Democracy in America, Yippie! Guerilla Theater and the Reinvigoration of the American Democratic Process During the Cold War

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject History - America, Syracuse University, course: Senior Seminar: America in the 1960s, language: English, abstract: Throughout the 1960s and into the 70s, youth organizations put democracy on their shoulders and carried it back to the forefront of American society. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) kicked off the wave of Baby Boomer activism in the United States. SDS helped spawn a nationwide democratic revolution, but no revolutionary outfit did more for the democratic process than the incomparable Youth International Party. Through the use of guerilla theater and manipulation of the mass media, the short-lived Youth International Party (Yippies) and its founding members revitalized American democracy by staging iconic, self-governed protests, including the unforgettable 1968 Democratic National Convention.