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

The Yippie Archive: Creating a “Potlitical” MovementWho were the Yippies? The Yippies were anti-Vietnam War activists whoresisted the draft and called for the end of the United States’ military actions in Vietnam.The Yippies were also left-wing radicals who rejected the dominant capitalist system inAmerica in favor of cooperative and communal living. The Yippies scorned the pervasivepower of the political establishment, advocating instead grassroots communityorganizing. The Yippies were also counterculture provocateurs who distinguishedthemselves from the mainstream by growing their hair long, using illegal drugs, andtaking enormous pleasure in ridiculing authority. In the 1960s, the Yippies inspiredthousands of young activists to travel to Chicago to protest the political status quo. Theydescribed themselves as a national mass movement. Yet the historical record primarilyidentifies them with their main spokesmen, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, and a smallgroup of activists living in downtown Manhattan in the late 1960s.It was this core group who created the idea of Yippie on New Year’s Eve, 1967,at the St. Mark’s Place home of Anita and Abbie Hoffman. 10 The revelers were smokingmarijuana and tossing around ideas in anticipation of mass demonstrations at theupcoming Democratic Convention. The governing Democratic Party was a particulartarget for activists in late 1967 because of its continuing support for the war in Vietnam.The Hoffmans and their guests, Jerry Rubin, Nancy Kurshan, and Paul Krassner, likeother activists at the time, used the V-shaped peace sign to signal their politics publicly.As the group practiced their peace signs Krassner, editor of the satirical magazine The10 Abbie Hoffman and Anita Hoffman are referred to by their full names throughout this document to avoidconfusion.22