Flower Power - Movement

Movement

"The cry of 'Flower Power' echoes through the land. We shall not wilt. Let a thousand flowers bloom."

By late 1966, the Flower Power method of guerilla theater had spread from California to other parts of the United States. The Bread and Puppet Theater in New York City staged numerous protests which included handing out balloons and flowers with their anti-war literature. Workshop in Nonviolence (WIN), a magazine published by New York activists, encouraged the use of Flower Power. In May 1967, Abbie Hoffman organized the Flower Brigade as an official contingent of a New York City parade honoring the soldiers in Vietnam. News coverage captured Flower Brigade participants, who carried flowers, flags and pink posters imprinted with LOVE, being attacked and beaten by bystanders. In response to the violence, Hoffman wrote in WIN magazine, "Plans are being made to mine the East River with daffodils. Dandelion chains are being wrapped around induction centers.... The cry of 'Flower Power' echoes through the land. We shall not wilt."

On the following Sunday in May 1967, WIN activists declared the Armed Forces Day as "Flower Power Day" and held a rally in Central Park to counter the traditional parade. Turnout was low and, according to Hoffman, the rally was ineffective because guerilla theater needed to be more confrontational.

In October 1967, Hoffman and Jerry Rubin helped organize the March on the Pentagon using Flower Power concepts to create a theatrical spectacle. The idea included a call for marchers to attempt to levitate the Pentagon. When the marchers faced off against more than 2500 Army national guard troops forming a human barricade in front of the Pentagon, demonstrators held flowers and some placed flowers in the soldier's rifle barrels.

Photographs of flower-wielding protesters at the Pentagon March became seminal images of the 1960s anti-war protests. An image by French photojournalist Marc Riboud that was printed throughout the world was of seventeen-year-old high school student Jan Rose Kasmir clasping a daisy and gazing at bayonet-wielding soldiers. Smithsonian Magazine later called it "a gauzy juxtaposition of armed force and flower child innocence".

One photo, titled Flower Power by Washington Star photographer Bernie Boston, was nominated for the 1967 Pulitzer Prize. Taken on October 21, 1967, the photo shows a young, long-haired man in a turtleneck sweater, placing carnations into the rifle barrels of military policemen. (The young man in the photo was not named by Boston and his identity is disputed. He was most commonly identified as George Edgerly Harris III, an 18-year-old actor from New York who later performed in San Francisco under the stage name of Hibiscus. The young man also has been identified by Paul Krassner as Youth International Party organizer, "Super-Joel" Tornabene.)