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Yippie High-Yay!

Occasionally referred to as “Groucho Marxists,” the Youth International Party (aka the Yippies) were a radical leftist group from the 1960s that used absurd, satirical stunts to make their political points. Among the many counterculture luminaries involved with the Yippies over the years is Dana Beal, a man who was personally recruited by founder Abbie Hoffman and ended up succeeding him as the group’s leader.

AN ACTIVIST IS BORN

Growing up in Lansing, Michigan, Beal displayed a passion for social justice from an early age. In August 1963, at the age of 16, he COURTESY DANA BEAL hitchhiked to Washington D.C. to attend Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Two months later he organized his first demonstration against the Ku Klux Klan back in Lansing.

At age 17, Beal managed to avoid the Vietnam draft by getting himself committed to a psych ward, then went AWOL and took off for New York City.

Once there, he quickly established himself in the Lower East Side activist scene. During the Grateful Dead’s first-ever New York concert in Tompkins Square Park on June 1, 1967, Beal organized the first of many “smoke-in” protests – blazing out the 3,000+ crowd.

That August, Beal was busted for selling LSD to a narc, prompting a series of protest marches on his behalf. His support in the community was so impressive that it attracted the attention of another prominent activist by the name of Abbie Hoffman.

Dana Beal (with arm on speaker) leads a Yippie rally at the White House (1977).

FROM HIPPIE TO YIPPIE Both Jewish, anti-war activists, Hoffman and Rubin met in 1967 in New York while planning an upcoming demonstration in Washington and immediately hit it off. On August 24, 1967, they pulled off their first major media stunt: From the visitor’s gallery at the New York Stock Exchange, they threw out handfuls of one dollar bills onto the exchange floor – Young Dana freed interrupting trading and eliciting both cheers after LSD arrest. and curses from the brokers below. On October 21, Hoffman and Rubin invited Beal and his crew down to D.C. to attend a massive anti-war demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial. Hoffman then led half the crowd across the Potomac, where they encircled the Pentagon and began singing and chanting in a supposed attempt to “levitate” the building. Naturally, the building never moved, but the group had found their purpose.

It wasn’t until three months later – while tripping in Abbie’s apartment on New Year’s Eve – that they found a name for their merry band of miscreants when friend Paul Krassner spontaneously shouted out “Yippie!” and they instantly identified with the exuberant exclamation (later elaborated to Youth International Party).

On January 16, 1968, the Yippies published a manifesto – inviting activists across America to a massive protest outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that August. Dubbed the “Festival of Life,” it was a mock

convention held in Grant Park. Skirmishes between police and the nearly 10,000 protestors that week soon escalated to riots. Weeks later, Mayor Daley issued a report blaming the violence on “outside agitators,” and on March 20, 1969, a grand jury indicted eight of those agitators. Among these “Chicago Eight” (later changed to the “Chicago Seven” after Black Panther Bobby Seale’s mistrial) were Rubin and Hoffman. The trial was a national media circus – providing the Yippie leaders a perfect platform for their political theater. On February 18, 1970, both Rubin and Hoffman were convicted of inciting a riot and sentenced to five years in prison (their conviction was ultimately overturned in November 1972).

Beal, who was unable to attend the event, stepped in as the group’s de facto leader in their absence. And on July 4, 1970, when President Nixon threw an “Honor America Day” rally at the Lincoln Memorial, Beal organized a Yippie counter-rally at the Washington Monument to shout it down.

When NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani attempted to kill the protest using police intimidation in 1998, Beal reached out to international allies and rebranded the NYC Pot Parade into the worldwide Million Marijuana March. Within just a few years, the event had expanded to over 300 cities around the world.

TOM FORCADE

Another influential Yippie leader was Tom Forcade – a former Air Guardsman turned weed smuggler from Phoenix who connected with them after moving to New York in July 1969 to run the Underground Press Syndicate. Forcade’s moment in the spotlight came on May 13, 1970, when – after testifying at the US Senate’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography dressed as a preacher – he shoved a cream pie into the face of a committee member. After that, “pieing” became a signature Yippie tactic (Yippie Aron “Pie Man” Kay continued pieing controversial figures for many years). Unfortunately, Forcade and Hoffman never saw eye to eye. Forcade allegedly felt that Hoffman and Rubin were “burned THE ASSOCIATED PRESS out” after their trial, and that they were selling out by Tom Forcade (left) and Abbie Hoffman Poster for 1973 “May Day” Smoke-In in NYC.abandoning their more radical tactics and endorsing a candidate (George McGovern). (right) in “Movement Court.”

Their rift came to a head over payments regarding accusations and essentially resigning from the Yippies. With Rubin Hoffman’s “Steal This Book,” which Forcade had and Hoffman gone, Forcade’s faction took control. But by that time, worked on. A counterculture “Movement Court” was Forcade had more pressing issues to deal with: namely, the new convened to settle their dispute, but ultimately neither magazine he’d launched called High Times. Tragically though, just party accepted the verdict: Forcade refused to shake four years later on November 19, 1978, Forcade committed suicide Hoffman’s hand, and Hoffman never paid Forcade – leaving Beal as the Yippies’ last leader standing. the agreed amount. In the decades to come, Beal continued to hold the annual Yippie

The schism grew so severe that in Janu- smoke-ins in Washington and New York. And when New York ary 1972, Forcade formed his own group, City Mayor Rudy Giuliani attempted to kill the protest using the “Zippies” (Zeitgeist International Party). police intimidation in 1998, Beal reached out to international Caught between the two factions, Beal sided In the decades allies and rebranded the NYC Pot Parade into the worldwide with Forcade and became a Zippie. Feeling betrayed, Hoffman and Rubin attacked Forcade – publicly accusing him of working with to come, Beal continued to Million Marijuana March. Within just a few years, the event had expanded to over 300 cities around the world. the police. Tensions quickly led to threats hold the annual DENOUEMENT and incidents of violence, including an assault on Rubin by one of Forcade’s goons. Yippie smoke-ins in Washington Abbie Hoffman finally resurfaced in 1980 – but sadly, like Forcade, he also committed suicide in 1989. Jerry Rubin sold out and became a Yuppie before being killed by a car on the streets of L.A. in 1994. Krassner died of natural TRANSFORMATION, TRAGEDY AND TRANSCENDENCE and New York. causes in 2019 at the age of 87. Thankfully, Kay and Beal are all still alive and kicking.

In October 1972, Beal launched his underground news- In the past decade, Beal has been arrested for trafficking marijuana four times—though paper the Yipster Times. A few months later, Beal moved only one charge stuck. In September 2011, while in police custody in Wisconsin, he sufinto the three-story building at 9 Bleeker Street that would fered a heart attack and died for three and a half minutes before being revived. Tragically, become his home – and Yippie headquarters – for the next during his incarceration in 2013, the Yippie Museum was closed, and in 2014, 9 Bleeker four decades (eventually opening its doors to the public as was foreclosed on and sold. Nevertheless, Beal remains defiantly hopeful – looking forward the Yippie Café & Museum). to finally seeing the end of America’s pot prohibition, which he insists is imminent.

In spring 1974, Hoffman skipped bail on a cocaine charge “The War on Drugs is just no longer at the top of the list of things to deal with in this and went into hiding. Months later, Rubin issued an apolo- country,” he said. “It’s impossible to go to jail for pot anymore – they just take the weed gy to Forcade in the Village Voice, disavowing his previous and let you go. That’s how I know legalization is actually coming.”