Flower Power
On October 21, 1967, 75,000 anti-war protesters surrounded the Pentagon in Washington D.C.. On that day, Bowen organized 200 lbs. of daisies, purchased by his New York friend Peggy Hitchcock, (the wife of Walter Bowart), to be dropped from a light aircraft onto the Pentagon, but the FBI heard of the plan and seized the aircraft, so the flowers were distributed to the protesters as the Military Police protected the Pentagon from the massive anti Vietnam War demonstration. The daisies, brought to the front lines of the tense confrontation by Bowen and others, were taken by the demonstrators and put into the nearest holder that symbolically communicated their anti-war sentiment. The iconic photograph "Flower Power", taken by photojournalist Bernie Boston, of the daisies being put into the bayoneted gun barrels of the soldiers by the unarmed anti-war demonstrators, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1968. The photograph "flower power" is listed as #30 amongst the top 100 wartime photographs and the idealism of flower power remains as an anti-war symbol.
Read more about this topic: Michael Bowen (artist)
Famous quotes containing the words flower and/or power:
“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.”
—Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986)
“If Paris lived now, and preferred beauty to power and riches, it would not be called his Judgment, but his Want of Judgment.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)