Most of the highlights we have shared so far come from fairly well-known organizations. However the collection also contains a plethora of publications from small organizations that are local in scope or issue based. The item highlighted this week is a September 1980 issue of a newspaper from the Northern Sun Alliance called “The Northern Sun News.” It was fairly hard to gather any information but it seems that The Northern Sun Alliance started in the 1970s in the twin cities area (Minneapolis & St. Paul) in Minnesota. The organization seems to primarily focus on local political and environmental issues in Minnesota. Copies of the newspaper are held at a few archives around the country including:
This item also exemplifies the collection policies of Gordon Hall, who along with his team of volunteers, would often collect materials from small organizations and sometimes organizations that do not seem very extreme. The idea was that any organization on the fringe could at any moment become very extreme or break into the national spotlight. Because of this, the collection contains many items from moderate organizations that we tend to classify as “dissenting” and organizations that are focused on issues that have long since been forgotten.
Northern Sun News September 1980