Research Guides: Newspapers & Current Events: Alternative Press

About Alternative Press

Alternative press offers a different viewpoint from official and more conventional news sources. In print and online, an alternative press may be a voice of political dissent and /or a media source defined by political perspective, race, ethnicity, gender, or topic.

All Alternative Press databases in this guide are available for free through the Leonard Lief Library at Lehman College Library or the New York Public Library.

To access New York Public Library databases, click: New York Public Library Articles and Databases. You will be prompted to log in with your New York Public Library username and pin. You can get a New York Public Library card at: https://www.nypl.org/library-card

Alternative Press Databases A to Z

African American Periodicals (1825-1995)
African American Periodicals, 1825-1995, features more than 170 wide-ranging periodicals by and about African Americans. Published in 26 states, the publications include academic and political journals, commercial magazines, institutional newsletters, organizations bulletins, annual reports and other genres.
Black Thought and Culture
Black Thought and Culture provides monographs, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews written by leaders within the black community from the earliest times to the present. The collection is intended for research in black studies, political science, American history, music, literature, and art. Almost twenty percent of the collection has not been published previously.
Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)
Photographs, books, maps, news footage, oral histories, personal letters, museum objects, artwork government documents, and more are free and immediately available in digital format. You may search this database by topic, such as "Civil Rights Movement" or "Immigration."
Gender Studies Collection
This is a comprehensive periodical collection of scholarly and other journals covering topics such as feminism, gender identity, women's studies, LGBTQ, family and marital issues, and much more.
Hispanic American Periodicals Index
Source for authoritative, worldwide information about Central and South America, Mexico, the Caribbean basin, the United States-Mexico border region, and Hispanics in the United States. Contains complete bibliographic citations to articles, book reviews, documents, original literary works, and other materials appearing in more than 500 key social science and humanities journals published throughout the world for Spanish speaking countries. Many of the citations are linked to full text.

Websites

Alternative Press Center
A collective dedicated to providing free access to radical and leftist newspapers, periodicals, and books from 1969 to the present. Includes the Alternative Press Index, a comprehensive guide to over 300 leftist publications.
Democracy Now
Democracy Now! produces a daily, global, independent news hour hosted by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Juan González.
Early American Marxism
A repository of downloadable source material from 1865 through 1946.
The Indypendent
A left-leaning monthly newspaper and online news site that covers social justice movements in New York City and worldwide.
The Intercept
A news organization that covers national security, politics, civil liberties, the environment, international affairs, technology, criminal justice, the media, and more.
Labor Studies and Radical History
The Holt Labor Library was established in 1992 to provide a working library for labor and progressive studies accessible to the general public.
Liberation News Service
Founded in 1967, LNS served as an alternative to mainstream media, producing weekly news packets for counter-culture and New Left periodicals. Its digitized publications are available here through the Internet Archive.
Marxist Internet Archive
Selected current and historical writings of over 850 authors and periodicals across the spectrum of the left, in 63 languages. Includes an encyclopedia of key individuals, historical events and political terminology.
ProPublica
An independent, non-profit newsroom that specializes in investigative journalism.

NYPL Databases

Archives of Sexuality and Gender
This database explores LGBTQ history and culture since 1940.
Independent Voices
Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
Indigenous Peoples: North America
Over 50 archival collections documenting the Native American experience from institutions such as the Library of Congress, the Association on American Indian Archives, and the U.S. National Archives. These digitized primary sources include manuscripts, monographs, newspapers, and photographs.