Kiosk Communication: Exhibit features Vietnam War-era materials

It’s arguably the university’s most well-known era — the Vietnam War years of the late ’60s and early ’70s. Campus was abuzz with events meant to bring people together to learn, share opinions and debate. Yet, Web pages, cell phones and e-mail didn’t exist, so event organizers relied fully on word of mouth and paper to attract participants.

A sampling of that paper communication, ranging from posters to leaflets to photographs to alternative newspapers, will be displayed at “Revolution’s Wallpaper,” an exhibit in Memorial Union’s Class of 1925 Gallery from Friday, Feb. 1–Tuesday, March 11. For those who were on campus during the Vietnam years, the exhibit will provide a jolting step back in time. For those who were elsewhere or not yet born, the pieces will offer a glimpse into a campus at war about a war.

James Huberty, who studied political science at UW–Madison, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1971 and a master’s degree in 1974, began collecting the materials as an undergrad. The pieces — many once tacked to campus kiosks and hallway bulletin boards, or handed to campus pedestrians — became part of Huberty’s astoundingly vast collection. With an interest in current events that started when a young boy, Huberty recognized that someday the daily communications might, together, have historical significance.

“When Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were killed, I wondered, what’s next?” he says. “They were very turbulent years, and it was right in our faces at the UW.”

Many of the posters quite matter-of-factly announce upcoming Library Mall or Bascom Hill appearances of the era’s most famous activists — Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, the Black Panthers, Jerry Rubin, Benjamin Spock and more.

Still living in Madison, these days Huberty volunteers to speak to area high school classes, carefully balancing his presentations, yet encouraging students to discuss the role of dissent and critical thinking in society.

And if his collection engenders heated conversations, he thinks it’s done its job. “It’s history,” he says, “and history is meant to provoke awareness and discussion.”