Stealing Back Abbie Hoffman:

Separating the Myth from the Popular Image

Patrick M. McManus
An Abstract of a Thesis

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Art in History
Department of History

Central Connecticut State University

New Britain Connecticut
July 2013

Thesis Advisor:

Dr. Heather Prescott

Department of History

Key Words: Abbie Hoffman, Social Protest, Counter-Culture, New Left, Gender

The name Abbie Hoffman is synonymous with the decade of the Sixties in

American memory. To a large extent both sides of the cultural wars today,

epitomized in the Red State/Blue State conflict, can trace their roots back to this

decade. In the shaping of their respective identities, both sides have appropriated
the image of Abbie Hoffman for their own purposes. To the liberals of today he is
the iconic image of the grassroots protester fighting for civil rights and the

environment against a corrupt political machine. For conservatives he is nothing

more than a clown prince, the product of youthful rebellion and indiscretion from a

period best left forgotten. Regardless of ones political leanings today the major aim

of this study is to evaluate the how well this man stacks up to the image of the iconic

Sixties protester. Does he in fact deserve this immense respect from liberals and the
ire of the Right?

The Sixties are a very difficult time to study as they are fraught with

historical controversy. In order to better evaluate whether Abbie Hoffman was the
poster boy for this massive and confusing time period this study will break down
the Sixties using the same format as Todd Gitlins iconic work on the period, The

Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. Using many previously unpublished letters and

Hoffmans many works, available through the UCONN Dodd Centers collection, The
Hoffman Papers, this study seeks to better understand the role of Abbie Hoffman in
the Sixties through four major subject areas: social equality, wide-open lifestyles,

limiting violence and care for the Earth, and democratic activity. It is the conclusion

of this study that for three of the four areas used to define the period Abbie Hoffman
2

deserves the label he receives as poster boy for the Sixties. However, in the area of
social equality the reality does not measure up to the image liberals remember. In
terms of his many early protests for black civil rights through SNCC Hoffman did

contribute to this element of the Sixties, but with regards to gender equality he most
certainly did not. Abbie Hoffman continually demonstrated an attitude of hypermasculinity that greatly hampered his attitudes and actions towards equality for

women and gays. It is the conclusion of this study that he does not stack up to the
iconic image of the Sixties in this important area.

Stealing Back Abbie Hoffman:

Separating the Myth from the Popular Image

Patrick M. McManus
A Thesis

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Art in History
Department of History

Central Connecticut State University

New Britain Connecticut
July 2013

Thesis Advisor:

Dr. Heather Prescott

Department of History

Table of Contents:

Section 1: Introduction

Section 2: Literature Review

Section 3: Thesis

14

Section 4: Formative Years

20

Section 5: Democratic Activity

34

Section 6: Limiting Violence

44

Section 7: Wide Open Lifestyles

55

Section 8: Social and Gender Equality

59

Section 9: Bibliography

69

No person in recent American history is more closely identified with a period

than Abbie Hoffman and the1960s. Though not the most famous person to come out
of the decade, Hoffman has come to symbolize the era. From his famous hippie

hairstyle to his outrageous antics at Woodstock, this protestor was there literally at

the beginning, when HUAC visited Berkley, through the Riots of Chicago Democratic
Convention and beyond. By the time of the Chicago riots at the Democratic

convention in 1968 the self-proclaimed radical organizer had already generated

deep concern in the heart of conservative America by challenging traditional social

values, with his use of dugs, contempt for the government and his rejection of

capitalism. This concern seems quite justified after a typically confrontational

encounter with police while on a walk, with his second wife Anita and their son

america, in Central Park. They were already famous when two New York City Police

officers approached the family for various riots where confrontations with the

police could easily turn violent. Abbie Hoffman put aside these differences and they
all had an enjoyable time playing with his son. Suddenly Abbie Hoffman saw some
hippies and immediately reacted. He felt that they would be disenchanted to see

their living legend chumming it up with the police. He became angry at the cops and
proceeded to yell at them and then quickly ran off with his family. Hoffman

immediately regretted the act. He asked Anita Hoffman to go and explain the

situation to the police: his fame had forced him to react that way for the benefit of

the audience. To protect an image, I was being forced to be something other than
human, Hoffman recalled in his memoir. 1

This small story reveals many of the larger issues with understanding Abbie

Hoffman. He was man who constantly appeared as one thing but was deeply

concerned with how people perceived him. Despite his often-angry rhetoric, he was
a nonviolent activist who could even build bridges between himself and the police.
He was also deeply troubled by this fame. In the end, Abbie Hoffman cannot be

watered down to a sound bite from history: like the decade we associate him with
the truth is more complex.

More than most epochs in American history, the Sixties are beset by

problems of understanding. This tumultuous decade is fraught with controversy for

historians attempting to come to an understanding about the decades impact and

role in the pageantry of the American experience. The least of these is the extent to

which this decade has been cast in a nostalgic light by many and an evil light by still
others. As Americans we have an uncanny need to qualify and quantify our epochs

in history. As a result, most of the time these characterizations are forced and often
pure fabrications. The need to organize decades in this light reveals just to what

extent we engage in a mass collective delusion. For many reasons on December 31st

of every year we engage in a reflective attempt to find meaning in the past 365 days
and whittle them down to a witty sound bite for our short attention spans that are

Abbie Hoffman The Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman (New York: Four Walls Eight
Windows), 270.

routinely fed by a 24-hour news cycle. 2 But, social, political, economic and cultural
change rarely, if ever, obey these randomly assigned dates. The need to engage in
this activity is heightened at the end of each decade; for the 1930s it was the

Depression; for the 1920s, it was the Roaring 20s. To a large extent we have

already dismissed, or largely forgotten about, the 1970s. However, this will never be
the case for the Sixties.

No period falls greater victim of this trend of oversimplification than the

Sixties. The forced attempts at clarity have had a tremendous, and often negative,
effect on our ability to understand the Sixties. Before even considering a topic in
this decade this simple truth must be understood.

David Farber, The Sixties: From Memory to History (Chicago: Chicago University
Press), 1-2.
2

Literature Review:
David Farbers anthology The Sixties: From Memory to History is one of the

best attempts, and most popular, to gain clarity out of this confusing decade. Farber
introduces the familiar topic of historical memory and its influence on this decade.
So far, many of the most popular books and movies about the 1960s have been

powerful acts of memory wrestling with history in an effort to bring some order to

the rush of the still vivid experience. 3 Todd Gitlins work The Sixties: Years of Hope,

Days of Rage is a perfect example of this exercise in historical memory. Gitlin was an
activist from the period, so by his own admission, his book is an account of the

predominantly white student protesters like himself. The movements of Latinos,

and Native Americans are largely excluded in this notable work. 4 Here Gitlins own

memory has tremendously influenced what he even chooses to discuss in this study
of the Sixties. The import of this is substantial when one considers that this work is
the definitive, and one of the most popular, accounts of the time.

The problem with historical memory is not the only challenge facing a study

of the Sixties. As is the case in many historical periods, competing narratives offer

their own challenges as well. For starters, historians lack a consensus over how to
even define this time period. Borrowing from Farbers ideas about historical
memory, what we define as the Sixties do not readily conform to the dates of

Ibid., 1.
Elizabeth Martinez, Histories of the Sixties: A Certain Absence of Color, Social
Justice 16, no. 4 (December 1989): 175-185.
3
4

January 1st 1960 to December 31st 1969. There are varying interpretations as to

when the Sixties even begin and when they end. Accordingly to some historians,

like Elizabeth Martinez, the Sixties began in 1955 and lasted well into the Seventies.

Other historians, Jon Margolis among them, do not place the start of the Sixties until
1964 and end it only four years later as a sort of high Sixties. 5 The year 1968
marks a watershed return to more conservative policies with the election of
President Richard Nixon, thus ending what Margolis refers to as the Sixties.

The single largest obstacle to gaining a clear understanding of this decade is

the continuing political polarization over this period in todays landscape. As

President Bill Clinton so succinctly put it, if you enjoyed the Sixties you are probably
a liberal Democrat; if you hated them than mostly likely you are a conservative

Republican. 6 To this end, ones current political leanings tend to greatly influence

how this period is interpreted as a largely positive or negative experience for the
United States.

One of the greatest victims of these confused and alternating historical

interpretations from the Sixties is one of the decades most recognizable protestors,
Abbie Hoffman. The name immediately conjures up a host of images. Many view

him as a villain, a powerful radical opposed to the very ideals upon which the United
States was founded. They claim he was a dangerous man to have around while the
United States was locked in an ideological struggle for survival with an evil empire
like the USSR. For still others he is an anti-hero who best personifies the worst of

Michael J. Heale, The Sixties as History: A Review of the Political Historiography,

Reviews in American History, 33, no. 1 (March 2005): 133-152.
5
6

Ibid., 134.

10

the cultural wars. Its the beginning of what modern thinkers see as a battle over
social and cultural ideas in America today between two opposing factions along

liberal and conservative lines defined as the red / blue state conflict of today. 7 For

stills others he is the hero of the Sixties, as presented by an anonymous mourner in

a letter of condolence to Abbie Hoffmans mother on the occasion of his death.

Abbie Hoffman was a personal hero to me in a time which desperately

screams for heroes. His unflinching activism and his love for his country
stand as symbols of what America truly means. He was, I believe, grossly
misunderstood by the majority of his detractors. 8

He represents all the best of that tumultuous decade. There is no middle

ground when it comes to Abbie Hoffman. Whichever image you subscribe to, the

one thing both sides can agree on is that Abbie Hoffman is the personification of the

Sixties. Whether he is a hero or a villain depends on ones own political perspective

today. Regardless, he represents the wide-open lifestyles, the democratic activities,
the fledgling environmental movement and social equality. 9 These four categories
will help to sort out the complexity of the period that many simply define as the

Sixties. Like the decade he is closely associated with, however, there is more to this
man.

Several authors, including Marty Jezer, Eric Foner and Jack Hoffman , have

already attempted to make sense out of the jumble of activities of the Sixties

greatest radical. They suffer from many of the same issues as the popular image of

Ibid., 135.
Sympathy Letter April 28, 1989 Hoffman Family Papers. Archives and Special
Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut
Libraries, Storrs, Connecticut, hereafter referred to as Hoffman Family Papers, Box 2,
Folder 15.
9 Todd Gitlin The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York: Bantam Books).
7
8

11

Abbie Hoffman. Most sources that examine Hoffmans life and works fall decidedly

into two categories. The first group are authors, many times friends and family, who
set out to rescue Hoffmans image. They are mostly writing in the immediate time

after his suicide on 12 April 1989. In the wake of his untimely death there existed a
flurry of quite negative depictions of Abbie Hoffman. His grief stricken brother had
spent a great deal of time and effort courting People Magazine to do a nice tribute
story. When the story was published it referred to Abbie Hoffman as the, Clown

Prince of the Left. 10 Mostly these depictions showed him as a goof, trumped up and
washed up, the product of a bygone era who could never quite find a new place for
himself in the absence of the Sixties. He was a memory best left forgotten. His
friends and family tried to discredit these sources, like People and Time, that

contained negative portrayals of Hoffman. Along with Hoffmans brother, many

friends and former peers of Hoffman from his protests in the Sixties shared a

mission to rescue the maligned image and history of their friend and colleague from

the conservative press. They wanted to show Abbie Hoffman not just as a clown but
a true patriotic hero, and sought to establish him among such vaulted company as
Mark Twain. People trying to help rescue his image include such notables as

Norman Mailer and Studs Terkel. 11 These writers have come to define this period

and compromise some of the best contributions to the political activism of that
Time Magazine Article Richard Lacayo, A Flower in a Clenched Fist, Time
Magazine, April 24, 1989. Hoffman Family Papers., Box 1, Folder 6.

