Abbie Hoffman
Overview
Abbie Hoffman was an anti-war negative peacemaker around the time of the Vietnam War. Hoffman used his theatrical and political skills to inform the public of the problems involving the violence in America, as well as to intimidate government officials. Although his protests may have been different and crude, his protests drew attention and made a significant impact on the size of the anti-Vietnam War movement.
Anti-War Movement
Hoffman was born into a Jewish middle class family in Massachusetts in 1936. As a young adult he became a part of many different peace movement groups, even working to start a NAACP chapter in his hometown in 1963 (Fellner 2). As his life progressed, Hoffman decided to band together with some of his close friends including Jerry Rubin to form a radical peace group called the Yippies. Their protests were dramatic and theatrical. One of these protests took place on Labor Day in 1969. Hoffman stated that hundreds of Americans would kill themselves in their cars in protest of the war in Vietnam. (Wiener 194).
Hoffman’s most notorious protest with the group took place in 1968 during the Chicago Democratic Convention. The Yippes, along with other anti-war groups, used the media to spread rumours about Chicago’s water being laced with LSD. The police were called and arrests were made, forcing the groups to stand trial. The trial, titled the Chicago Seven, went on for 5 months. 5 out of 7 of the men standing trial were sentenced to prison time, however their sentence was overturned by an appeal court. Shortly after this, Hoffman went underground (Fellner 2).
During this time, Hoffman worked on his writing under the pseudonym Barry Freed. Throughout his time as an activist, Hoffman wrote books including Revolution for the Hell of It and Steal This Book, which many of his readers actually took seriously and lead to a majority of the copies being stolen.
View of Peace
Hoffman’s way of trying to invoke peace seems rather ironic. Some of his more well-known protests seem like they would cause more concern than not, but they were enough to catch the attention of the public which was his goal. Because he was putting on stunt events that caught the attention of police and journalists, more people would see the actions. People who saw the protests were more likely to do their research and try to see if the war was really positive for Americans or not.
Hoffman’s argument about peace centered around making the world more equal and tranquil for all. At a speech given in 1988 at Rutgers University, Hoffman spoke to student about how they could be activists as young people. He encouraged students by saying the following:
“Things are so deteriorated in this society that it’s not up to you to destroy America, it’s up to you to go out and save America...I have never in my life done anything for the media...but my words are not for this goddam microphone.”
This quote shows that Hoffman was more than just a stuntman. Hoffman wanted to encourage people to evaluate how their world was working and how it was being run. In his speech to the students, Hoffman wasn’t encouraging them to do anything out of the ordinary, but simply to use their resources and voices to spread their ideas of peace the best that they could.
