Yippies,Abbie+Hoffman,and+Jerry+Rubin

by, Drew Colletti The Youth International Party (Yippies) was founded by Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Paul Krassner, and Dick Gregory. It was founded in Hoffman’s apartment during a New Years Eve party. It was named the Youth International Party after Krassner, the editor of an underground paper, __The Realist__.

On March 22,1968, was the first "Yip-In". Over six thousand young people attended. They attempted vandalism, the hanging of anti-war banners, and chanting slogans. It was called a police riot because of the violence that the Yippies displayed toward the police, so the police had to fight back.

On August 25,1968, five thousand protestors attended on the streets, out of ten thousand elsewhere in the city. Police refused to allow a concert truck into Lincoln Park. The Yippies did not enjoy this idea, so they started to riot against the police. The Police moved against the protestors and caused injuries to an estimated 1,000 people.

The election of 1968, the Yippies nominated Pigasus, a nock-off of Pegasus, for President of the United States. The Yippies idea was to have some fun, and also to show how ineffectual the government could be. After Pigasus was "arrested", so was Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden, John Froines, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale. They became known as the Chicago Eight, until Bobby Seale was sentenced to four years in prison. Thus, they became the Chicago Seven.

Abbie Hoffman was born on November 30,1936, in Worcestor, Massachusetts. He had been a troublemaker since his childhood, and throughout high school, and college. Even though his trouble through high school, he still received a degree in psychology from Brandeis University. After college he worked as a salesman, before he started protesting. His first big protest was that in 1967, he spoofed Wall Street by sprinkling dollar bills all over the New York Stock Exchange floor. After that he had 300 people circle the pentagon to try and make it float. After the 1968 Pigasus event, he was arrested and put in the Chicago Seven trial. In the 1980s he made his living as a guest speaker at universities. He was arrested again in 1987 along with Amy Carter for protesting the presence of CIA recruiters at the Institute of Technology. After that he wrote several books including, __Steal This Book, Soon to be a Major Motion Picture,__ and __This Urine Test__. In __Steal This Book__, he coined the phrase, “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” Sadly he was 52 at his death He committed suicide by swallowing 150 Phenobarbital bills.

Jerry Rubin was born on July 14, 1938, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He attended Oberlin College, and graduated from the University of California. He studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem before attending the University in Jerusalem. He gained his fame from his anti Vietnam War protests during the 1968 Democratic national convention, and the Chicago Seven trial. In the 1970s he moved away from politics and turned his attention to the human-potential movement. In the 1980s he organized network seminars in New York for young Wall Street professionals. He and Abbie Hoffman engaged in a series of “Yippie Versus Yuppie” debates. In 1991 he made a nutritional drink that contained bee pollen and ginseng. He died of a heart attack two weeks after he was hit by a car.