The Youth International Party (YIP), whose members were commonly called Yippies, was an American youth-oriented radical and countercultural revolutionary offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the late 1960s. They have been described as a highly theatrical, anti-authoritarian and anarchist youth movement of “symbolic politics.”

This flyer invites students to join a Yippie festival in late August 1968 to coincide with the Democratic National Convention. Protests at the Chicago convention would famously spark a “police riot,” and result in the Chicago Seven trial, which included one of the Yippee leaders Abbie Hoffman.

Yippie organizers hoped that well-known musicians would participate in the Festival of Life and draw a crowd of tens if not hundreds of thousands from across the country. However, the city of Chicago refused to issue any permits for the festival and most musicians withdrew from the project. In response to the Festival of Life and other anti-war demonstrations during the Democratic convention, Chicago police repeatedly clashed with protesters, as many millions of viewers watched the extensive TV coverage of the events. Read more at Wikipedia>>

Special thanks to the USC Digital Imaging Lab for their support in digitizing this item.