- 1964: Lowell Eggemeier stages the first marijuana protest by lighting a joint in the San Francisco Hall of Justice
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History of decriminalization
Supporters of reform begin to organize (1964)
The movement to legalize cannabis in the U.S. was sparked by the 1964 arrest of Lowell Eggemeier, a San Francisco man who walked into the city's Hall of Justice and lit up a joint, requesting to be arrested. As it was a felony to use cannabis in California, Eggemeier was quickly hauled off to prison, where he was held for close to a year. Eggemeier was defended by attorney James R. White, who had never worked on a drug case before nor was he much familiar with cannabis, but took interest in the matter as a devoted civil libertarian (describing himself as "to the right of Barry Goldwater"). While researching the case, White became a strong proponent for the legalization of cannabis, and went on to found LEMAR (shortened version of LEgalize MARijuana) in December 1964. LEMAR was the first organization in the U.S. dedicated to ending cannabis prohibition.
(https://en.wikipedia.org)
NEWS 50th Anniversary of First Pot Protest – August 16, 2014
SEATTLE – When thousands assemble to celebrate Hempfest in Seattle this weekend, Saturday will mark the 50th anniversary of the first marijuana freedom protest.
On August 16, 1964, a lone crusader named Lowell Eggemeier marched into the San Francisco Hall of Justice, fired up a joint, and puffed it in the presence of the police inspector. “I am starting a campaign to legalize marijuana smoking,” he announced, “I wish to be arrested.” He was promptly hauled off to jail for marijuana possession, at that time a felony.
Eggemeier’s solitary “puff-in” proved to be the spark for a movement that would grow over the next half century. His protest attracted the attention of a libertarian attorney named James R. White III , who described himself as “to the right of Barry Goldwater.” White filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus for Eggemeier’s release to the California Superme Court. He also organized the original marijuana reform advocacy group, LeMar (Legalize Marijuana), to support Eggemeier’s defense.
(https://www.canorml.org)
Inevitably, the mounting arrests led to the first stirrings of protest and political action. As best as anyone can say, the American legalization movement began on August 16, 1964, when a young man walked into a San Francisco police station, lit a joint, and asked to be arrested. His lawyer was an ultraconservative civil libertarian named James R. White III, who proceeded to form LeMar (for Legalize Marijuana), which sponsored the first marijuana-law-reform demonstrations in America in San Francisco's Union Square in December of that year.
(High in America By Patrick Anderson)
AUGUST 16, 1964, was a quiet Sunday in San Francisco. The Giants were set to play the Milwaukee Braves in Candlestick Park that afternoon, while the city prepared to host the Beatles, scheduled to arrive two days later for the start of their first North American tour. Occupied by the arrival of the Fab Four, the police were taken by surprise when twenty-eight-year-old Lowell Eggemeier walked into the city's Hall of Justice, lit up a joint, and politely asked to be arrested for smoking pot. "I am starting a campaign to legalize marijuana smoking," he told the stunned cops who watched him take a drag. "I wish to be arrested." At the time, it was a felony to smoke marijuana in California, and Eggemeier was quickly hauled off to jail.' Beyond this initial act, not much is known about Eggemeier, the nation's first grassroots marijuana activist. Reports have called him a peacenik and a hippie, but "hippie" was a loosely formed idea in 1964, one year before thousands of sandal- and bead-wearing youth would descend upon the Haight-Ashbury district and Golden Gate Park. And Eggemeier, a lifelong Californian who wore his hair short and preferred to wear T-shirts and jeans, was not a typical counterculture activist. A quiet, bearded man who enjoyed spending time with his dogs, Eggemeier didn't realize that his time in the San Francisco Hall of Justice would launch a revolution that would last fifty more years. After serving nearly a year in prison for his act, he returned to his quiet life, abandoning any association with marijuana activism or the people who would continue to fight for his cause. But for the thousands of young people who followed in Eggemeier's footsteps, the battle for legalization had only begun. Eggemeier's action coincided with the rise of a national counterculture, when young people abandoned en masse the strictures and constraints of modem American life and sought to create a new, bohemian approach to living that emphasized peace, creativity, and a willingness to experiment with mind-altering drugs. The hippies who gathered in San Francisco shortly after Eggemeier's arrest were emblematic of this shift, and when Eggemeier's lawyer unearthed old government reports that lauded marijuana's beneficial effects, the hippies were quick to accept his claims. For the thousands of people experimenting with the drug, knowing that the government had once recognized marijuana's benefits—even if reports on those benefits were over fifty years old—made the contemporary antidrug laws seem like a hoax, and the rising arrest rates an attack on personal freedom.
(Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America By Emily Dufton)
- 1964: Peter, Paul And Mary release the single for "If I Had A Hammer (The Hammer Song)"
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"If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)" is a song written by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays. It was written in 1949 in support of the progressive movement, and was first recorded by The Weavers, a folk music quartet composed of Seeger, Hays, Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman, and then by Peter, Paul and Mary.
Early versions
The song was not particularly successful when it was first released, likely due in part to the political climate of the time.[citation needed] It fared notably better when it was recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary more than a decade later. Their cover of the song, released in August 1962, became a Top 10 hit.
Legacy
The song "If I Had a Hammer" was a Civil Rights anthem of the American Civil Rights movement.
It also was a common selection for "folk masses" in Roman Catholic Churches.[citation needed]
Wikileaks has chosen it as their "Wikileaks song".
(https://en.wikipedia.org)
[1985:] [Detailed story of Peekskill incident (see below, 1989) cf. Dunaway, Seeger 18ff.]
[The right-wing magazine] 'Counterattack' and the FBI succeeded in blacklisting the Weavers, but If I Had A Hammer was unconquerable. The song had a specific radical message in 1952; when Seeger suggested the Weavers perform it on bookings, one of them answered, "Oh no. We can't get away with anything like that."
"Why was it controversial?" Pete reflected. "In 1949 only 'Commies' used words like 'peace' and 'freedom'. ... The message was that we have got tools and that we are going to succeed. This is what a lot of spirituals say. We will overcome. I have a hammer. [...] No one could take these away." The Weavers never had the opportunity to make a hit of this - that honor fell to Peter, Paul and Mary - but they had the satisfaction of seeing that no edict and no committee could kill [the] song. (Dunaway, Seeger 157)
[1989:] It was becoming dangerous to be a performer if you were suspected of having left-wing views, and the following year Seeger and [Paul] Robeson faced their most dangerous concert of all. The venue was Peekskill, New York State, where on 4 September 1949 they both appeared at an outdoor show that turned into one of the most terrifying and violent events in the history of pop music.
(http://mysongbook.de)
Today In Oldies Music History: August 16
Releases 1964: Peter, Paul, and Mary, "If I Had A Hammer"
((http://oldies.about.com)
- 1965: John Sinclair is arrested for marijuana possession for the first time
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ARRESTED IN DOPE RAID Would-Be School Teacher Defends Marijuana Habit
BY ROBERT COTTER Free Press Staff Writer A bearded Wayne State University student, arrested with six others in a narcotics raid at his apartment, told police Tuesday he sees nothing wrong with smoking marijuana. He also said he hopes to teach young children in Detroit-area schools after getting a master's degree in English. John Sinclair, 23, of 4825 John Lodge, and William C. Wilson, 21, of 5882 Hobart, were charged with sale and possession of narcotics after a Detroit Police Narcotics Bureau undercover agent said he bought 200 grams of marijuana from them for $25.
FIVE OTHERS. including Sinclair's German-born wife, Magdalene, 25, also were arrested in the raid Monday night [August 16, 1965]but were released.
(Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan), 18 Aug 1965, Wed, Page 3)
- 1969: Neil Young performs with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young for the first time
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Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young (1969–70)
Shortly after the release of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Young reunited with Stephen Stills by joining Crosby, Stills & Nash, who had already released one album Crosby, Stills & Nash as a trio in May 1969. Young was originally offered a position as a sideman, but agreed to join only if he received full membership, and the group – winners of the 1969 "Best New Artist" Grammy Award – was renamed Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The quartet debuted in Chicago on August 16, 1969, and later performed at the famous Woodstock Festival, during which Young skipped the majority of the acoustic set and refused to be filmed during the electric set, even telling the cameramen: "One of you fuckin' guys comes near me and I'm gonna fuckin' hit you with my guitar". During the making of their first album, Déjà Vu (March 11, 1970), the musicians frequently argued, particularly Young and Stills, who both fought for control. Stills continued throughout their lifelong relationship to criticize Young, saying that he "wanted to play folk music in a rock band." Despite the tension, Young's tenure with CSN&Y coincided with the band's most creative and successful period, and greatly contributed to his subsequent success as a solo artist.
Young wrote "Ohio" following the Kent State massacre on May 4, 1970. The song was quickly recorded by CSN&Y and immediately released as a single, even though CSN&Y's "Teach Your Children" was still climbing the singles charts.
(https://en.wikipedia.org)
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Peter Henry Fonda (February 23, 1940 – August 16, 2019) was an American actor. He was the son of Henry Fonda, younger brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget and Justin Fonda (by first wife, Susan Brewer, stepdaughter of Noah Dietrich). Fonda was a part of the counterculture of the 1960s.
He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Easy Rider (1969), and the Academy Award for Best Actor for Ulee's Gold (1997). For the latter, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. Fonda also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999).
Early life
Fonda was born on February 23, 1940, in New York City, the only son of actor Henry Fonda (1905–1982) and his wife Frances Ford Seymour (1908–1950); his sister was actress Jane Fonda (born 1937). He and Jane had a half-sister, Frances de Villers Brokaw (1931–2008), from their mother's first marriage. Their mother committed suicide in a mental hospital when Peter, her youngest, was ten, although he did not discover the circumstances or location of her death until he was 15 years old.
On his eleventh birthday, he accidentally shot himself in the abdomen and nearly died. He went to Nainital and stayed for a few months for recovery. Years later, he referred to this incident while with John Lennon and George Harrison while taking LSD. He said, "I know what it's like to be dead." This inspired The Beatles' song "She Said She Said".
Career
Counterculture figure and Roger Corman
By the mid-1960s, Fonda was not a conventional "leading man" in Hollywood. As Playboy magazine reported, Fonda had established a "solid reputation as a dropout". He had become outwardly nonconformist and grew his hair long and took LSD regularly, alienating the "establishment" film industry. Desirable acting work became scarce.
Through his friendships with members of the band The Byrds, Fonda visited The Beatles in their rented house in Benedict Canyon in Los Angeles in August 1965. While John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and Fonda were under the influence of LSD, Lennon heard Fonda say, "I know what it's like to be dead." Lennon used this phrase as the tag line for his song, "She Said She Said", which was included on the Revolver (1966) album.
In 1966, Fonda was arrested in the Sunset Strip riot, which the police ended forcefully. The band Buffalo Springfield protested the department's handling of the incident in their song "For What It's Worth". Fonda sang some and in 1968 recorded "November Night", a 45-rpm single written by Gram Parsons for the Chisa label, backed with "Catch the Wind" by Donovan song, produced by Hugh Masekela.
Fonda's first counterculture-oriented film role was as a biker in Roger Corman's B movie, The Wild Angels (1966). Fonda originally was to support George Chakiris, but graduated to the lead when Chakiris revealed he could not ride a motorcycle, Fonda helped name his character "Heavenly Blues", with Bruce Dern, Nancy Sinatra and Diane Ladd also appearing in the film.[citation needed] In the film, Fonda delivered a "eulogy" at a fallen Angel's funeral service. This was sampled by Psychic TV on their 1988 LP recording, "Jack the TAB". It was later sampled in the Primal Scream recording "Loaded" (1991), and in other rock songs. The movie was a big hit at the box office, screened at the Venice Film Festival, launched the biker movie genre, and established Peter Fonda as a movie name.
Fonda made a television pilot, High Noon: The Clock Strikes Noon Again, filmed in December 1965. It was based on the 1952 film High Noon, starring Gary Cooper, with Fonda in the role that Cooper played. However, it did not become a series.
