Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (30 November 1936-12 April 1989) was an American political activist, the co-founder of the Youth International Party, and a member of the "Chicago Seven".
Biography[]
Abbot Howard Hoffman was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1936, and he was raised in a middle-class Jewish household. He became known as a troublemaker during his student days, and he was expelled from the Classical High School for writing a paper declaring that God did not exist, as proven by the presence of suffering in the world. He graduated from the Worcester Academy in 1955, and he was involved in the greaser subculture during the late 1950s before becoming a student of the Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse. He graduated from Brandeis University in 1959 and studied for his master's degree at the University of California, Berkeley. Hoffman became involved with the SNCC during the early 1960s, and he sold items to support the Civil Rights movement in the American South, while also using comical and theatrical tactics to resist the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War. He befriended pacifist David Dellinger while taking part in anti-Vietnam War protests, and they took part in a march on the Pentagon in October 1967. Hoffman and fellow hippie Jerry Rubin went on to cofound the Youth International Party, a joke political party meant to satirize the American political system and bring together disaffected youths. His participation in the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests led to Hoffman, along with Rubin and five other protesters, being tried for conspiracy to cross state lines and incite a riot, but their charges were eventually overturned on appeal. In 1971, he published Steal This Book, which advised readers on how to live for free. He was arrested on 28 August 1973 for intent to sell and distribute cocaine, and he skipped bail in 1974 and lived in Fineview, New York under the alias of "Barry Freed". He surrendered to authorities on 4 September 1980, and he was released after four months. In November 1986, he was arrested while protesting the CIA's recruitment on UMass Amherst's campus, but he was found not guilty after bringing in several witnesses, including Daniel Ellsberg, to testify to the CIA's role in covert, illegal, and violent activities. He regularly lectured about the CIA's covert activities, including assassinations disguised as suicides. Hoffman suffered from depression throughout the 1980s, partly because of his unhappiness about reaching middle age, the conservative backlash of the 1980s, his sadness about the youth's lack of interest in social justice activism, and his mother's cancer diagnosis. On 12 April 1989, he committed suicide via barbiturate overdose.