10

Both Abbie Hoffman, Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman (New York: Four Walls
Eight Windows), and Abbie Hoffman, The Best of Abbie Hoffman (New York: Four
Walls Eight Windows) have forewords by Norman Mailer and Studs Terkel that
attempt this goal.

11

12

decade and well beyond. Surely he kept great company to be defended by thinkers
such as these.

The major purpose of these works was to debunk the negative

interpretations of Abbie Hoffman, but they contain a major flaw. This flaw goes on

to create a few major issues as seen in Marty Jezers work Abbie Hoffman: American
Rebel. This work best typifies this particular interpretation of Hoffmans life and

significance. It is clear from the introduction that the major purpose of his work is

to rescue the tainted image of Hoffman from a more conservative press in the wake
of Abbie Hoffmans premature death. Conservatives desire to continue to vilify the

spirit of the Sixties is clear. Just as clear, however, is the inverse attempt of Jezer to
place the Sixties on a pedestal in the books introduction. This results in an

interpretation of Abbie Hoffman that is just as fundamentally flawed as those who

wish to malign him for their own purposes. By glossing over many of his more

controversial actions, these accounts leave us with an incomplete view of the Sixties.
Homophobic comments and sexist actions are dismissed as not relevant to the time
or the man. As Gitlin neglected the accomplishments of Latinos and Native

Americans in his account of the period, we are left with an incomplete view of this
very influential activist.

13

Thesis:
In many ways Abbie Hoffman symbolizes the counterculture of America in

the decade of the Sixties. For members of both the Right and Left of the political

spectrum he is a villain or a savior; a relic of a bygone era many would rather forget.
Regardless of ones perspective, Hoffman has become the image of the Sixties.
However, his actions do not always align with this image.

It is the purpose of this thesis to establish Abbie Hoffman in the proper

context of counterculture of the United States in the 1960s, and beyond. Was this

man the hero of the New Left or the clown prince of the counterculture? In many

ways, and especially to Abbie Hoffman himself, his actions do support this. History is
frequently far more complex than popular convention wishes to be and this is the

case here as well. Abbie Hoffman did typify the spirit of Sixties in many ways, both
in and out of that notorious or wonderful decade.

Abbie Hoffman had a unique opportunity to attend Brandeis University at a

time when the Red Scare stymied most other higher education institutions. As a

result he was able to learn at the feet of masters like Eleanor Roosevelt and one of
the most influential modern psychologists, Abraham Maslow. It was under

Maslows expert tutelage that Hoffman would develop his critical view of the written
word. According to Maslow, words had no meaning except what the listener decides
to give to them. As the speaker you may have a great and well delivered oral

argument, but what if the listener was distracted? At best, that message would be

forgotten in part before the day was even over. What you as the speaker intended
14

might not be even close to the what the listener perceived. The message could be off.
As a result, Maslow felt that actions were the obvious alternative. Actions could not
be misinterpreted and they were impossible to miss. As a result for the young

Hoffman, actions would be the only thing worthwhile. He would use radical action
and protest to shake the conformity of the culture that concerned itself with

appearances alone. In this fashion he was the personification of the counterculture.

The counterculture first emerged in the Fifties as an alternative to

mainstream culture mores. However, in many ways Hoffman was so opposed to the
counterculture as to make himself a part of the dominant conformity driven culture

of the Fifties that he allegedly despised. The majority of these glaring contradictions
can be found among his organization efforts that concerned topics of gender,

specifically with feminism, womans liberation and gay rights. This thesis will

examine several major episodes from his life to dissect his beliefs on gender and

how they compared to his comprehensive views of the counterculture through both
his writings and actions. Through a careful examination of his many published
works and many unpublished letters from the University of Connecticut Dodd

Centers collection, Hoffman Family Papers, this thesis will prove that when it came

to ideas of masculinity Abbie Hoffman does not in fact personify the spirit of the
Sixties. This thesis will seek to present the context of Abbie Hoffman in a more

complete light by removing itself from the efforts to show Abbie Hoffman as the man
who best personifies the elusive spirit of the Sixties. In many ways he deserves this

title, but in other ways, especially with regards to gender equality, a more thoughtful
examination is needed.

15

Apart from these problems created by both historical memory and two major

perspectives of historiography on his life, a third problem quickly presents itself

with any comprehensive study of Abbie Hoffman. There exist many inconsistencies
created by Abbie Hoffmans own words. In many places, his ego gets in the way of
history. For example, in Revolution for the Hell of It, Hoffman describes a minor

incident after a Central Park Be-In where he tried to enter Saint Patricks Cathedral
only to be stopped because he looked like a hippie with flowers in his hair. He left,

somewhat upset with himself for his lack of action. 12 Ten years later he retold the

story in his autobiography, Soon to be a Major Motion Picture. The changes to the

Saint Patricks Cathedral story are significant. It is no longer a minor story but one

that bolsters his ego as a physical altercation that has him becoming aggressive with
the New York City Police. 13

As a subject Abbie Hoffman has left behind a great many works by his own

hand for us to examine as historians that are plagued by inconsistencies and grand

boasts like this one. The problem exists with his ego, which was massive to put it

mildly. Hoffman also struggled with mental health issues. In 1980 Abbie Hoffman
was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder, or what in Hoffmans day was more

commonly known as manic depression. In this condition the patient will swing
between two extreme moods, a high energy state, known as hypomania, and a

darker depression phase. 14 Hoffmans writing was naturally impacted by these

Abbie Hoffman Revolution for the Hell of It (New York: Thunder Mouths Press), 23.
Abbie Hoffman, Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman (New York: Four Walls Eight
Windows)
14 Both Marty Jezer Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel (New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press) & Jack Hoffman Run, Run, Run: The Lives of Abbie Hoffman (New
12
13

16

intense mood swings. Also, he was literally quite high while writing several sections
of his most famous books and many letters to his brother and family. This is one of

the many appealing qualities of Abbie Hoffman to the young Americans coming of

age in the Consensus Era. This dangerous and edgy element was very central to his
charm and how he choose to define himself. In Revolution for the Hell of It, the

entire first chapter was written while tripping on vacation in the Florida Keys. 15
Many unpublished letters in Hoffmans papers also show this tendency to write

while high. This is clearly evident in a letter to his brother Jack Hoffman were he
rants on how New York City is a crazy happening place. 16 The first half of the

letter is quite impossible for a logical mind to follow. At one point he takes a several
hour nap to come down from the drugs and picks up where he left off, if that is even
possible. Any attempt to get to the rational mind of Abbie Hoffman must wade
through many pieces like this one.

Abbie Hoffmans most famous work, Steal this Book, has lost much of its

message simply by the nature of its purpose and the time. Despite being the most

widely recognized work by Hoffman it actually came after his greatest success as a

Sixties activist. The books express goal, to live for free in New York City, does not

work today. 17 Many of the handy tricks, how to get a free buffalo for example, were

York: G. P. Putnams Sons) both have excellent accounts of his disease in their early
chapters.

Ibid., 10-20.
undated letter from Abbie Hoffman to Jack Hoffman, Hoffman Family Papers. Box
1 , Folder 6a
17 Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book (Philadelphia: De Capo Press, 1996)
15
16

17

corrected immediately after the works publication in 1971. Far more effective in

his moderate library of works to the historian are his earlier pieces, like Revolution

for the Hell of It and his many letters to his brother and friends. His autobiography,
Soon to be a Major Motion Picture, is a comprehensive piece but suffers

tremendously from his over inflated ego. It becomes difficult to sort the truth from
the bragging. This makes the book difficult to use as a source and harder to trust
overall.

This thesis relies on Hoffmans autobiographical work and his early pieces, as

well as collaboration from his brother Jack Hoffman, for insight into his formative
years. The purpose of this to establish in better context how this young man will
become one of the great organizers and activists of the Sixties.

Abbie Hoffman loved to confuse and confound his supporters and detractors.

He loved to appear contradictory in any devices. If he appeared flippant, he would

immediately change his tone to serious organizer and lament that no one took him
seriously. If he was being taken too seriously he went crazy for no good reason. If
people referred to him as the clown prince of left, as many did and still do, he got
down to business. If they felt he was just a dope, he got became very logical and

serious. He wanted to be a leader but felt that the New Left grassroots movement
should lead as it was organized, from the bottom up. This is a fancy way of saying
that they should have no leader. Several peers, including one of his biographers

Marty Jezer, felt that this was a simple cop out and he was just avoiding his

18

responsibilities. 18 Woodstock Nation, as Abbie Hoffman often referred to his dream

world post revolution America, did not need leaders. He loved being famous and

simultaneously despised himself for it. This makes a comprehensive study of the

man mind numbingly difficult. However, one of these apparent contradictions will

go on to become his greatest and most under appreciated strength.

This paper is not a biography of Abbie Hoffman. It is intended to serve as a

critical analysis of Hoffmans purported role as the poster boy of the counterculture
for both left and right and, more generally, the spirit of the Sixties. Instead of

scripting his youth it will examine two major formative periods in his early life. It

will then break down the period of the Sixties, not chronologically, but by the goal of
his protests. This thematic approach to the Sixties is borrowed heavily from Todd

Giltins work The Sixties, Years of Hope Days of Rage. The Sixties are too elusive and

abstract an idea to just consider on the whole. To analyze the decade en mass would
be to engage in the failed process of historical memory. Instead Gitlin organizes the
period into four major topics: democratic activity, wide open lifestyles, save the
Earth + limiting violence, and gender and social equality, which this thesis will
utilize to better analyze Hoffmans protests. 19

Marty Jezer, Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel (New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 1992), Introduction.
19 Gitlin The Sixties This new thematic approach to the Sixties is taken from the
authors new Forward to the 1993 edition.
18

19

The Formative Years

I) Consensus Era Childhood

More than anything else Abbie Hoffman was a product of the time and place

of his childhood: Worcester Massachusetts during the 1940s and 1950s. This setting
had a tremendous impact on the development of young Abbie Hoffman. He would

choose to define himself according to many of its major political, social and cultural
expectations. These norms would go on to have an incredibly significant role in
creating the man Abbie Hoffman and the image. Abbie Hoffman the activist and
organizer were not created out of a vacuum. To understand him we must first

establish him in his proper time and place; as Abbie Hoffman would say many times,
he never left Worcester. 20

Today Americans love to debate the Sixties but its the Fifties that many are

madly in love with. They are the ideal of nostalgia; epitomized for us in movies and

television as the nations most prosperous time. But, as previously argued, decades
do not perfectly align themselves with the hard realities of the age. For the

purposes of this thesis the period of the Fifties, shall be renamed to help give it a

more comprehensive meaning as the Consensus Era. This time period was critical in

20

Marty Jezer Abbie Hoffman, 2.

