Youth International Party

The Youth International Party, whose members were commonly called Yippies, was a radically youth-oriented and countercultural revolutionary offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the 1960s. It was founded on Dec. 31, 1967. They employed theatrical gestures, such as advancing a pig ("Pigasus the Immortal") as a candidate for President in 1968, to mock the social status quo. They have been described as a highly theatrical, anti-authoritarian and anarchist youth movement of "symbolic politics".

Since they were well known for street theater and politically themed pranks, many of the "old school" political left either ignored or denounced them. According to ABC News, "The group was known for street theater pranks and was once referred to as the 'Groucho Marxists'."

Read more about Youth International Party:  Background, The New Nation Concept, Culture and Activism, Chicago '68, The Yippie Movement, Writings, In The 2000s, Yippie Museum/CafĂ©

Famous quotes containing the words youth and/or party:

    Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet’s job. The rest is literature.
    Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)

    A peace is of the nature of a conquest,
    For then both parties nobly are subdued,
    And neither party loser.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)