Abbie Hoffman

Abbot Howard Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist, anarchist, a socialist, and revolutionary who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies"). He was also a leading proponent of the Flower Power movement. Hoffman was arrested and tried for conspiracy and inciting to riot as a result of his role in protests that led to violent confrontations with police during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, along with Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale. The group was known collectively as the "Chicago Eight"; when Seale's prosecution was separated from the others, they became known as the Chicago Seven. While the defendants were initially convicted of intent to incite a riot, the verdicts were overturned on appeal. Hoffman continued his activism into the 1970s, and remains an icon of the anti-war movement and the counterculture era. He committed suicide by a phenobarbital overdose in 1989.