20

Abbie Hoffmans formative years and therefore it is necessary to take a brief

moment and define America in the Consensus Era. 21

In our collective memory this era is the time described very aptly in David

Halberstams The Fifties. It is the post-war, post-Depression, epoch where some

Americans got to live happily ever after in their new suburban homes. This was

indeed a fitting reward to the Greatest Generation that had given so much through
war and economic woes. First, to establish some order this period we must define

the parameters for years. The Consensus Era spans the entire decade of the Fifties
and more beginning in 1947, and only ending in 1964. We can make even greater

sense of this period by ordering the Consensus Era into five pillars to help organize

the complexities of American during this time. These five pillars will provide for us
an organizational framework to better understand and analyze the society, politics
and cultural machinations that create Abbie Hoffman.

The first pillar lends its name to the period as the Consensus Era. More than

anything else during this time the sole mission of the United States government and
her citizens was to destroy communism. The Red Menace threatened us from both
within and outside of our own borders. The consensus was that all energies of the

federal government would be directed towards its destruction. We had also never
faced such a grave threat to our security before from both a superpower and

potential subversive elements within the nation. All of our efforts and energies
would be redirected towards its destruction. Practically every law and agency

David Halberstam The Fifties (New York: Random House Publishing), the
definition I employee here of the Consensus Era comes from a close reading of this
entire work.

21

21

created by our recently expanded federal bureaucracy now involved seeking out

and destroying this threat of domestic and international communism. Agencies like

the CIA, NSA and FBI worked alongside HUAC and laws such as the Smith Act and
the McCarren Act to end these grave threats. Anyone speaking out against the

established order, or being at all critical, of the United States and her ideals would
immediately be labeled a communist. 22

The second pillar of the Consensus Era was the economic miracle that

characterized the United States in the twenty years after World War II, which had

ended the Great Depression in a way the New Deal never could. Americans as whole
have never been wealthier, though this wealth was not shared equally in the

Consensus Era. The GI Bill, the Eisenhower Interstate System, and the International
Monetary Fund had all helped to push the nation into a massive economic boom. 23

The third, fourth and fifth pillars are the aspects of life in the fifties that Abbie

Hoffman took the most exception with. Taken together these final three pillars give
the Consensus Era its feeling of conformity. His reaction and rebellion to these

ideals would shape the future organizer of the Sixties well beyond that tumultuous
decade.

The third pillar, the rise of suburban America, is by far the most recognizable

pillar of the Consensus Era. Arthur Levitts idea for a prefabricated home catapulted

into the nation in the post world war period. Now people could afford brand new
homes. These homes were designed for raising families, with playgrounds and
22
23

Ibid., 24.
Ibid., 12, 24 + 224.

22

schools located in the central neighborhoods. Finally, the greatest generation would
have a place to live happily ever after; or at least that was the hope.

The fourth pillar of the Consensus Era focuses on the new emerging gender

consensus of the post war world. Some have argued that this return to traditional
gender norms is a result of the Soviet threat to the United States. According to

author Susan Faludi and historian Elaine Tyler May, when a peoples very ideology

and world-view are challenged by a force that embraces the opposite position the

tendency is to embrace traditional social norms, especially with regards to gender. 24

As a nation we regressed back to the time of the separate spheres, despite the

relatively more liberal and recent image of woman as Rosie the Riveter during

World War II. However, the nation took such a radical step backward in terms of

gender that what was created in the Fifties only bears the most cursory similarity to
the old gender norms of separate spheres.

The final pillar is the one Abbie Hoffman usurps for himself. Its the one that

gives people so much pause when they consider him; was he the clown prince of the

left or a major reformer to be taken seriously? The final pillar is of course television.,
the true stage for the theatrical protest movement that Hoffman would found, Yippie.
This was where Abbie Hoffmans absolute genius revealed itself: he took this new
medium and usurped it, with the Establishments knowledge, to meeting his own
goals.

Susan Faludi The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post 9/11 America (New York:
Metropolitan Books), Chapter 1. + Elaine Tyler May Homeward Bound: American
Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books), Introduction and Chapter 1.
Both are excellent summaries of this idea.

24

23

Taken as a whole it is the conformity of the Consensus Era that created

Abbie Hoffman. It is his reactions against this period that will define the organizer
from the Sixties. He was not the first to do so: even during the height of the

Consensus there were liberal voices of critique. These voices of rebellion were few

and far between; often times quite literally as they could be found in large numbers
in the Village in New York City and the district of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco.

It is quite fitting that Abbie Hoffman spent time at both these locations. He spent his
graduate years in San Francisco and the majority of his years as an organizer in New
York City.

It was these early undercurrents of rebellion that would later create much of

the counter-culture against the conformity of the Consensus. From a young age,

Abbie Hoffman would choose to identify himself with many of these cultural and

social rebels. These rebels included the emerging musicians of rock and roll and the

early civil rights movement as two of the biggest challenges to the Consensus. Abbie
Hoffman would embrace them both. Even before Allen Freed played Elvis Presley

on the radio Abbie Hoffman had traveled to New York City to hear a concert of rock
and roll music that included Big Joe Turner, Fats Domino, the Drifters and the

Moonglows. 25 These were Hoffmans first tentative steps into the world of black

culture in America.

The most neglected area of his early life by his biographers that would have

an impact on helping to create the model activist and organizer from the Sixties is a

relatively new area of scholarly study from the 1950s. This oversight is largely

Jack Hoffman Run, Run, Run: The Many Lives of Abbie Hoffman (New York: G. P.
Putnams Sons), 30.
25

24

understandable given that the topic itself comic books -- was designed to not be

taken seriously. This similarity to Abbie Hoffman cannot be overlooked. The Comic
Book War of the Consensus Era is just one of the latest additions to this time of

intellectual censorship. 26 Given their controversial history and eventual censorship,

their appeal to a young Abbie Hoffman is quite understandable.

Graphic novels, their current name, evolved from Yellow Journalism in turn-

of-the-century New York City. These comics were originally used to attract New

Immigrants to the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer to

further increase readership during the newspaper wars of the time. 27 As a new

industry traditional social limitations, similar to Nativism, did not prevent New

Immigrants from landing jobs in this field and using it as a platform for their ideas.
Most of the great titles originate with New Immigrants. When the Red Scare of the
Consensus Era began people from eastern and southern Europe were guilty by

suspicion of communist sympathies. During the Consensus Era, critics believed

comics were a sounding board for indoctrination of our impressionable youth by the
Red Menace of communism, along with a level of violence that many in the 1950s

saw as a contributing factor to rising juvenile delinquency. This trend was mirrored
in Hollywood when the film industry was targeted as the purveyors of similar ideas
because of their focus on the youthful audiences by the House Un-American

Activities Committee. The great comic book war brought this industry down and
ended the golden age of comics by putting gross limitations on the decency

David Hajdu The Ten Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed
America (New York: Picardo 2009), Prologue.
27 Ibid., 9-15.
26

25

standards for all titles. It was not a coincidence, then, that when these restrictions
were finally lifted in the early 1990s that a second golden age of comics began. 28

Despite the banning, and the myriad bonfires that were setup to dispose of

these comics many children in the 1950s were huge fans. Revealed through a

combination of letters to his brother, and his brothers own recollection through his
biography, Abbie Hoffman was a fan of many comic books. Interestingly enough, a
younger Abbie Hoffman preferred the Marvel publishing name to the DC

publishers. 29 This might not seem like much to an outsider but it reveals a great

deal about his personal beliefs and worldview that we can draw clear connections
between the themes here in these books and his time as an activist and organizer.
The DC titles are typically the most recognizable heroes including Superman,

Batman, and Wonder Woman. They are all quite similar in that they are never

conflicted internally. All three are always the ideal of good. By contrast the less
popular Marvel world, known as Atlas when Abbie Hoffman would read as a

youngster, included a more dynamic force. For example, Iron Man, a hero who
raised his money as an arms dealer represents a more complex and conflicted

person who overcomes personal struggle to make the right choice. More poignantly
however, especially with regards to Abbie Hoffman, would by the X-Men title. Here

the villains are often justified and the focus is on their civil rights. The authors were
using a fantasy world in order to make connections to the real world struggle for

28
29

Ibid.
Undated Letter to Jack Hoffman, Hoffman Family Papers Box 1, Folder 6a.
26

civil rights still being fought for daily in the United States in the 1950s. 30 The fight
for basic rights against mob violence resonated with the growing Civil Rights
Movement of the Deep South.

After his time at the University of California in 1960 Abbie Hoffman would

also take up with the early civil rights movement, again choosing to align himself
with one of the hallmark rebels of the Consensus Era. Hoffman became involved

with the fight for Civil Rights a little later than many in general. He joined up in
1964 with SNCC after this groups initial organizational success with the sit-in

movement. Here once again we can see some of the inconsistency in his writings.
Later works claim he was actually shot by the KKK while visiting in Mississippi,

when in fact no such incident occurred. His trip with Anita, his wife at the time,
came after Freedom Summer and was pretty much without incident. 31

Abbie Hoffman would gravitate toward any label that set him apart from the

Consensus culture of conformity. He used all the rebel images to fashion for himself

a unique blend that combined all these different dissidents into one. He was the rock
and roll tough, the greaser, and the juvenile delinquent. He melded them together
so effectively that Norman Mailer, when writing about this early component of

Abbie Hoffmans life, decided to borrow a local product to create a new term to

describe what Abbie Hoffman had done so effectively since any one of the terms on
their own did not suffice. He borrowed the term Moxy, from the soda popular in

Hajdu Ten Cent Plague 331-334.

Letter to Jack Hoffman by Abbie Hoffman, Hoffman Family Papers Box 4, Folder
136.

30
31

27

Worcester MA, to illustrate the unique consolidated rebel persona Hoffman created.
In Norman Mailers words, Abbie Hoffman had Moxy. 32

All of these identities shared one defining feature in excess: masculinity.

Different minority groups are often critiqued by mainstream culture for a lack of
masculinity, including Jewish men who were often viewed as wimps. Many were

quick to embrace heightened masculinity as a logical result, including the younger

greasers and the early civil rights workers. The combination of all these different
rebel identities would create in Abbie Hoffman a new identity. This new identity
borrowed heavily from many minority groups and as a result possessed a far

greater level of masculinity. This would have huge implications for his later years as
a representative of the counter-culture.
II) Higher Education:
Colleges and universities across America were some of the hardest hit

intuitions of Americas Red Scare. Between Senator Joseph McCarthy, the required

loyalty oaths, and the journeys of HUAC, academic and intellectual freedom suffered

greatly during the Consensus Era. Anyone who dared to speak out against them was
told to step away from the microphone and was blacklisted for their efforts. In stark
contrast to this intellectual conformity of the Consensus Era stood an island of
intellectual freedom just outside of Boston Massachusetts. 33
32
33

Hoffman, The Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman. Introduction by Norman Mailer.

