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‘’Underground’’ leaflets began circulating in a number of Melbourne’s secondary schools in the winter of 1968. By October 1968, these roughly-produced ‘’newspapers’’ – most of them lively, uninhibited and subversive of school discipline – had appeared in twelve schools. (University High; Highett High; Melbourne High; Mentone Girls’ High; Peninsula High; Camberwell High; Caulfield High; Prahran High; Chadstone High; Croydon High; Doveton High). The vast majority of the papers were produced by groups associated with an organization called Students in Dissent (SID). The most prolific of them, ‘’Tabloid Underground’’, the ‘’official organ’’ of SID, was circulated at schools where underground SID groups had not previously been established (see Document Two).

The papers represented a genuine flowering of dissent and anti-authoritarianism on the part of a new rebel minority. They were not imported from the University radical clubs (see Document Two), although the leading SID activists were encouraged by the Monash Labor Club. When the MLC established The Bakery (in Greville Street Prahran) in early 1969, SID used the off-campus headquarters as a meeting place.

Geographically disparate SID groups were welded together through strenuous opposition to the Vietnam War and the schools’ repression of freedom of speech. Some SID activists were suspended (e.g Michael Eidelson at Melbourne High in 1968) or expelled (Paul Jackson at De La Salle in September 1969).

Later in 1969, SID’s name was changed to Socialist Secondary Students (SSS). - [Ken Mansell]

Resources

Fliers

• Is Your School Revolting? Join the Underground, Students in Dissent (SID), Melbourne, 1969. images PDF Details

Newsletters

• Tabloid Underground, Students in Dissent (SID), Melbourne, 1968. Image PDF Details
• Treason: Official Organ of the Highett High Treason Committee, Highett High Treason Committee, Melbourne, March 1969. images PDF Details
• Action: Official Organ of the Noble Park High School Liberation Front, Noble Park High School Liberation Front, Melbourne, 1969. images PDF Details
• B. H. T. Underground Voice, vol. 1, Students in Dissent (SID), Melbourne, April 1969. images PDF Details
• B. H. T. Underground Voice, vol. 1, Students in Dissent (SID), Melbourne, March 1969. Image PDF Details
• Uni High Underground, vol. 2, Students of University High School, Melbourne, April 1969. images PDF Details
• Tabloid Underground: SID Kid Kicked out of De La Salle!, Students in Dissent (SID), Melbourne, September 1969. images PDF Details
• Tabloid Underground, vol. 2, Students in Dissent (SID), Melbourne, February 1969. images PDF Details
• Treason: Highett High People's Paper, vol. 3, Highett High Treason Committee, Melbourne, August 1970. images PDF Details