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What's Happening: An Independent Student Voice Collection

Collection Scope and Contents

Covering a period between 1965 through 1978, this collection contains materials related to the publication and operation of the student-produced magazine What’s Happening: An Independent Student Voice. Collected by Elaine Avidon in her capacity as the magazine’s advisor, the What’s Happening collection consists of twenty-two issues of the magazine; its business correspondence; personal correspondence; drawings, posters, and programs for workshops and events held by the magazine’s staff; and press materials related to the magazine. Additional materials include photographs, negatives, slides, and a glass medallion bearing the magazine’s logo.

 

The What’s Happening collection documents the founding, organization, and operating activities of the magazine, while also evidencing how the publication provided creative freedom and community to a group of Black and Puerto Rican teenagers in New York City in the mid-to-late 1960s. Additionally, the collection demonstrates the magazine’s reach, reception, and cultural impact, documenting the response from teenage readers, educators, librarians, and literary figures. 
 

The prose, poetry, artwork, and correspondence in the What’s Happening collection give insight into the political, cultural, and personal realities of the staff throughout the magazine's run. Through the correspondence and press materials, the collection also evidences cultural and educational shifts taking place during the period. Researchers interested in student publications, adolescent writing and art, the Civil Rights Movement, anti-war demonstrations, non-authoritarian teaching, urban education, and educational change in the United States will find this collection a valuable resource.

Collection Arrangement

What’s Happening: An Independent Student Voice collection is arranged into three series: 

 

Series 1: Life at What's Happening

 

Series 1, which dates from 1965 to 1974, includes issues of What's Happening: An Independent Student Voice, correspondence from the magazine's subscribers, business correspondence, correspondence between members of the staff, original artwork featured in the magazine, photographs, slides, and negatives, as well as press materials. This includes poetry and prose by Donald Morgan, ​​Sharón (Ida) Boone, Victor Hernandez Cruz, and Carmen M. Martínez; drawings by Greg Rooks; and correspondence from Langston Hughes, Herbert R. Kohl, Marilyn Stasio, Phyllis Dolgin, Frank W. Cyr, Francis Ianni, William Summerscales, and John H. Fischer. 

 

Series 2: Life After What's Happening

 

Dating from 1970 to 1975, series 2 includes correspondence, newspaper articles, court documents, and a chapter of Elaine Avidon’s master’s thesis, which sketches out the events in the years immediately after What’s Happening ceased its operations.

 

Series 3: Personal Correspondence

 

Series 3, which dates from 1966 to 1978, contains personal correspondence between Elaine Avidon and several student staff members of What’s Happening. This series is under embargo until 2044. 

 

Each series is arranged chronologically.