Gitlin, The Sixties, 76.

28

Brandeis University escaped these trials and tribulations by the virtue of its

unique founding and the larger global circumstances of the day. Anti-Semitism

pervaded American colleges and universities, as it did much of the world, at this

time. Brandeis was created in 1948 as a place of opportunity for Jewish Americans
kept out of well-earned college places by the ugly forces of Anti-Semitism. 34

As a Jewish male growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, Abbie Hoffman

continually faced anti-Semitism. The Hoffmans had immigrated to the United States
from the Pale of Settlement in Eastern Europe during the late nineteenth century.
This massive piece of land set aside for the Jews, basically one huge ghetto, was

infamous for the many pogroms, anti-Jewish riots, that would occasionally tear the
area apart. Abbie Hoffmans grandfather, along with many thousands, decided to

flee this oppression and make a better life for themselves in the United States. This

was the era of New Immigration. The time period 1877 to 1914 saw many millions
of predominantly eastern and southern Europeans move to the United States

seeking new opportunities. There was of a course a fierce feeling of Nativism that
developed among many Americans against these newcomers. In this era of the

Melting Pot many felt, including Abbie Hoffmans family, that assimilation into the
mainstream culture afforded the best defense against such sentiments.

Like many third generation children Abbie Hoffman would come to resent

the lengths to which his parents went in order to accommodate this idea of

assimilation. He always felt an intensely patriotic fervor for the United States: how

34

Jezer, Abbie Hoffman, 20-22.

29

could one not during this time of plenty? But he did not accept the efforts of his
parents to fit in to the mainstream culture.

Deep down Im sure we felt our parents generation was a bunch of cop-outs.
Six million dead and except for the Warsaw ghetto hardly bullet fired
resistance! I remember being very young and on our way to a family
vacation in New Hampshire. I turned over the hotel brochure I was practice
reading and spotted a curious little announcement. I read it aloud to the
whole car. Hey everybody, what does Christian Clientele Only mean?
Everyone turned Protestant white. Johnnie, they accepted our reservation!
Didnt they know? My parents desperately wanted to avoid a scene.
Avoiding a scene was a very common expression then. Over there, six
million Jews were avoiding a scene, and on the home front on a beautiful day
in the mountains of New Hampshire my father made a U-turn and we headed
for another hotel. I was angry enough to muster up an asthma attack. 35
One can already see his perchance for rebellion and the assumption of moral

authority even at a young age the later 1940s. In fact, Abbie Hoffman would really

let people know he was Jewish, with an in your face attitude that was typical of his
character, only when he felt the person he was talking to was anti-Semitic. 36

An earlier movie experience with the film Broken Arrow helped to encourage

this desire in Abbie Hoffman to view the Consensus Era as an outsider. The film was
a sympathetic look at how the American government had mistreated Indian nations
as it won the west to fulfill the nations Manifest Destiny. The film opened Abbie

Hoffmans eyes to those that had been mistreated in misguided attempts to achieve
the patriotic dreams of the country. It was an identity he would certainly come to

cherish and work to maturity during the heyday of his protests in the Sixties as both
a Jewish man facing anti-semitism and a hippie with long hair in New York City.

35
36

Hoffman, The Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman, 15.

Ibid., 13.

30

At Brandeis University Abbie Hoffman would find a home as an outsider,

finding community with fellow outsiders. There was no home to be found here for
the likes of Senator tail-gunner Joe McCarthy. In the wake of the Nazi Holocaust

Senator McCarthy was afraid of appearing Anti-Semitic in the media if he decided to

attack Brandeis University. 37 The result was nothing short of an extraordinary
juxtaposition of academic talent during a time typically characterized by the

extreme limitation of ideas. My teachers were top in their fields. Herbert Marcuse,
Americas most brilliant Marxist. Maury Stein, a young, inspirational critic of mass
culture. Paul Radin, whose studies of the Winnebago Indians are classics in

anthropology. 38 Hoffman even had the opportunity to take a class of foreign policy
with none other than Eleanor Roosevelt. But none would have as much impact as
his psychology teacher.

During Abbie Hoffmans time at Brandeis University no person had a larger

impact on his world-view than the critically renowned psychologist Professor

Abraham Maslow. This is a pretty significant sentiment since he would meet many
teachers that would challenge him in a myriad of ways. Maslow would completely

redefine the field of psychology and Abbie Hoffman was there to learn directly from

the feet of the master. Maslow challenged many of the accepted norms first

established by Sigmund Freud. Maslow argued that humans were born with a

hierarchy of needs. If the first few needs were met, like survival and shelter, a

person was free to explore higher needs like self actualization. His lectures gave
shape and definition to many of the ideas already forming in the future activists
37
38

Jezer, Abbie Hoffman, 21+22.

Hoffman, The Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman, 25-26.

31

mind. He would now add intellectual rebel to his list of rebel personas. The

influence that Professor Maslow had on Abbie Hoffman is readily apparent in a rare

quote of affection, and even love, that he hardly ever bestowed onto another man.

Most of all I loved Professor Abe Maslow. 39 This quote came years after Professor
Maslow had harshly criticized Hoffmans tactics. These criticisms included

Hoffmans opposition to the war in Vietnam and his desire to abandon capitalism.

This criticism did not detract from the still strong feelings of affection that Hoffman
harbored for his old mentor. His fear of appearing effeminate, and his overriding
desire to always appear hyper-masculine, would severely limit the number of
affectionate instances like this one when it came to other men.

Professor Maslows influence on Abbie Hoffman and his subsequent role as

an activist in the Sixties cannot be overstated. It was from Maslow that Hoffman

would derive his unique style of protest that his organization the Yippies would best
represent. Maslows ideas on self-actualization would help to define the ideology of
the New Left in the Sixties. 40 But it was his work on language that most intrigued

Hoffman. In his freshman psychology class using words like fuck and damn became
routine. Maslow argued that words only derived meaning by what the listener
choose to give them. The only real thing that mattered was action. 41 Hoffman

would embrace this with his protests of street theater. Action, not tired old debate,
would work to bring about the change he was protesting for; complete with a new

Ibid., 26.
Ibid.
41 Jezer, Abbie Hoffman, 20-25.
39
40

32

identify of Moxy and a world-view based on action Hoffman was ready for a new
chapter in his life when he graduated in 1959.

Thematic Outline from The Sixties

It is exceedingly difficult to find a single label that does justice to the myriad

of activities that Abbie Hoffman engaged in during his long career. Ones own

current alignment in the blue state red state conflict may have labeled as an icon or

clown respectively. The poster child of the Sixties is the most common label, but

exceptionally vague. To label him with a more concrete term as a civil rights worker
is far too limiting. There is no word that defines how he served as a bridge between
hippies and anti-war protestors. Besides, this would neglect many of his later

activates. He liked to say that he lived in Woodstock Nation, which was his version

of the United States after the impending revolution, where they despised labels; his
mentor Professor Maslow would agree. To Abbie Hoffman labels were useless, but

that does not mean that he completely neglected them. In this absence of a proper

label we should turn to one created and used himself with some regularity. He was,

by his own admission, an organizer. 42 To better examine his role as clown prince or
hero of the elusive Sixties this paper will now examine his contributions as an

organizer in the four major thematic areas of the decade as established in Todd
Gitlins work The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage.
42

Hoffman, Revolution for the Hell of it, 27.

33

I) Democratic Activity
Like many of the great democratic personalities of United States history

Abbie Hoffman remembered the exact moment he fell in love with the country. He
was already married to Shelia Hoffman, his first wife, and working in Worcester,

Massachusetts. He had recently finished his Masters Program in Psychology from

Berkeley California where he had become caught up in the protests against HUAC in

1960. Abbie Hoffman did not play much of a role, if any, in this perennial event of

the Sixties, but just to have witnessed this moment adds to the mythos of him as the
typical Sixties activist. Regardless of his role, the fallout from this event was

massive. As an early and substantial counter to the Consensus Era politics that had
dominated the county for so long the government took quick action. During this
time the government, along with a majority of Americans, would tend to view

anyone individual, or group, that protested a facet of American life as a front for a

subversive communist group attempting to weaken the United States from within.
This was the very reason the COINTELPRO program was started by the FBI. The
express purpose of the Counter Intelligence Program was to uncover domestic

communist agents. In this pursuit they would violate many rights by wiretapping
34

phones and bugging hotels rooms of any suspects without any warrants. They
would go on to develop an exceedingly lengthy file on Abbie Hoffman. 43

The government began work on a public relations piece titled Operation

Abolition that would weaken the support of the anti-HUAC protesters from

California. This obvious newsreel propaganda then made the rounds to town hall
style meetings across the country. When it came to Worcester Abbie Hoffman

attended the town hall meeting to see the governments interpretation of what he

had witnessed. Hoffman was shocked by the obvious nature of its ineptitude and its
many gross factual errors. When he stood up to argue with the film many shouted

him down and disagreed. But one elderly gentleman stood up and supported Abbie

Hoffman. Finally one of the farmers stood in the back and spoke up, I dont know, I

think this here fellahs got a good point. 44 Through the debate the true purposes of
the video became clear. I fell in love with America that night. I saw myself as a
Son of Liberty, riding through the night sounding the alarm. 45 Abbie Hoffman

would carry this love for the American system and the faith that it could change for
the rest of the days.

Much of Abbie Hoffmans time and energy would be spent on what Todd

Gitlin has characterized as the spreading of democratic activity. 46 From this very

first and memorable town hall meeting Abbie Hoffman would devote a great deal of
his time to this quintessential characteristic of the Sixties. In this aspect of the time
he most certainly was a perfect poster boy for the Sixties.

FBI Files for Abbie Hoffman, Hoffman Family Papers Box 4

Hoffman, Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman, 49.
45 Ibid.
46 Gitlin The Sixties, preface xxi.
43
44

35

The spreading of democratic ideas and activity in the Sixties can best be

identified as the founding and continuing of grassroots movements and organizing.

Grassroots organization is an idea long remembered as central to the Sixties. It was

a core component to the ideology of the New Left, which was struggling to emerge in
the early Sixties. The rebirth of liberalism would not come back into mainstream
politics until the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson and his Great Society. But
the spark to this grassroots ideology owed much of its founding to the man who
preceded LBJ in the White House. John F. Kennedy had challenged an entire

generation to action with his Inaugural Addresss call to volunteerism. Abbie

Hoffman, like many people of this time, was even earlier than Kennedy with

community based political organizing. Hoffman began his efforts over a year before
the famous address by the young president.

