35 Facts About Abbie Hoffman

Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party and was a member of the Chicago Seven.

Abbie Hoffman was a leading proponent of the Flower Power movement.

Five of the Chicago Seven defendants, including Abbie Hoffman, were convicted of crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot; all of the convictions were vacated after an appeal and the US Department of Justice declined to pursue another trial.

Abbie Hoffman continued his activism into the 1970s, and remains an icon of the anti-Vietnam war movement and the counterculture era.

Abbie Hoffman died of an allegedly intentional phenobarbital overdose in 1989 at age 52.

Abbot Howard Abbie Hoffman was born November 30,1936, in Worcester, Massachusetts, to Florence and John Abbie Hoffman.

Abbie Hoffman was raised in a middle-class Jewish household and had two younger siblings.

On June 3,1954,17-year-old Abbie Hoffman was arrested for the first time, for driving without a license.

Abbie Hoffman engaged in many behaviors typical of rebellious teenagers in the 1950s, such as riding motorcycles, wearing leather jackets, and sporting a ducktail haircut.

Abbie Hoffman was a student of Marxist theorist Herbert Marcuse, who Hoffman said had a profound effect on his political outlook.

Abbie Hoffman was on the Brandeis tennis team, which was coached by journalist Bud Collins.

In late 1966, Abbie Hoffman met with a radical community-action group called the Diggers and studied their ideology.

Abbie Hoffman later returned to New York and published a book with this knowledge.

Abbie Hoffman, who was a friend of mine, was always a media junky.

Abbie Hoffman went back, and the first thing he did was publish a book, with his picture on it, that blew the hustle of every poor person on the Lower East Side by describing every free scam then current in New York, which were then sucked dry by disaffected kids from Scarsdale.

Not to be dissuaded, Abbie Hoffman vowed to levitate the Pentagon claiming he would attempt to use psychic energy to levitate the Pentagon until it would turn orange and begin to vibrate, at which time the war in Vietnam would end.

Judge Abbie Hoffman became the favorite courtroom target of the Chicago Seven defendants, who frequently would insult the judge to his face.

Abbie Hoffman closed the trial with a speech in which he quoted Abraham Lincoln, making the claim that the president himself, were he alive today, would have been arrested in Chicago's Lincoln Park.

At Woodstock in 1969, Abbie Hoffman interrupted The Who's performance to attempt to speak against the jailing of John Sinclair of the White Panther Party.

In 1971's Steal This Book in the section "Free Communication," Abbie Hoffman encourages his readership to take to the stage at rock concerts to use the pre-assembled audience and PA system to get their message out.

Abbie Hoffman recalled that Hoffman was actually hit in the back of the head by Townshend's guitar and toppled directly into the pit in front of the stage.

In 1971, Abbie Hoffman published Steal This Book, which advised readers on how to live for free.

Abbie Hoffman was arrested on August 28,1973, for intent to sell and distribute cocaine.

Abbie Hoffman always maintained that undercover police agents entrapped him into a drug deal and planted suitcases of cocaine in his office.

Abbie Hoffman lived under the name Barry Freed in Fineview, New York, near Thousand Island Park, a private resort on the St Lawrence River.

Abbie Hoffman helped coordinate an environmental campaign to preserve the St Lawrence River.

Abbie Hoffman received a one-year sentence but was released after four months.

In November 1986, Abbie Hoffman was arrested along with 14 others, including Amy Carter, the daughter of former President Jimmy Carter, for trespassing at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Abbie Hoffman essentially played himself in the movie, waving a flag on the ramparts of an administration building during a campus protest that was being teargassed and crushed by state troopers.

At the time of his death, Abbie Hoffman was at the height of a renewed public visibility, one of the few 1960s radicals who still commanded the attention of the media.

Abbie Hoffman regularly lectured about the CIA's covert activities, including assassinations disguised as suicides.

Abbie Hoffman was found dead in his apartment in Solebury Township, Pennsylvania, on April 12,1989, age 52.

Abbie Hoffman had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1980.

Abbie Hoffman had recently changed treatment medications and was reportedly depressed when his 83-year-old mother was diagnosed with cancer.

Abbie Hoffman is featured in interviews and archival news footage in the following documentaries:.