Fonda next played the male lead in Corman's popular 1967 film The Trip, a take on the experience and "consequences" of consuming LSD, which was written by Jack Nicholson. His co stars included Susan Strasberg, Bruce Dern and Dennis Hopper. The movie was another big hit.
Fonda then travelled to France to appear in the portmanteau horror movie Spirits of the Dead (1968). His segment co-starred Fonda's sister Jane and was directed by her then-husband Roger Vadim.
For American television he appeared in a movie, Certain Honorable Men (1968) alongside Van Heflin, written by Rod Serling.
Easy Rider
In 1968, Fonda produced, co-wrote and starred in Easy Rider, directed by Dennis Hopper. Easy Rider is about two long-haired bikers traveling through the southwestern and southern United States where they encounter intolerance and violence. Fonda played "Captain America", a charismatic, laconic man whose motorcycle jacket bore a large American flag across the back. Dennis Hopper played the garrulous "Billy". Jack Nicholson played George Hanson, an alcoholic civil rights lawyer who rides along with them. Fonda co-wrote the screenplay with Terry Southern and Hopper.
Fonda tried to secure financing from Roger Corman and AIP, with whom he had made The Wild Angels and The Trip, but they were reluctant to finance a film directed by Hopper. They succeeded getting money from Columbia Pictures. Hopper filmed the cross-country road trip depicted almost entirely on location. Fonda had secured funding of around $360,000, largely based on the fact he knew that it was the budget Roger Corman needed to make The Wild Angels.
The guitarist and composer Robbie Robertson, of The Band, was so moved by an advance screening that he approached Fonda and tried to convince him to let him write a complete score, even though the film was nearly due for wide release. Fonda declined the offer, instead using Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild", Bob Dylan's "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" sung by The Byrds' Roger McGuinn, and Robertson's own composition "The Weight", performed by The Band, among many other tracks.
The film was released in 1969 to international success. Jack Nicholson was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Fonda, Hopper and Southern were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The film grossed over $40 million.
Director
After the success of Easy Rider, both Hopper and Fonda were sought for film projects. Hopper made the drug-addled jungle epic The Last Movie (in which Fonda co-starred along with singer Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas).
Politics
In 2011, Fonda and Tim Robbins produced The Big Fix, a documentary that examined the role of BP in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its effects on the Gulf of Mexico. At a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, Fonda stated that he had written to President Barack Obama about the spill and attacked him as a "fucking traitor" for allowing "foreign boots on our soil telling our military—in this case the Coast Guard—what they can and could not do, and telling us, the citizens of the United States, what we could or could not do.'"
Twitter controversy
In June 2018, Fonda went on Twitter to criticize President Donald Trump's administration's enforcement of U.S. immigration policy by Jeff Sessions, specifically regarding the separation of children from their parents at the Mexican border, writing that "We should rip Barron Trump from the arms of First Lady Melania Trump and put him in a cage with pedophiles." He also suggested that Americans should seek out names of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in order to protest outside of their homes and the schools of their children. The Secret Service opened an investigation based on a report from the Trump family. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, whose daughter, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was also the object of Fonda's tweets, believes that Fonda's statement about Barron Trump is a violation of federal criminal law. Fonda had also suggested "Maybe we should take her (Sanders) children away..."
It was also reported by Politico that Fonda "has been railing against the White House for days". In another now-deleted tweet, Fonda targeted United States Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen by calling her an uncouth name and calling for Nielsen to be "put her in a cage and poked at by passersby ..."
Fonda stated that he deleted his tweet regarding Barron Trump, saying that he "immediately regretted it and sincerely apologize to the family for what I said and any hurt my words have caused." Popular backlash to Fonda's tweets resulted in a call for a boycott of his newest film at the time, Boundaries and other Sony projects. Sony Pictures released Boundaries as planned on June 22, 2018, but completely condemned the comments made by Fonda.
Death
Fonda died from respiratory failure caused by lung cancer at his home in Los Angeles on August 16, 2019.
(https://en.wikipedia.org)
Edited by Learyfan (08/16/20 08:17 AM)
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