Some of Abbie Hoffmans earliest political endeavors best demonstrate the

spreading of democratic ideals. The campaign of H. Stuart Hughes for the United

States Senate during his time in Worcester would see Abbie Hoffman begin his

career as an organizer. He would also continue this trend of being a few steps ahead

of the New Left formally. The absurdity of federal governments nuclear deterrence
policy know as MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, would often times earn the ire
of the New Left. It also served as the first galvanizing political issue for the young

Hoffman. MAD, put simply, was the stated military policy of nuclear deterrence for
the entirety of the Cold War. The Soviets could not fully commit their massive

arsenal of nuclear weapons to destroy targets in the United States before we had
launched our entire fleet of ballistic missiles in response. But this system had

36

accelerated beyond reason as each superpower built massive stockpiles of these

super weapons and continued to test ever larger and larger weapons. An accident
or misunderstanding between the two powers seemed inevitable. 47

H. Stuart Hughes recognized, earlier than most, the absurdity of these

weapons and ran a campaign in Massachusetts to end them. This would not become

a popular sentiment nationally for a couple of years until the world was almost
thrust into nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the aftermath of the

crisis Stanley Kubricks great piece of dark satire, Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned

to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), also contributed to the popular idea of

criticizing the policy of MAD. Hughes, the grandson of a Supreme Court Justice, was
one of the organizers of SANE, which wanted to, as the name tends to indicate,

pursue a more rational course with regard to nuclear weapons. The Committee for
a Sane Nuclear Policy, or SANE for short, was Hoffmans first official political
organizing experience. 48

Abbie Hoffmans role in this campaign would be considered quite typical

today. However, at the twilight of the Consensus Era it was anything but. Going

door-to-door asking for people to support a Harvard intellectual and a group in

direct contrast to the official policy of the US government was quite risky. When

Hoffman went door to door his vibrant personality won many converts to the cause.
He collected many thousands of signatures. But here, once again, we encounter the
typical problem of his ego when reading the sources. In his immodest

David E. Hoffman, The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and
its Dangerous Legacy (New York: Anchor Books, 2009), 17 + 22.
48 Abbie Hoffman, Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman, 48-49.
47

37

autobiography Hoffman claimed that it was his work in getting over 140,000

signatures that succeeded in getting Hughes on the ballot. 49 In reality the campaign

only garnered 17,000 signatures in total. 50 Ironically the very event, the Cuban
Missile Crisis, that would eventually help many Americans to view nuclear

deterrence with some skepticism, at the time doomed the Hughes campaign. In the
wake of the near full scale war with USSR most tended to take an even harder line
with the superpower. This meant increasing our stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
SANE was finished. 51

Many of Abbie Hoffmans activities as an organizer could potentially be

categorized as grassroots democracy. However, working under the paradigm of

Gitlins work some activities are best left for other categories. There is plenty of

evidence here: the inspirational story and some of his first grassroots campaigning

do help show Hoffman as the legitimate democratic organizer that he was, even if he
claimed a greater role. The best evidence for this category is perhaps what Abbie

Hoffman is most famous for in the history textbooks, bringing theater and

democracy together in a somewhat less than harmonious union.

The story of the Yippies is the story of Abbie Hoffman condensed into a

single organization. The participatory democracy, the absurdity, the contradiction

of whether they should be taken serious or not, the playfulness, the myriad of

misunderstandings, and the many falsehoods society would invent to understand

the group, all mirror their principle creator. Yippie best embodies the Maslow

Hoffman, The Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman, 53.

Jezer, Abbie Hoffman American Rebel, 47.
51 Ibid., 48.
49
50

38

principle that actions, not words, matter to society. You can talk and talk in a

democracy through debate but you cannot control what the other party hears. In
his first work Revolution for the Hell of it, Hoffman describes this process in the

chapter where he sets up the birth of the Yippie: Dont rely on words. Words are

the absolute in horseshit. Rely on doing go all the way every time. Move fast. 52

Only actions will work for free speech, that is the only way. What actions would
speak louder than street theater now captured on television sets that 90% of

Americans would have in their homes by the end of the Consensus Era. The Yippies
were Abbie Hoffman at his best and most effective.

The Yippies were an idea born out of a confusing incident from an early

meeting of the New Left in Denton, Michigan. Unlike the Old Left which as a liberal
response to industry was dominated with socialists and communists this New Left
was a new version of liberalism that represented a middle path between the two
super powers. This meeting largely organized by members of Students for a

Democratic Society, or SDS which was a college students group that first epitomized

this new ideology, would later come to symbolize the break between the Old and the
New Left. 53 The participants of the day had no idea something so grand was

happening, that was assigned later, the work of historians. They were not entirely
in the dark however to larger events from this conference. Many, especially Abbie

Hoffman, were shocked and inspired by the unorthodox shenanigans of the Berkeley
movement that styled themselves The Diggers. Here were the radicals that totality
rejected western civilization, as indeed the hippies are best identified as, that
52
53

Hoffman, Revolution for the Hell of it, 29.

Gitlin, The Sixties, 230.

39

Hoffman had been looking for. Then in came the Diggers. Tom is finished and all
hell breaks out. 54 Their leader, Grogan, went on to insult the participants and

escalated things quickly: All of sudden he erupts and kicks the fucking table over.

He knocks down a girl slapping SDS members right and left. Faggots! Fags! Take off
your ties, they are chains around your neck. You havent got the balls to go mad.
Youre going to make a revolution?youll piss in your pants when the violence

erupts. 55 Hoffman was rattled by the exchange but he admired their tenacity. For
Abbie Hoffman, the rest of the meeting was wasted words. Their actions had

inspired him back to the roots of Maslow and the importance of deeds to invoke a
reaction. Out of this Denton confrontation the Yippies were born. 56

Conservatives during the Sixties routinely got Abbie Hoffmans message

wrong. When he planned to levitate the Pentagon or when he threatened to put an

imaginary chemical called LACE into the water supply most took him at face value.
Mayor Daley of Chicago certainly obliged and stationed officers around the citys

water supply. This was Hoffmans intention. He succeeded brilliantly at duping the
public. He understood the nature of American society to react to images via their

television sets. He expected people to be so outraged by what he did and how

people saw these actions that they would not stop to think and consider the deeper

meaning of the protest. A great piece of evidence to this end is even the name Yippie
itself. If media institutions reporting on their protests could not get the name right
what chance at understanding the lager social and political message would people
Ibid., 34.
Ibid., 35.
56 Ibid.
54
55

40

have? The New York Times routinely referred to the group as Youth International. 57

A quick reading of his first book, Revolution for the Hell of It, shows the problem with
this. Here Hoffman explains how the name was born; I stare at a button. Bright
pink on a purple background: Yippie! It pops right out. Its misspelled. Good.

Misspelling can be a creative act. What does Yippie! mean? Energy. 58 He goes on to

describe that the term has no meaning, that the term is a myth that the media can do
with as it pleases. 59 The media failed to even understand what the name of the
group was much less their overall goals and tactics.

The Yippies engaged in many famous protests during the Sixties where they

remained true to their outlandish style and the use of the media, television, and

absurd street theater to get their message across. In each particular protest a

certain formula was followed which allows us as historians to quickly identity them

as Yippie protests. From their very first protest at the New York Stock Exchange, to
the levitating of the Pentagon, this formula of using the media to incite the people
was followed. The most famous example of a Yippie protest would take place in
Chicago during Democrat Convention in 1968. These protests are covered

exactingly well in David Farbers, Chicago 68. 60 This is the moment that Abbie

Hoffman and many in the movement feel that everything was going to change. 1968
had been an eventful year and there were many indications both at home and

abroad that finally the revolution had arrived. Revolutions in Eastern Europe

Collection of New York Times articles, Hoffman Family Papers Box 1, Folder 6.
Hoffman, Revolution for the Hell of it, 81.
59 Ibid.
60 The following summary of Abbie Hoffmans role in the Chicago 1968 are taken
from both Todd Gitlins chapter on the event in his work The Sixties, and Farbers
Chicago 68.
57
58

41

seemed to herald the fall of communism, the Tet Offensive and changed the nations
attitude towards the Vietnam War, and the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and
Martin Luther King Jr. had shocked the nation to its core. Everywhere the young
protestors looked, it felt like the world and the nation were on the brink of a

tremendous revolution. 61 However, what Hoffman and many in the New Left could
not know, and we know only as historians with the power of hindsight, was the

upcoming resurgence of a conservative movement in the United States. The

Conservative Backlash in American politics, society and culture that would

culminate with the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s began that night in Chicago.

Abbie Hoffman was swept up in these larger events in Chicago without being

fully aware of them. Many view this and the subsequent trial as the height of his

career. 62 This paper disagrees. This place and time becomes too convoluted for the

purposes of this paper by being carried away by far larger trends in history as

discussed at length in Fabers work. However, the easy identification of Hoffman

with these events it was necessary to explain why his role in Chicago does not play a
larger role here.

For a better look into the mechanisms of a typical Yippie protest we must

examine one not caught up in the larger forces of history. The New York Stock
Exchange was their first and one of their most successful protests. As Abbie

introduces the incident in his first work, The first time you may have seen me was
in the gallery of the New York Stock Exchange, hurling money on the brokers
61
62

Hoffman, Revolution for the Hell of it, 101-110.

Jezer, Abbie Hoffman, Chapter 9.

42

below. 63 With the arrival of the TV cameras and news crews this staged protest

became a masterstroke at the manipulation of the media. The action of

participatory democracy that formed the core of the Yippie credo was front and

center at the NYSE.

With regards to spreading of democratic activities as one of the hallmarks of

the Sixties, Abbie Hoffman was true to the image of himself as its poster boy. He did

in fact best represent this idea through many episodes and writings. From the very
beginning of his career as a radical with his critique of Operation Abolition to the
hallmark movement of the Yippies Abbie Hoffman epitomized this aspect of the
Sixties.

63

Hoffman, Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman, 100.

43

II) Limit National Violence and Saving the Earth

Todd Gitlins The Sixties breaks the time period down thematically into a

second category that focuses on the dual topic of limiting national violence and the
environmental movement called Save the Earth. Despite much of Abbie Hoffmans

angry rhetoric in later years, especially surrounding the events in Chicago 1968, he
was by nature a nonviolent individual. Without exception, when violence erupted
he would interpose himself into the center of the violence in an attempt to build a

bridge and find a peaceable resolution. Never mind that it was usually his actions

and protests that brought upon the violence in the fist place: he felt a need to bridge
the gap and end violence when it occurred around him. In this way, once again

Abbie Hoffman was the prototypical representative of the Sixties. He also spent a
great deal of his time after coming out of hiding in the 1980s working on

environmental issues, most notably Save the River in the Saint Lawrence Sea Way.
Here, once again Abbie Hoffman deserves to be labeled as the poster boy for the
Sixties.

One of the best examples of his nonviolent behavior centers on the place he

will choose to call home for most of the decade. In 1966, he settled next door to

Tompkins Square Park in New York Citys Lower East Side. Tompkins Square Park

has a long history of social protest; Abbie Hoffman is a fitting addition to this iconic

American place. The Park was the scene of the anti-draft riots during the Civil War,
and barely a decade later the first protests by industrial workers in response to the
Panic of 1873. Alphabet City, as this area of New York City has come to be called,

44

has a checkered past. It has been home to what many Americans referred to as the
more undesirable elements of society.

In New York, I shared an apartment on the Lower East Side with a young guy
named Howie. We paid forty-nine dollars a month for a three-room railroad
flat with a thirty-degree tilt to the west We were the only one in the
building who didnt speak Spanish. The neighbors slept six to a room, made
do without heat or hot water, and often (contrary to the American myth)
went to bed hungry at night. Rats picked at the improvised garbage dump at
the rear of the building. Across the street, junkies lined up on stoops waiting
for the dealer. Children played ball in a maze of overflowing trash cans. 64

Abbie Hoffman would take for himself the title of undesirable number one. 65 He

would be, though he would not and could not ever admit this, their leader.

