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

When they formed the Youth International Party in late 1967, the core Yippieswere therefore already seasoned activists with a range of experiences working for avariety of New Left and student movement organizations. SNCC was a multi-racialstudent organization inspired by student protest actions like the anti-segregation sit-ins inGreensboro, North Carolina in early 1960. Students from all over the nation participatedin SNCC-organized civil rights and voting rights campaigns in the South, and helped toorganize the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. SDS, another key studentactivist organization, also had wide reach, with over 300 national chapters in 1968(Isserman 202). As the main campus radical group, SDS followed the New Left theorythat liberation from the United States’ capitalist ideology could come about by means ofcritical thinking by students and other persons outside of the political system. 19 But by1967, the core Yippies were no longer students. They had grown tired of the procedures,committee, meetings, and arguments over policy that characterized SNCC and SDS, andwhich the Yippies felt drained the excitement out of political action. The YouthInternational Party provided them with a way to continue their activism, but without thestifling structures of the student organizations.Each member of this group contributed to Yippie in their own way. Krassner, whohad a regular job and income, helped to pay the rent on the Yippies’ Union Square office.Kurshan contributed her business and office skills (David Farber, Chicago 26-27).Veteran organizer Fouratt set up the Yippies’ communication center and mimeograph19 This New Left concept follows the theories of Frankfurt School philosopher Herbert Marcuse, whoseinfluence on SDS and the Yippies will be discussed in the next chapter.35