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

efers to the crowd generally as hippies, although he does note that politicized hippiescalled Yippies were planning a festival of life in Chicago. 44By focusing more on the violence of the Yip-In, rather than the overall Yippiemessage, Stern’s New York Times article and the anonymous Time piece lent notoriety tothe Yippie movement, and ultimately helped to fuel fears of street violence at theNational Democratic Convention in Chicago. Abbie Hoffman explains in Revolution forthe Hell of It:The Grand Central Station Massacre knocked out the hippie image ofChicago and let the whole world know there would be blood on the streetsof Chicago. It didn’t matter what we predicted, what story we made up,how much we talked of fun and games. The rumor of Grand CentralStation . . . [was] powerful enough magic to separate the hippies from theYippies. (91)According to Hoffman, the mainstream media realized that the potential for violenceseparated the peaceful hippies from the activist Yippies. However, the emphasis onpotential violence shut down conversation about the broad Yippie message of grassrootsnetworking, direct action, and creating an alternative society. While news of the Yip-Inadvertised Yippie to the general public beyond the confines of New York’s Lower EastSide, it did so with limited efficacy.Unlike the mainstream press, the alternative media exhibited greater awareness ofthe Yippie movement and its goals in reporting on the Yip-In. Perhaps because the44 Michael Stern’s 24 March, 1968, New York Times piece is the first appearance of “Yippie” in themainstream media, followed shortly after by the Time article of 5 April, 1968.110