When Abbie Hoffman arrived in the fall of 1966 there already were many

hippies present in and around the neighborhood of Tompkins Square Park. Many

groups besides the hippies were attempting to eek out a living in this section of New
York City. Both blacks and Puerto Ricans were present in large numbers in the area
around the park. Tensions were high as young suburban kids who knew nothing
but affluence descended on this struggling section of the city by choice. 66 Abbie

Hoffman quickly moved into this gap as a bridge in a successful attempt to avoid

violence between these different groups. However, to Hoffman, they were not that
different. Instead they were all brothers in that they had each been excluded by

Consensus Era America. They came to the Lower East Side and became part of the
already existing fruit salad: Ukrainian crones in babushkas waddling out of bakery

shops, dashikied blacks with new Afros practicing Islamic chants on stoops spread
Ibid., 81.
Ibid.
66 Ibid.
64
65

45

with pieces of carpet, Puerto Rican kids boogeying to bongo drums 67 It was a

complex neighborhood with a sorted past, but to Abbie Hoffman it was much more.

Abbie Hoffmans first self-appointed task upon his arrival in New York Citys

Lower East Side was to solve the mounting violence issue in the Park. Violence was
common since each group felt threatened by the other and would take steps to

defend what they saw as theirs. He took for himself an ongoing role as the unofficial
leader of the hippie community: My job was on the streets now. 68 This job became
all the more important as it quickly become clear he was the only one who could
speak with the police.

Tompkins Square Park had once again become a battleground, not between

the government and disaffected citizens as in times past, but between the three

major groups living there: hippies, blacks, and Puerto Ricans. There were stabbings

on a weekly basis, attacks and many fights between the groups as each battled it out
with the other two for who would control the one piece of green in the Lower East
Side, Tompkins Square Park. 69

The effort to clean up and police the park was not Abbie Hoffmans idea

originally. Instead it came from a young Puerto Rican woman named Linda

Cusamano, Hoffman would use the tactic learned here throughout his life to great

success. 70 By appointing all the young men, including blacks, Puerto Ricans and

hippies, roles as security guards they worked together in common cause and felt

ownership with each other for the Park. The organizers went so far as to name the
Ibid., 88.
Ibid., 90.
69 Jezer, Abbie Hoffman, 91.
70 Ibid.
67
68

46

security volunteers serenos, for peacekeeper. 71 It worked mostly because it played

well with the egos of the people he was attempting to involve. Potential problems

became the solutions. Everyone felt they had a hand in saving the park. The result
was it quickly became a place of community and harmony for all the people in this

newly empowered neighborhood, one they accomplished on their own without the

help of the New York City government. Unfortunately this trend was later born out

to the extreme by some as it became a major meeting place in later riots against the
police. The violence centered here was so extreme that the park got a makeover

with several fences to dissuade people from gathering there, as they had done for
social protest ever since the Civil War. There are no markers here, excepting the
fences, to its largely forgotten history. 72

In the years that followed the tensions between the factions would

sometimes boil over, and once again Abbie Hoffman would step in as an organizer to

help quiet the discontent. One such example happened late one July evening in 1967
Abbie Hoffman, his wife Anita and several of their friends were tripping on acid in
the Hoffmans apartment. The night was soundly cut by the sound of frantic

knocking on the door by a group of frightened hippies. They had just witnessed
several young black youths arrested for smoking pot in the Park. They were

concerned because they had been engaged in the same activity and the police had

ignored them. The hippies worried that this could be interrupted poorly by other
Ibid.
The author made several trips to the park for this project and despite numerous
inquires to park rangers no markers for history were ever revealed on location in
the park; all this information came from a variety of sources, most notably Howard
Zinns A Peoples History of the United States, 228-240.
71
72

47

neighborhood blacks and once again pit the groups against one another. They felt
Abbie Hoffman should know. Still tripping, the group went down to the station to

confront the police. As it turns out, Abbie Hoffmans friend, Inspector Joe Fink was
the officer in charge.

The fact that Fink is here on Saturday night is heavy information. Other
information is flying around the air. Lots of black people are running back
and forth. Im very interested in this because Im trying to build links with
the people outside the system. I guess its called being an organizer or a
missing link. It seems, upon talking to a group of very young black kids, that
20 or so of their friends have just been arrested in a large pot bust. 73

Hoffman was concerned that the arrest might undermine these bridges he had been
working hard at building. He demanded to be arrested as well, but when his antics
in the jail did not illicit a response, Am I under arrest or not? I shout. Nobody

answers. I raise my cowboy boot and kick in Captain Finks trophy case window. 74
Although Abbie Hoffman had acted violently by shattering the window his

true purpose was to broker a peaceful solution between the three groups, the police
the hippies, Puerto Ricans and the blacks that would see the continued peaceable
relations between them in Tompkins Square Park. His unique relation with

Inspector Fink also hints at larger trend in Abbie Hoffmans tactics as an organizer.
Despite the incredibly divisive nature of Abbie Hoffman, his name, actions

and even his very legacy today, the man himself consistently attempted to be a great
unifier of the disparate groups of the Sixties. However, most Americans as Abbie

Hoffman would predict, could never get past the clown that you saw on the surface
73
74

Hoffman, Revolution for the Hell of it, 18.

Ibid., 19-20.

48

to the much deeper message. To him having long hair meant that he and the other
hippies were the new niggers of American society. 75 Just as Americans had

prejudged an entire people based on the color of their skin, so to did Hoffman feel
prejudged for his long hair. The relationship he had with Detective Fink, and the

episode that plays out above as a result, are an excellent example of this behavior.
That relationship was the key. He got along very well with pretty much everyone
that he met. From hippie youth to Black Panther, Abbie Hoffman, with his usual

bravado believed he could bridge gulfs between any social groups. Despite his later
rhetoric surrounding the police in the Chicago Democratic Convention Riots, where
he revealed a seemingly violent attitude towards police, he would always maintain
a cool head in heated situations. For many of the protests that he choose to

participate in this typically meant the police, as this was the age of the police riot, as
the events in Chicago 1968 would later be labeled by the government in the Walker
Report. 76

There are a number of stories that demonstrate this quality during his long

career as an activist and organizer. The Grand Central Station protest of 1968
provides another good example of this trend of seeking to bridge gaps when

violence broke out. This was the scene of the second Yippie protest but the first

where the Yippies were attacked by the New York City Police. It was later cited as

one of the first police riots against protesters of the period. 77 Anita Hoffman recalls

how, as Abbie was being beaten by the police, he was still yelling out attempting to
Ibid., Chapter 3 The New Niggers.
Gitlin, The Sixties, 326.
77 Jezer, Abbie Hoffman, 111-112.
75
76

49

get them to refrain from violence and work out the problem. 78 In this sense he
embodies this spirit of the Sixties for nonviolence.

Here we are faced with an apparent contradiction within Hoffmans persona.

On one hand he was typically full of brash and inflammatory remarks; how can he
reconcile this with his nonviolent nature? To Abbie Hoffman, the singularly most

important part of his created identity Moxy -- was masculinity. This was the facet

that all the identities shared in common and the one he gravitated towards the most.
Much of his bravado and tough talk was to sell this masculinity. Underneath all the
bluster he was an advocate of nonviolence and was constantly worried as being

judged too feminine as a result. Abbie Hoffman was very concerned that if he were

viewed as effeminate he would lose respectability in the eyes of his supporters and
his tenuous role as a bridge would be severed.

Abbie Hoffman quite clearly cared for nonviolent protest and expanded this

idea of the Sixties by also incorporating this into a love for the Earth. Todd Gitlins

work categories this aspect of the Sixties on nonviolence as nonviolence towards the
Earth and a care for all things, people and nature included. 79 The Save the Earth

Movement had started with the publication of Rachel Carsons Silent Spring in 1962.
From the initial success of banning the use of the pesticide DDT the movement had
continued to develop. Hoffman would join this movement that was already largely
in progress. This aspect of Abbie Hoffmans character can best be seen with two
episodes after he emerged form hiding following a bust for cocaine in the early

Seventies. Save the River focused on the Saint Lawrence waterway in Upstate New
78
79

Hoffman, Revolution for the Hell of it, 90-91.

Gitlin, The Sixties, preface

50

York, while Del-WARE helped preserve the Delaware Water Gap. Both stories are

very similar and follow similar patterns so the need to analyze both is redundant;

we can simply examine one of these campaigns as an archetype for his activity as an
organizer working to save the Earth.
Save the River Campaign
As the years progressed and Abbie Hoffman went into hiding for much of the

Seventies his condition grew steadily worse. Early the decade with his second

marriage failing Hoffman turned to even more powerful drugs as an escape and a

means to make more money. While attempting to find some buyers for cocaine he
was setup by the police and made the decision to go into hiding rather than face

arrest. Even those that did not know the extent of his illness, or that he was even
suffering from an illness, remarked on his behavior. In an interview for Playboy

while Hoffman was on the run, author Ken Kelley noted that, his humor was more
manic than usual. 80 He had even completely lost control one night in a Las Vegas
hotel screaming, I am fucking Abbie Hoffman! 81

When Abbie Hoffman emerged from hiding in 1980 with his third wife,

Joanna Lawrenson, whom he always referred to as his running mate, he had recently
updated his prescription and as a result his maniac behavior was largely under

control. This new regiment allowed him a level of control to the manic phases that

had been hurting him while the run. Hoffman was able to take this new energy level

80
81

Interview with Playboy, Hoffman Family Papers Box 8, Folder 182.

Ibid.

51

and element of control and apply it to the successful campaigns of Save the River
and Del-AWARE. 82

Joanna Lawrenson had a home on the Saint Lawrence River in Upstate New

York. It was a perfect secluded little cottage in the middle of the Thousand Islands, a
terrific place to hid and lay low for a man on the run from the law. It was here in

1978 the Army Corps of Engineers announced plans for a massive remodeling and

refit of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The proposed project would enlarge the seaway
and expand the route for transportation and trade between all the ports of the Great
Lakes and the North Atlantic. This planned project would also have a massive

environmental impact that both Abbie Hoffman and Joanna Lawrenson knew the

public was being kept intentionally in the dark about.

I called to Johanna upstairs. Unless we act, the river is doomed, I said. The
Army Corps of Engineers will bully their way in here. The people are not
ready to fight the system. I told her what it was like taking on segregation in
the South, organizing against the Vietnam War. The enemies one made
attacking the power structure. I was convinced joining this battle would
mean I would be caught. Yet the arguments against the project seemed so
strong. How could I stand on the shore and watch the corps engineers wire
up the small islands across the way for demolition? 83

Abbie Hoffman, for the first time since going underground, was compelled to act in
defense of those being taken advantage of by, what was in Hoffmans opinion, a

corrupt federal system that was intentionally keeping people in the dark about the
dire environmental implications of the planned project.

