMENT)
1975 (NO MORE WAR)
1976 (PATRIOTIC DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN)
1977 (AFTER MIDNIGHT)
1978 (MIDNIGHT, MICANOPY, MADNESS, FEVER)
1979 (WELCOME TO THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA, AND GAINESVILLE.)
1980 (THE YEAR EVERYTHING CHANGED)
1981 (JUST SAY GO) MTV, NASA’S RETURN TO SPACE)
1982 (JUST SAY NO TO EVERTHING)
1983 (GOING BACK TO NEW YORK)
a.lligator
introduction (HISTORY)
introduction (PIKES)
introduction (MUCOZO)