The collection includes a wide variety of locally-distributed print and near-print leaflets, handbills, pamphlets, memoranda, reports and newsletters relating to the positions and activities of student organizations, social activist and civil rights groups, and early anti-Viet Nam War protest efforts, primarily from the Berkeley area during the early and mid-1960s. The three separate series of his papers reflect Starobin's concern over a number of diverse issues.
Within the STUDENT ACTIVISM series, the Correspondence, Writings, and Notes file contains form letters, telegrams, scattered pages of drafts for speeches and articles, brief jottings in reference to actions taken at various meetings, but almost no personal correspondence. Much of the W.E.B. DuBois Club file is promotional literature in the form of mimeographed leaflets and newsletters. The bulk of the material in the series pertains to the Free Speech Movement, but it is generally uninformative as to Starobin's role in that movement.
Conversely, his leadership role in the Graduate Coordinating Committee and the Teaching Assistants' Union is well documented by such material as annotated versions of organizational draft proposals and handwritten directives relating to membership drives. The file on Miscellaneous Organizations and Causes contains several isolated and unrelated items from organizations like the Committee for Constitutional Liberties, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the American Institute for Marxist Studies.
The CIVIL RIGHTS series likewise contains material relating to a number of organizations. The bulk of the SNCC file consists of newsletters, press releases, reprints of articles, and advertisements for conferences and other activities sponsored by the Bay Area Friends of SNCC. The Mississippi Summer Project file deals with the establishment of Freedom Schools, and includes such items as recruitment directives and lists of volunteers, field offices and contacts. Efforts to challenge the right of Mississippi Congressmen to be seated in the House of Representatives are the main focus of the few mimeographed sheets in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party file. Fact Sheets and handbills from such groups as the Western Christian Leadership Conference, the Ad-Hoc Committee to End Discrimination, and the Committee for Justice in Civil Rights are included in California Organizations. Similar promotional literature is prominent in the remaining files in the series.
Since the material in the PEACE AND ANTI-VIETNAM WAR series is not voluminous, it has been left in one file which is arranged chronologically. Leaflets and other ephemeral literature announcing various propositions, political stands, debates, teach-ins and rallies, document early opposition to the war at Berkeley. Also included are a few items from other geographic areas like New York and Wisconsin, and several issues of “Letter from China,” a news sheet by Anna Louise Strong.