They started a grassroots campaign called Save the River in the style of the

typical Sixties protest. Its purpose was to elicit the support of the local people,
82
83

Hoffman, The Best of Abbie Hoffman, 343.

Ibid., The Great Saint Lawrence War, 350.

52

inform them of the true impact of the project, and organize them through town

meetings and their elected officials to block the proposed project. The area around

the Saint Lawrence, even today, is a fiercely conservative bastion of political energy.

These were the very conservative Americans whom Nixon had called on for support

as the Silent Majority. These were the people who worshipped Spiro Agnew as a
hero of the conservative backlash against the liberal Sixties. Abbie Hoffman had

once joked about having sex with Agnews teenage daughter when she started to

wear hippie styles. 84 An enraged Agnew would single out Abbie Hoffman in

speeches many times for this action. This only helped to inflate Hoffmans already
large ego after making these very macho comments about the Vice Presidents

daughter. In the culture wars of the Eighties the conservatives had emerged the

apparent victors, but they had not stopped hating the man they saw as the greatest

challenge to their way of life. Luckily, Abbie Hoffman was now going by the alias of

Barry Freed. But it is an incredible testament to his skill as an activist and organizer
that he could convince such a conservative population, who would have turned on
him in an instant, if they had only known his real name.

Barry Freed began a textbook grassroots campaign in the Thousand Islands

with the Save the River organization by building support from the ground up with

his many neighbors. By organizing meetings, distributing pamphlets and recruiting

people to town hall meetings he hoped to block the Army Corps of Engineers.

Mostly, he went door to door to get supporters. This was the old Abbie Hoffman,

84

Jezer, Abbie Hoffman, 195.

53

who with dynamic leadership and a force of personality could unite enough citizens
to make a difference. Hoffman recalled,

That first public hearing was quite historic for our community. Usually these
hearings draw thirty to forty people who have nothing better to do that day.
The crops, which legally is supposed to be gathering facts and sentiment,
instead uses the occasions to propagandize for its projects. We packed an
overflow crowd of six hundred into the school auditorium. There were signs
saying Ice Is Nice and Army Go Home but in general the tone was polite. 85

Eventually the people were able to convince the government at a town hall meeting
to shut it down. This was a meeting similar to the first town hall meeting that

Hoffman attended in Worcester which first convinced him how great democracy

could be when it worked. 86 With the help of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan from
Albany Hoffman was able to put an indefinite stay on the proposed project.

Once again, Abbie Hoffman, or Barry Freed here, does align himself perfectly

with the standard definition of Sixties activism through environmental action.

Through several major episodes, including Save the River, Hoffman was clearly

committed to the Sixties ideal of saving the Earth.

85
86

Hoffman, The Best of Abbie Hoffman, The Great Saint Lawrence War, 351.
Ibid., 351-357.

54

III) Wide Open Lifestyle

The third category of the Sixties revolves around the new ways of structuring

society and emancipating oneself from archaic social norms. Here once again Abbie
Hoffman holds true to his image of poster boy for the Sixties, as he does embody
these wide open lifestyles of era with style, sass and a whole lot of shock.

From a very young age Abbie Hoffman typified this core component of the

future Sixties. He was living the wide-open lifestyles before, during and after the

decade. During his days in high school Abbie Hoffman developed an early affinity

for atheism, not an all-together acceptable move during the Consensus Era when the
nation was locked in an ideological struggle with the atheist Soviet Union. Simply

being an atheist at this time one would be suspected of communism leanings or

sympathies. Not only did Hoffman embrace this idea but he wrote about it in an

impassioned paper for his English class. When the teacher called him back to class
to defend it, Hoffman did not back down but continued to rise to its defense even

when the teacher become aggressive. Just as I am making a subtle argument about
reward and punishment, he calls me a little communist bastard and grabs me by

my Billy Eckstein collar. Rrrripppp! 87 This stance of atheism is challenging even in

todays world. In the United States today there are sexually more out politicians
than there are out atheists; though based on the education level of the average

87

Hoffman, Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman, 20.

55

national politician this percentage should be far higher. Even today, Americans do
not trust, and therefore do not elect, atheists. 88

For most people looking back at the Sixties these wide open lifestyle choices

did not refer to religion but to more traditional definitions of marriage. The concept
of free love, though not born here, does gain popularity during the decade

culminating with the Summer of Love in Berkley California in 1967. Abbie Hoffman
did of course typify this in every way. His second wife Anita even suspected him of

moving the Free Shop and getting a business address in order to continue his many
chance romantic encounters. 89

The third major challenge to traditional lifestyles was drug use with

marijuana and LSD. Here once again the evidence is overwhelming that Abbie

Hoffman did typify this component of the Sixties. As mentioned earlier, many of his
writings were actually done while high, including the famous first chapter of

Revolution for the Hell of It. Revolution is in your head. You are the Revolution. Do
your thing Do your thing Do your thing. 90 Unfortunately, these two very radical

areas are probably the greatest detractors to his credibility in the eyes of many
more moderate Americans.

The amount of drugs Hoffmann did could compromise an entire medical

study. Tragically, this is how he will choose to end his life as well. For Abbie

Hoffman the use of drugs corresponded strongly with the desire to enhance the
experience of life and realize these wide-open lifestyles. For him the standard
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion.
Jezer, Abbie Hoffman, 244+ 223.
90 Hoffman, Revolution for the Hell of it, 10-11.
88
89

56

slogan of the Sixties, tune in, turn on, drop out, were more than mere words but a
plan of life waiting to be realized. LSD could help one break down the walls of

perception that the agents of socialization during the Consensus Era had helped to
erect in our minds.

It was not as innocent as all this however. He was well aware of the risk, as

demonstrated by an entire section of his perennial book Steal this Book, on how to

cope with a bad acid trip in NYC. 91 Steal This Book is one of the most recognized

accomplishments of Abbie Hoffmans time as an organizer. Steal This Book started

as an appendix to Abbie Hoffmans first book, Revolution for the Hell of It, which had
originally been published in 1968. Originally titled Fuck the System the article

quickly earned the ire of the FBI, who was following Abbie Hoffman ever since the

Democratic Convention in Chicago until he went underground after the cocaine bust.
They considered him a high profile risk and monitored him closely under the

auspices of the COINTELPRO program. In a heavily redacted FBI file Abbie Hoffman
was identified as a Priority Target I, and was considered extremely dangerous as
someone who would constitute a threat to the national defense of the country in a
time of national emergency. 92 The COINTELPRO program was dedicated to

monitoring and discrediting any groups critical of the United States during this time
as potential communist fronts. They were a gross invasion of civil liberties by the

federal government and the product of the bygone Era of the Consensus. Using his

91
92

Hoffman, Steal This Book, Fuck New York City

FBI Files, Hoffman Family Papers Box 7, Folder 159.

57

discomfort with fame and leadership the government wished to weaken his position
of leadership and exploit it to their advantage. 93

The very premise of the book shows Abbie Hoffman as an activist and

organizer committed to the idea of redefining traditional lifestyle norms. Here was
an everyday guide to living outside of the system of laws and capitalism that

Hoffman felt were so restrictive. 94 Here we see the influence of Maslow through his

hierarchy of needs. All of the suburban kids basic needs like shelter and food were
being met. As a result they turn to the next level of needs with higher thought

process and self-actualization. In order to do that they needed to break free of the

constructs society placed on them. What better way to do that than to break out of
society? NYC offered a unique opportunity to do just that, and LSD could help to
speed the process along.

Everything was listed here at the rebels fingertips for how to survive in New

York City without a job or any traditional elements of American society. More than
the other two thematic categories of he Sixties, here Abbie Hoffman shines as the

true heir to the spirit of he decade. But it is here that we must part ways from the
image. For the final category, with the greatest impact in the social and political

world, is where Abbie Hoffman does not measure up the image of the Sixties, despite
his many boastful claims to the contrary. It is also an area where neither side, pro or
con, has given him a full understanding or accurate assessment.

93
94

Ibid.
Hoffman, Steal this Book, Introduction.

58

IV) Social and Gender Equality

The final thematic topic to analyze the abstract Sixties revolves around the

ideas of social and gender equality. This is where the Sixties had their greatest

triumph. Ending the war was not such a victory. The full effects of the wide-open

lifestyles would never be felt, but elements would take hold in American society

only after a great deal of time had elapsed. It was the political victories of the Civil

Rights Movement that initially galvanized the New Left to action and finally saw the
end to the American system of racial segregation that had plagued the nation ever

since the failure of Reconstruction. With the tremendous political triumphs of both
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights of 1965 the country was in the

middle of a rebirth of liberalism which touched off a tidal wave of identity politics

where many groups, inspired by the success of Jim Crows death, were moved to
take political action. 95

Out of the collapse of Jim Crow and the rebirth of liberalism came a new

breath of life into a myriad of new social protest movements. Activists all wished to
better the life of many disparate groups within American society. Two of the most

significant to the pantheon of America history were Second Wave Feminism and the
Gay Rights Movement. With respect towards these two movements Abbie Hoffman
would not live up to the image of Sixties. Instead he was influenced by the hyper-

masculinity that he had embraced in his own rebel pantheon created during his
95

Steigerwald, The Sixties, 1-23.

59

youth in the Consensus Era. His supporters have been largely forgiving or outright
dismissive of these flaws to his political character. 96

One major caveat on this front, Abbie Hoffman did work diligently for the

rights of blacks in America at this time and was closely connected to the Civil Rights

Movement. He helped setup a Freedom Store called Liberty House in New York City

to sell the goods made by blacks in Mississippi and then used the profits to help fund
the movement. He made trips into Newark NJ, during the height of the Long Hot

Summer Riots to distribute food as well. Abbie Hoffman played a very active role in

the Civil Rights Movement, until SNCC purged itself of white members. Stokely and
others advised me to turn over Liberty House to black management and organize

around ending the war in Vietnam. In the spring of 1967 I took his advice. 97 From

there he devoted himself to other New Left causes, mainly that of ending the war in
Vietnam and seeking to inspire the seemingly apolitical protests of the hippies.

Abbie Hoffman did fight for equality but when those rights and privileges and duties

were being demanded by women and gays he was conflicted.

It seems strange that a person of a liberal identity group like Abbie Hoffman

in the New Left would embrace the idea of civil rights for blacks but not for women

and homosexuals. Oddly enough this is not an extraordinary episode in American

History. Early in the nineteenth century the First Wave of Feminism was born out
the Abolitionist Movement. When members of an American Abolitionist group

attended the Worlds Anti-Slavery Fair in London England, several of them were
denied access simply as a matter of their sex. When they returned home they
96
97

Jezer, Abbie Hoffman, 128.

Hoffman, The Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman, 82.

