Michigan State University student Michael Kindman started The Paper in late 1965. Dissatisfied with working for the mainstream State News, Kindman began a bold experiment in alternative campus journalism. The Paper gave early voice to the nascent anti-Vietnam War movement and was a beacon of counter-culture.

One of the five founding publications of the Underground Press Syndicate, The Paper brought together National Merit Scholars, Students for a Democratic Society, artists, active-duty soldiers and the University Christian Movement in “the first campus-based underground newspaper in American history.”