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Abbie Hoffman Biography

orig. Abbott Hoffman

(1936 - 1989)

(born Nov. 30, 1936, Worcester, Mass., U.S.—died April 12, 1989, New Hope, Pa.) U.S. political activist. He attended Brandeis University and the University of California, Berkeley, and became active in the civil rights movement. In 1968 he organized the Youth International Party (Yippies), which protested the Vietnam War and the U.S. political and economic system. He gained widespread media attention for his courtroom antics as a defendant in the so-called Chicago Seven trial (1969), in which he was convicted of crossing state lines with intent to riot at the Democratic Party's national convention in Chicago in 1968; the conviction was later overturned. After he was arrested on charges of selling cocaine (1973), he went underground, undergoing plastic surgery and adopting the alias “Barry Freed” to work as an environmentalist in New York state. He resurfaced in 1980 and served a year in prison before resuming his environmental work. His books include Revolution for the Hell of It (1968), Steal This Book (1971), and an autobiography, Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture (1980).