The focus in the reading selections this week was on the Free Speech Movement’s various forms of protest and resistance, and I found it to be quite fascinating. It seems there may be an unconscious supposition that the Hippies were unorganized, living in the moment and simply letting things happen as they may, but the disproof of that idea is clear in the flyers, pamphlets, posters, and memoirs that emerged from around Berkeley during this era.
David Lance Goines is (again) my favorite author from this section, as he tells the story of participating in the Sproul Hall protest and subsequently being arrested. His sense of humor is evident in abundance, even as he is questioned by the arresting officer: “’Name?’ ‘David Goines.’ ‘Race?’ ‘Human.’” You simply have to admire gumption like his! Before his arrest, though, we get the first hints of the organization and thoughtful planning behind the protest, all the way down to how to react as you’re being arrested. Goines describes the instructions shouted out among the protesters as the police arrive: “Don’t link arms; go limp and make them carry you. Do NOT resist in any way. . . . Take off your buttons, the sharp pins could stick you. . . . If you see any instances of brutality, get the officer’s badge number.” These students knew the situation they were in, knew how the police would respond, and knew their rights, and they planned accordingly. This strikes me as a much more sophisticated form of protest and resistance than we may generally associate with the Hippie movements.
Reading further, I began to understand how these instructions were spread in the first place. Flyers such as “The Rules of the Game . . . When You’re Busted,” which were distributed “on the streets of Berkeley during the FSM demonstrations,” are amazingly explicit in what you can and cannot do when being stopped, searched, or arrested – even going so far as to quote the specific statutes that apply to each situation. Apparently, being a free spirit doesn’t stop one from doing a little homework! The other flyer, “Wanted: Hip Cops,” is equally fantastic. The idea of “recruiting” among the Hippies themselves to apply for positions in the police force is interesting – and perfect for this country. As Gandhi said, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
The next document to provide instructions for resistance comes from Allen Ginsberg himself, in his essay in the Berkeley Barb on how to plan and execute a successful, peaceful demonstration. The famous Beat had plenty of ideas and some fascinating theories, proving that he truly thought the situation through. He suggests everything from bringing “masses of flowers – a visual spectacle” to bringing crosses “held up in front of violence . . . like in the movies dealing with Dracula.” He also puts forth ideas on what to do “in case of heavy anxiety, confusion, or struggle,” including “sit down,” or “intone . . . the Lord’s Prayer [or] Om.” He even suggests carrying “copies of the Constitution,” “little paper halos to offer [Hell’s] Angels [and] police,” and, of course, “movie cameras,” which he notes, “could be used in court in case of legal hassles later.” Finally, he proposes that flyers with these instructions be handed out before marches and protests – which, it appears, they were. Clearly, the Free Speech demonstrations held around Berkeley were well planned, meticulously prepared for, and anything but a random gathering of half-aware Hippies.
Ginsberg mentioned the Hell’s Angels in his essay, and they have also been described in various other readings throughout this course, including the next selection by Hunter Thompson. Thompson explains how the Angels were so intimately connected to the Hippies, and how dangerously delicate that connection truly was. Before taking this course, I had never realized what a huge influence the Hell’s Angels had during this era; when I thought of California Hippies, I didn’t associate the Angels into that mix. However, they seem to have had a great impact on many of the major events occurring in the Bay Area at the time. This seemed strange to me at first, since the Angels often brought violence and right-wing patriotism with them, but the connection is somewhat clarified in reading Thompson’s narrative. If the Angels and the Hippies had anything in common, it was their shared disdain for authority: as Thompson put it, “the Angels had a reputation for defying police, for successfully bucking authority, and to the frustrated student radical this was a powerful image indeed. . . . The Angels’ aggressive, antisocial stance – their alienation, as it were – had a tremendous appeal.”
Of course, it seems inevitable that the very aggression that appealed to the Hippies would eventually divide the two groups. The real crossroads, it turns out, was their respective stances on the Vietnam War. Thompson describes a brutal clash at an anti-Vietnam demonstration where the Angels turned against the Hippies, calling them “Traitors” and “Communists.” “When push came to shove,” Thompson writes, “the Hell’s Angels lined up solidly with the cops.” I suppose this lesson had to arrive at some point: not all who protest against the status quo are looking for the same utopia on the other side of the revolution.
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