Shawyer dissertation May 2008 final version - The University of ...

—Yip-In invitation (Jezer, “YIP” 8)The invitation appeared on a simple mimeographed flyer scattered throughout thehippie haunts of New York’s East Village, the downtown Manhattan parks like UnionSquare and Tompkins Square, the hippie crash pads and free stores, and the art galleriesand cafes of the Bowery and St. Mark’s Place. It was a call for a “be-in,” a peacefulgathering to celebrate the spring equinox. At midnight on 22 March, 1968, participantswere to gather in the cavernous main hall of Grand Central Terminal to greet the newseason, then march north together through midtown Manhattan to the Sheep Meadow ofCentral Park, there to meet the rising sun of a new day. The spring equinox was as good areason as any for a party, and the Yippies hoped the event would shake the gloom ofwinter from the downtown hippie community, which had suffered the deaths of popularactivists and some head-cracking skirmishes with the police in previous months. At thesame time, they hoped to encourage attendance by all their friends and acquaintances,from both the downtown hippie and radical activist communities. This event was tojump-start their new “potlitical grass leaves movement” by bringing hippie and radicaltogether. For the hippies, the Yip-In was modeled after the “Human Be-In” that tookplace in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in January, 1967: a peaceful mass gathering tocelebrate the hippie spirit with music, poetry, and self-expression that in turn inspiredother be-ins all around the country in the following months. For the activists, it was achance to see what the Yippies were all about, in anticipation of a summer of protestleading up to the Chicago Democratic Convention.102