In June 1971, Project Grapevine produced the Grapevine. The Grapevine was an eight page tabloid created manually on a typewriter and pasted together by two students. Two thousand copies were printed of the first issue. In September 1971, The Grapevine changed its name to the Grapevine Journal. Circulation increased to 10,000 and staff size increased to four. Through donations, the Grapevine Journal published seven issues until May 1972 when eight staff members produced a 24 page paper. Contents included the national Presidential primaries and an analysis on the African-American athlete protest at MSU. For their effort, the University of Minnesota recognized the Grapevine Journal with a First Class Award from Associated Collegiate Press.

To expand the paper, advertising and sales were used to generate revenue. In the summer of 1972, founder James Ballard turned over major administrative duties over to George White in order to build an advertising staff and W. Kim Heron became editor of the paper. In July 1972, Grapevine staff helped the Lansing community produce and publish for Citizens Congress Inc. Work from the summer of 1972 produced a 32 page paper for the campus’ welcome week. The full color issue produced 1,700 dollars in advertising and circulation surged to 40,000. By September 1972, the staff of the Grapevine Journal doubled, making it the largest African-American student paper in the United States. However, by 1973 the newspaper faced budget issues and competition from the Michigan State News. The paper continued to be published infrequently until 1975.