Return
of the Yip pie ...
"Yip-Yip
Yippie!," Abbie said, and he and the others, using
Yip as their mantra, came up with the Youth International
Party.
The
Yippie Museum
Cafe and Gift Shop
9
Bleecker Street
Greenwich Village, NYC
Phone: 212-677-5918
yippiemuseum.org
Abbie
Hoffman used to say, "A Yippie is a hippie who's
been beaten up by the cops."
The Youth International Party began at a fueled New Years
Eve party at Abbie's place in the East Village.
They tossed money at the Stock Exchange, tried
to levitate the Pentagon and held a Festival of Life in
Chicago to protest a political convention in 1968. The
ensuing police riot and conspiracy trial catapulted Abbie
Hoffman and Jerry Rubin into the daily headline for years.
The
Yippies persisted through the 1970s and 80s though Abbie
and Jerry followed other pursuits. (Abbie went underground;
Jerry went Wall Street). They protested at political conventions,
marched against Reagan's secret wars, and ran Rock against
Racism concerts. The Supreme Court flag-burning case began
at a Yippie organized march. A hard-core of Yippie activists
continue to this day, working on law reform and protesting
the wars of the 21st Century.
The Yippie
Museum and Cafe opened in January 2007, with revolutionary
poet and counterculture icon John Sinclair and friends playing
music and reading their work. Dedicated to the history of
the Yippies - the Youth International Party - and the political
counterculture, the museum and cafe is open to the public
and hosts book parties, poetry readings, film festivals,
and video screenings and has live music - jazz, folk, blues
- on weekends (available for private parties).
