Rubin barred from HUAC.hearing: 1968
Yippie organizer Jerry Rubin speaks to reporters outside the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearing room December 4, 1968 after he was barred from speaking for wearing a Santa Claus suit.
Rubin had initially been subpoenaed to testify in closed session and defiantly said he would only testify in open session. However, the subpoena was cancelled after revelations that the federal government had eavesdropped on his telephone conversations. The revelations came out during an appeal of a conviction of Rubin for organizing the 1967 demonstration at the Pentagon.
Committee chair Richard Ichord (D-Mo.) agreed to hear Rubin’s testimony in open session if he would change his clothing. Rubin, however, refused to take off the suit.
Rubin gave various reasons for as the symbolism of the Santa Clause suit to reporters one of which was, “The fact that Big Brother has arrived is a threat to our children. How better dramatize it than wearing a Santa Clause suit?”
He also carried a toy gun that he told reporters was for “self-defense.”
Ichord said his hearings showed that “communists and revolutionaries” planned the 1968 demonstrations at the Chicago Democratic National Convention.
While being called before a HUAC hearing once ruined careers in the 1950s, activists in the 1960s were openly contemptuous of the hearings and often looked upon a subpoena to appear before the committee as a badge of honor.
Rubin was an early opponent of the Vietnam War, running for mayor of Berkeley on an antiwar platform and helping organize the influential Vietnam Day Committee that attempted to stop troop trains.
Later helping to organize the antiwar 1967 March on the Pentagon and 1968 demonstrations at the Democratic Convention, Rubin was indicted as one of the Chicago 8 defendants whose trial transfixed the country. Later their convictions for conspiracy and contempt were overturned.
Perhaps most famously, as a prominent “Yippie,” he helped hone the tactic of using stunts to garner publicity for his causes.
As the antiwar movement began to subside in the early 1970s as the Vietnam War wound down, Rubin abandoned his activism and turned toward making money.
His ventures rendered him a multi-millionaire before he died after being hit by a car in Los Angeles in 1994.
For more information and additional images on red scares, see flic.kr/s/aHsk72YVXD
The photographer is unknown. The image is an Associated Press photograph housed in the D.C. Library Washington Star Collection.
Rubin barred from HUAC.hearing: 1968
Yippie organizer Jerry Rubin speaks to reporters outside the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearing room December 4, 1968 after he was barred from speaking for wearing a Santa Claus suit.
Rubin had initially been subpoenaed to testify in closed session and defiantly said he would only testify in open session. However, the subpoena was cancelled after revelations that the federal government had eavesdropped on his telephone conversations. The revelations came out during an appeal of a conviction of Rubin for organizing the 1967 demonstration at the Pentagon.
Committee chair Richard Ichord (D-Mo.) agreed to hear Rubin’s testimony in open session if he would change his clothing. Rubin, however, refused to take off the suit.
Rubin gave various reasons for as the symbolism of the Santa Clause suit to reporters one of which was, “The fact that Big Brother has arrived is a threat to our children. How better dramatize it than wearing a Santa Clause suit?”
He also carried a toy gun that he told reporters was for “self-defense.”
Ichord said his hearings showed that “communists and revolutionaries” planned the 1968 demonstrations at the Chicago Democratic National Convention.
While being called before a HUAC hearing once ruined careers in the 1950s, activists in the 1960s were openly contemptuous of the hearings and often looked upon a subpoena to appear before the committee as a badge of honor.
Rubin was an early opponent of the Vietnam War, running for mayor of Berkeley on an antiwar platform and helping organize the influential Vietnam Day Committee that attempted to stop troop trains.
Later helping to organize the antiwar 1967 March on the Pentagon and 1968 demonstrations at the Democratic Convention, Rubin was indicted as one of the Chicago 8 defendants whose trial transfixed the country. Later their convictions for conspiracy and contempt were overturned.
Perhaps most famously, as a prominent “Yippie,” he helped hone the tactic of using stunts to garner publicity for his causes.
As the antiwar movement began to subside in the early 1970s as the Vietnam War wound down, Rubin abandoned his activism and turned toward making money.
His ventures rendered him a multi-millionaire before he died after being hit by a car in Los Angeles in 1994.
For more information and additional images on red scares, see flic.kr/s/aHsk72YVXD
The photographer is unknown. The image is an Associated Press photograph housed in the D.C. Library Washington Star Collection.