60

organized the Seneca Falls Convention in the Burned Over District of New York in

1848; an event that historians credit as the beginning of the Womens Movement in
the United States. 98

A similar scenario would play out here in the Sixties with Womans

Liberation and even within the Yippies own organization. SNCCs Freedom Summer
had attracted both young men and women to fight for voting rights and education
for black Mississippians. Many young women were critical of the roles they were

asked to accept, and other roles they were prevented form doing, simply because of
their sex. They were not allowed out into the field to help register potential voters;

and this had been the reason many had signed up to participate. 99 They were

absolutely forbidden from dating black men if they were white; whereas by contrast

white men had no such ban on dating black woman. For the most part they were
asked to answer the phones in the Freedom Schools. The separate spheres and

highly gendered work ideals of the Consensus Era had found their way to Freedom
Summer. 100 Stokely Carmichael, the leader of SNCC after Bob Moses, would even

famously remark that best position for women in the organization was prone in a
crude reference to desire to confine them solely to sexual roles. 101

Many of the young women were very disenchanted by this reality. SNCC was

one of the most liberal groups in the nation and if they could not provide for equal
opportunities between the sexes than who possibly could? A couple of young
Modern History Sourcebook: The Declaration of Sentiments,
http://www.fordham.edu/ (accessed 10 July 2013)
99 Lynne Olson Freedoms Daughters: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights
Movement from 1830 to 1970 (New York: Scribner), 296-308.
100 Ibid.
101 Gitlin, The Sixties, 169.
98

61

dissatisfied women even wrote a letter of protest over this treatment to SNCCs

leader Bob Moses who dismissed the issues it raised. Mary King and Casey Hayden
took their concerns to an organizational conference for SNCC later in the year.

When they got up to discus these concerns over gender the group shouted them
down and one man was heard to say, move along little girl, we have important

things to discuss. 102 They did move on by writing a kind of memo, that would
help to create the Womans Liberation Movement. 103

This was not the only problem with gender in the New Left. The entire ant-

war movement alienated half its organizers when they choose draft resistance as
the key protest, something the woman of the movement could not join. 104
Abbie Hoffman was a blatant continuation of this trend. His hyper

masculinity would interfere with social and gender equality continuously during the
Sixties. The problems are so glaring that a couple of his more prominent

biographers, including Marty Jezer and his brother Jack Hoffman, have noted the
behavior, but instead of seeking to understand the behavior and place it in its

proper context they simply create excuses for his lack of sympathy. The womens

movement had not happened yet, or Stonewall had yet to happen are common

excuses by his biographers for his often poor treatment of women and gays. Marty

Jezers work best typifies this type of response on multiple occasions with feminism

and once while rationalizing some homophobic comments Abbie Hoffman had made,
This summary of SNCC and the birth of womans liberation is drawn from
multiple sources including: Gitlin, The Sixties, 168-169, and Steigerwald, The Sixties
and the end of Modern America, 148-150.
103 Casey Hayden and Mary King, Sex and Caste: A Kind of Memo, The CWLU
Herstory Website, http://uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory: (accessed 10 July 2013)
104 Steigerwald, The Sixties, 108.
102

62

This was before Stonewall and gay liberation. 105 As a result, one should excuse
comments like these.

Both shortcomings can be explained through constructs of masculinity

emanating from the Consensus Era. Abbie Hoffman was an avid reader of history

and constantly brought back historical arguments from his time at college and high
school to help make his points. This holds true for even his ideas on masculinity,

America lost its balls on the Frontier. 106 Here America is obviously male and the

positive traits of aggressiveness and power he perceives are lacking today. He would
routinely reference strong and positive characteristics, such as aggression,

bluntness and independent, with male and masculine attributes and negative ones
with feminine.

Abbie Hoffmans ideas on masculinity had the greatest impact on the Gay

Rights Movement. Nothing is a greater challenge to the established notions of

masculinity than homosexuality in the United States. The problems mostly

manifested themselves as a lack of support through verbal ridicule. Here are a

couple of typical homophobic slurs from Hoffmans first work: The Pentagon will
not survive, neither for that matter will the fag-ridden peace movement. 107

Hippies are fags, they dont know how to love. 108 The victim of most of these poor
jokes and insults was fellow organizer Jim Fouratt. He and Hoffman had worked
well together in the past with key movement events, and Hoffman considered
Fouratt a friend and an ally. However, when challenged by Fouratt he did not
Jezer, Abbie Hoffman, 128.
Hoffman, Revolution for the Hell of it, 85.
107 Ibid., 39.
108 Ibid.
105
106

63

respond by attacking his ideas but attacking his sexuality, claiming that Fouratt was
making passes at him. 109

This entire episode was whitewashed away as insignificant because it

happened before Stonewall. Somehow because this movement was not mainstream
yet this excuses Abbie Hoffmans homophobia. Logically if anyone should have

embraced gay rights it should have been the perennial poster boy for the Sixties

with his extreme reverence for social and gender equality, but here Hoffman typifies

the sexist and homophobic standards of mainstream American society and culture.

In Revolution for the Hell of it Abbie Hoffman created a term, macho-feminism,

to convey his strong feelings on the topic feminism and gender equality. He defined
the idea in Revolution as equality between the sexes that should be taken and not

received. However the term, like his beliefs on the topic of gender, is confusing and

misleading. His support for the feminist movement and womans liberation is not as
strong as his macho-feminism would lead you to believe. In fact it was quite often

counterproductive to the goals of the feminist movement. Here, as with gay rights,

his old ideas of masculinity get in the way and interfere with what should be a vision
of gender equality.

Upon the completion of his famous work Steal This Book Abbie Hoffman

received a pretty decent sized paycheck. He was already a household name and this
new book was getting a lot of hype as a result. The controversy over the title was
typical of Abbie Hoffman as well. Few major publishing companies would carry a

book they thought everyone would steal and thus prevent any profit. With the help
109

Jezer, Abbie Hoffman, 128.

64

of his brother, since Abbie Hoffman was serving some time in jail, the book was
published successfully. 110 As a result he received payment in advance of its

publication and for the movie rights that had also just been optioned for his first
book, Revolution for the Hell of It.

Abbie Hoffman earned the ire of the womans movement when he very

publicly pledged the money to the support of the ninth defendant of the Chicago trial,

Bobby Seale. The Womens Movement took issue with this idea and the media
frenzy it created. Abbie Hoffman had two children from his first wife Shelia

Hoffman, Andrew and Amy. In the years since he had left that family, this in itself

was a major offense to the womans movement, he like many fathers had not made
good on the child support he was court ordered to pay. They argued that Hoffman

should be using some of this money to the support of his own children, whom their

single mother had been working to support for years while Abbie Hoffman was
playing at politics with the Yippies. 111

Abbie Hoffmans attitude towards the goals of the feminist movement are

brushed aside by biographers. Hoffman claims to support the ideas of political

equality for women, but his actions say otherwise. These sexist actions are

considered by biographers Marty Jezer and Jack Hoffman as unfounded criticisms.

They argue that, like the Gay Rights Moment, feminism had not started yet and

therefore his actions may be excused. Even more than the excuse of Stonewall

having not transpired yet this argument is not just flawed but simply false. Second
Letter from Abbie Hoffman to his brother Jack Hoffman, Hoffman Family Papers
Box 1 Folder 6b.
111 Jezer, Abbie Hoffman, 184.
110

65

Wave Feminism was most certainly in full swing by this point in the Sixties. Abbie

Hoffmans first wife Shelia Karklin had read The Feminism Mystique when they had

still lived as a couple in Worcester. She had in fact turned her strong reaction of the
book, as many had done, into a consciousness raising group that began to meet
regularly and discuss feminist issues. It was these assorted groups that would

eventually coalesce into NOW, the National Organization for Women. President

Kennedy had already reacted to the report from the presidents commission on the

status of women with Equal Pay Act. 112 In other words, to dismiss Abbie Hoffmans

actions as happening before the start of Second Wave Feminism is just plain wrong.
The movement had been around for almost a decade at this point and womans
liberation had been on the scene for over a year.

The best evidence for Abbie Hoffmans attitude, and the attitude of many

movement men, came with the creation of WITCH (Womens International Terrorist
Conspiracy from Hell). Led by women such as Robin Morgan this group was

founded by women from the Lower East Side. They were Yippies who had become
dissatisfied with the male chauvinism in Abbie Hoffman and other men in the

organization. When they began to make plans to picket the Miss America Pageant of
1968, the founding moment of womens liberation, the reaction they met was

decidedly negative. The movement had much more important things to prepare for
in Chicago, as their founder Morgan later recalled: You must be crazy, going to

demonstrate against something so irrelevant as the Miss America Pageant. 113 It

was move on little girl all over again. WITCH was in essence the female version of
112
113

Steigerwald, The Sixties, 20.

Jezer, Abbie Hoffman, 220.

66

Yippie. They formed only when it become clear that the Yippies would not support
their feminist causes and instead continue to mirror the male chauvinism of
Consensus Era America. If Abbie Hoffman and the other Yippies had truly

embraced feminism in word and deed, than the need for WITCH would not have

existed. The very fact that WITCH was created was proof that gender inequality
pervaded the Yippies.

Not only did WITCH borrow heavily from the Yippie ranks with their

founding members, but they also borrowed tactics. They did stay true to the theme

of street theater and even held their first protest at the New York Stock Exchange. 114

The public protest against Miss America and the symbolic Freedom Trash Cans,

where protestors could discard many beauty aids that were required for women but
not men, were very similar to Yippie tactics, because in this case it was the same

people, like Robin Morgan, planning them. 115 And of course the role of television

was key. The cameras were there to cover the protest. The womens liberation
movement was born. 116

Abbie Hoffman was a great activist, perhaps one of the best, and organizer of

the Sixties. In many ways he does measure up to the standard of the poster boy or

the clown prince of the time. But with gender and social equality Abbie Hoffman is a

bit more complex, just like the decade we so strongly associate with him. Later in an
interview with Marty Jezer, Abbie Hoffman would admit just how wrong his views
Steigerwald, The Sixties, 148-149.
Ibid.
116 Robin Morgan, Going to Far: The Personal Chronicle of a Feminist (New York:
Vintage Press), Three Articles on WITCH.
114
115

67

on homosexuality had been at the time. 117 Like many of the men in the New Left the
deep seated problems with sexism that pervaded the United States found their way
into these various protest movements. His various sexist and homophobic
comments and actions exclude him from one of the greatest areas of

accomplishment at this time. Abbie Hoffman embodied the Sixties with his actions

in promoting democracy, working to save the Earth and wide open lifestyles, but not
with social equality. The truth is often far more complex in history than the

textbooks or a quick examination will reveal. However the image of him as divisive

in society is actually false. He always tried to bring people together, even the police,
into a better world.

In order to win the government support and showcase the grassroots

opposition to the Saint Lawrence River Abbie Hoffman, as Barry Freed, had invited

many prominent politicians from Albany to the final meeting to end the project and
see a final victory for the Save the River Campaign. Senator Daniel Patrick

Moynihan was present and quite impressed with the activism and organization that
this Barry Freed had accomplished to get this far. When the victory was declared

and the project clearly dead the Senator approached the activist and thanked him,

remarking quietly to Abbie Hoffman in disguise, Now I know where the Sixties have
gone. 118
117

Jezer, Abbie Hoffman, 226.

Hoffman, The Best of Abbie Hoffman, 357. + picture taken from: Photo of Barry
Freed (Abbie Hoffman) and Senator Moynihan, Hoffman Family Papers Box 16,
Folder 284.
118

68

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