Join the Revolution: Why We Need You

Find out about our 1968 Revolution Rewind Moments!

Few years resonate in history as powerfully as 1968. The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy re-drew the political profile of the United States of America, and reverberated throughout the world. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago — the convention and the demonstrations that the "whole world [was] watching" — forever altered the script of American electoral politics. Students rebelled and took control of institutions from Columbia University in New York City to the Sorbonne in Paris. Protesting students were gunned down in Mexico City by a government intent on providing a climate hospitable to the Olympic games. In the Peoples' Republic of China, the Cultural Revolution was in full swing. The USSR invaded Czechoslovakia. Black power and red power and brown power were rising. The US media were beginning to take notice of the women's movement. Baby boomers were embracing Eastern religions, while new drugs were altering the minds of both draft resisters and troops who found themselves fighting an imperialist war in Vietnam.

There were be-ins, happenings and stream-of-consciousness performances. Rock-and-roll emerged from the shadows to become a commercial force. And in the middle of all of this was Pacifica Radio. Before cable, before the Web, before National Public Radio, Pacifica Radio was there. Reporting to the people, from the people, supported by the people.

Pacifica was the original alternative media — the original underground — the first and often the only media to be there at the scene, bringing listeners first-hand reports of the political struggles, social revolutions and artistic frontiers of the sixties.

The Pacifica Radio Archives, through our Preservation and Access Project, has been restoring vital audio from the year 1968 in all its complexity and influence. On Tuesday, November 27, you as listeners will have a first opportunity to hear some of these rare audio moments — many of which haven't been on the air since originally broadcast almost 40 years ago.

Your donations to the Archives' Preservation and Access Project have been key in making this work possible. Because of your contributions, we have saved many historic, fragile and valuable tapes, and made them available to you both on our Web site and through the Pacifica Radio Archives catalog.

From this precious body of work, Pacifica Radio Archives staff will produce, and make available, a series of 1968 Revolution Rewind Moments. Read more.

Please consider joining the revolution: make a pledge!

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