Before Creative Loafing, there was The Great Speckled Bird.

With headlines like "Long live rock 'n' roll" and "GIs FOR PEACE," the Bird announced itself 40 years ago as the alternative news source for the hippie generation.

Rich Addicks/AJC (ENLARGE)

Stephanie Coffin and Steve Wise, former staffers of The Great Speckled Bird, look over old issues of the Atlanta alternative weekly of the '60s and '70s.

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Monday through May 18, nostalgics, historians and the plain curious can see what it was all about in an exhibit of Bird covers, graphics and articles on display at the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library at 1 Margaret Mitchell Square in downtown Atlanta.

A public 40th reunion celebration is set for 2 to 10 p.m. May 24 at the B Complex, 1272 Murphy Ave. in southwestern Atlanta. Admission is $7: "food, beer and refreshments at proletarian prices."

About 20 anti-war and civil rights activists started the Bird in 1968 to give voice to Atlantans marginalized by the mainstream press. One of their favorite targets was this newspaper and its publisher, Ralph McGill, for his support of the Vietnam War.

At one time, it was the state's largest circulation weekly with 22,000 paying readers. It cost 15 cents in 1968 and went up to 25 cents before it stopped publishing in 1976.

"The major thrust was anti-war, and then it picked up other issues like women's liberation, gay liberation and lifestyle stuff," said Stephanie Coffin, a Bird co-founder who lives in Atlanta's Virginia-Highland neighborhood. "Looking back on it, you can see that what we were doing is presenting all these ideas."