Abbie Hoffman - Biography, Personal life, Quotes, Bibliography, Discography
Radical activist and writer, born in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. After graduating from Brandeis University (1959), he joined civil-rights workers in the South before returning to Worcester to work as a salesman for a pharmaceutical company. He cut his teeth as an activist in Worcester (c.19606), where he especially assisted minority youth. Moving to New York City (1963), he ran a theatre and helped organize hippies in the East Village. He came to national prominence as a Yippie leader during the violent anti-war demonstrations (days of rage) in Chicago (1968) and the much-publicized Chicago Seven trial (1969). Arrested for possession of cocaine (1973), he went underground (1974) and assumed the name Barry Freed in Fineview, NY, where he worked on environmental concerns. Resurfacing on the television show 20/20 (1980), he surrendered to authorities and spent less than a year in prison. Among his several books are Steal this Book and Revolution for the Hell of It. His last public demonstration (1986) was in support of an anti-Central Intelligence Agency protest at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, along with President Jimmy Carter's daughter, Amy Carter. Evidently in a bout of depression, he committed suicide. A biography, Run, Run, Run: The Lives of Abbie Hoffman written by his brother Jack Hoffman, appeared in 1994.
| Abbie Hoffman | |
|---|---|
| Abbie Hoffman, photographed by Fred W. McDarrah in New York City, in 1970, | |
| Born |
November 30, 1936 Worcester, Massachusetts |
| Died |
April 12, 1989 New Hope, Pennsylvania |
Abbott Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was a social and political activist in the United States, co-founder of the Youth International Party ("Yippies"), and later, a fugitive from the law, who lived under an alias following a conviction for dealing cocaine.
Hoffman came to prominence in the 1960s, but practiced most of his activism in the 1970s, and has remained a symbol of the youth rebellion of that decade.
Biography
Hoffman was born into a Jewish family in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he attended Worcester Academy and graduated in 1955.
Prior to his days as a leading member of the Yippie movement, Hoffman was involved with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and organized "Liberty House", which sold items to support the Civil Rights Movement in the southern United States.
One of Hoffman's protests was on August 24, 1967;
Hoffman was arrested for conspiracy and inciting to riot as a result of his role in protests that led to violent confrontations with police during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Presided over by Judge Julius Hoffman (no relation to Abbie, which Abbie joked about throughout the trial), Abbie Hoffman's courtroom antics frequently grabbed the headlines; one day, defendants Hoffman and Rubin appeared in court dressed in judicial robes, while on another day, Hoffman was sworn in as a witness with his hand giving the finger.
At Woodstock in 1969, Hoffman interrupted The Who's performance to attempt a protest speech against the jailing of John Sinclair of the White Panther Party. The audio of this event can be heard on the The Who's box set,Thirty Years of Maximum R&B (Disc 2, Track 20, "Abbie Hoffman Incident").
According to Hoffman, in his autobiography, the incident played out like this:
In "Woodstock Nation", Hoffman mentions the incident, and mentioning that he was high on LSD at the time.
In 1970, Hoffman published Steal This Book, which advised the readers on how to basically live for free.
Hoffman was arrested in 1973 on drug charges for intent to sell and distribute cocaine.
In November 1986 Hoffman was arrested along with eleven others, including Amy Carter, the daughter of former President Jimmy Carter, for trespassing at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
In three days of testimony, more than a dozen defense witnesses, including Daniel Ellsberg, Ramsey Clark and former Contra leader Edgar Chamorro, described the CIA's role in more than two decades of dirty tricks, broken promises, illegal and often violent activities.
As Hoffman concluded: "Thomas Paine was talking about this spring day in this courtroom.
After effectively defeating the CIA in a public courtroom, Hoffman prepared for a cameo appearance in Oliver Stone's anti-Vietnam War movie, Born on the Fourth of July.
The movie was released on December 20, 1989, more than eight months after Hoffman's purported suicide on April 12, 1989.
He regularly lectured audiences about the CIA's covert activities, including assassinations disguised as suicides.
A week after Hoffman's death, a thousand friends and relatives gathered for a memorial in Worcester, Massachusetts at the temple he had attended as a child. Two of his colleagues from the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial were there, including David Dellinger and Jerry Rubin, Hoffman's co-founder of the Yippies, by then a businessman and entrepreneur.
As the New York Times reported: "Indeed, most of the mourners who attended the formal memorial at Temple Emanuel here were more yuppie than yippie and there were more rep ties than ripped jeans among the crowd.
"Bill Walton, the radical Celtic of basketball renown, told of a puckish Abbie, then underground evading a cocaine charge in the 70's, leaping from the shadows on a New York street to give him an impromptu basketball lesson after a loss to the Knicks. Justice was a fugitive from him."
"On a more traditional note, Rabbi Norman Mendell said in his eulogy that Mr. Hoffman's long history of protest, antic though much of it had been, was in the Jewish prophetic tradition, which is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."
Hoffman was only 52 at the time of his death, which was caused by somehow swallowing 150 Phenobarbital pills.
As reported by the New York Times, "Among the more vocal doubters at the service today was Mr. Dillinger, who said, "I don't believe for one moment the suicide thing." He said he had been in fairly frequent touch with Mr. Hoffman, who had "numerous plans for the future."
Hoffman's drug infused body had been found in his apartment in a converted turkey coop on Sugan Road in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
Hoffman died only three days before he was scheduled to celebrate the two year anniversary of his courtroom victory over the CIA, and less than three months into the presidency of George H.W.
His life was dramatized in the 2000 film Steal This Movie, in which he was portrayed by Vincent D'Onofrio.
He was portrayed (by Richard D'Alessandro) in the anti-war protest rally scene at the Washington Monument in the 1994 movie Forrest Gump.
Personal life
He was a graduate of Brandeis University where he studied under Herbert Marcuse, a leading Marxist Critical Theorist associated with the Frankfurt School.
In 1967, Hoffman married Anita Kushner.
Quotes
"Avoid all needle drugs. The only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon." -- Steal This Book
(On the popularity of his book Steal This Book) "It's embarrassing when you try to overthrow the government and you wind up on the best seller's list."
"A modern revolutionary group heads for the television station."
"The first duty of a revolutionist is to get away with it. I ain't going." -- in Chicago, while eating bacon and eggs in a coffee shop, to officers arresting him
"I was probably the only revolutionary referred to as 'cute'."
"Free speech means the right to shout 'theatre' in a crowded fire."
"The '60s are gone, dope will never be as cheap, sex never as free, and the rock and roll never as great."
"I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars."
“America is the land of the free. Free means you don't pay.” (From his book Revolution for the Hell of It.)
“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” (From his book Revolution for the Hell of It.)
"You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists."
“Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.”
"I don't think my goals have changed since I was four and I fought schoolyard bullies."
"Political Pigs, your days are numbered. Hell, we couldn't agree on lunch." -Abbie during the Chicago 7 Trial
(To Judge Julius Hoffman during the Chicago 7 trial, in Yiddish): [You are] "a shandeh far di goyim." (a disgrace, shame, embarrassment, in front of the gentiles)
User Comments Add a comment…