Jerry Rubin
Encyclopedia
Jerry Rubin was an American social activist during the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1980s, he became a successful businessman.

Early life

Rubin was born in Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...

, the son of a bread delivery man and union representative, and grew up in the then-upscale Avondale neighborhood.

Rubin's parents died within 10 months of each other, leaving Rubin the only person to take care of his younger brother, Gil, who was 13 at the time. Jerry wanted to teach Gil about the world and decided to take him to India. When relatives threatened to fight to obtain custody of Gil, Jerry decided to take his brother to Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

 instead. There Rubin studied sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 while his brother, who had learned Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

, decided to stay in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 and moved to a kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...

. Before returning to social and political activism, Rubin made a visit to Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

 despite the law forbidding Americans to travel there.

Rubin attended Cincinnati's Walnut Hills High School
Walnut Hills High School (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Walnut Hills High School is a public college-preparatory high school in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. Operated by the Cincinnati Public Schools, it houses grades seven through twelve and maintains a culturally diverse student body. The school has been given an excellent rating by the Ohio...

, co-editing the school newspaper, The Chatterbox and graduating in 1956. While in high school Rubin began to write for The Cincinnati Post
The Cincinnati Post
The Cincinnati Post is a discontinued afternoon daily newspaper that was published in Cincinnati, Ohio. Distributed in Northern Kentucky as The Kentucky Post, it was owned by the E. W. Scripps Company. Since the 1980s, its editorial stance was usually conservative. The Post published its final...

, compiling sports scores from high school games. He later went on to graduate from the University of Cincinnati
University of Cincinnati
The University of Cincinnati is a comprehensive public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a part of the University System of Ohio....

, receiving a degree in sociology. Rubin attended the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

, in 1964 but dropped out to focus on social activism.

Social activism

Rubin began to demonstrate on behalf of various left-wing causes after dropping out of Berkeley. Rubin also ran for mayor of Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...

, receiving over twenty per cent of the vote. Having been unsuccessful, Rubin turned all his attentions to political protest. His first protest was in Berkeley, protesting against the refusal of a local grocer to hire African Americans. Soon Rubin was leading protests of his own. Rubin organized the Vietnam Day Committee
Vietnam Day Committee
The Vietnam Day Committee was a coalition of left-wing political groups, student groups, labour organizations, and pacifist religions in the United States of America that opposed the Vietnam War...

, led some of the first protests against the war in Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

, and was one of the founding members of the Youth International Party
Youth International Party
The Youth International Party, whose members were commonly called Yippies, was a radically youth-oriented and countercultural revolutionary offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the 1960s. It was founded on Dec. 31, 1967...

 or Yippies, along with social and political activist Abbie Hoffman
Abbie Hoffman
Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman was a political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ....

.

In October 1967, David Dellinger
David Dellinger
David T. Dellinger , was an influential American radical, a pacifist and activist for nonviolent social change.-Chicago Seven:...

 of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
The National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam was a relatively short-lived coalition of antiwar activists formed in 1967 to organize large demonstrations in opposition to the Vietnam War. The organization was informally known as "the Mobe"....

 asked Rubin to help mobilize and direct a March on the Pentagon. The protesters gathered at the Lincoln Memorial
Lincoln Memorial
The Lincoln Memorial is an American memorial built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The architect was Henry Bacon, the sculptor of the main statue was Daniel Chester French, and the painter of the interior...

 as Dellinger and Dr. Benjamin Spock gave speeches to the mass of people. From there, the group marched towards the Pentagon. As the protesters neared the Pentagon, they were met by soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division. who formed a human barricade blocking the Pentagon steps. Not to be dissuaded, Abbie Hoffman, co-founder of the Yippies, vowed to levitate the Pentagon while Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...

 led Tibetan chants to assist. Eventually, things turned ugly. By the time the group's 48-hour permit expired, approximately 680 protesters had been jailed and 50 hospitalized.

As one member of the march recalled:
Rubin later played an instrumental role in the anti-war demonstrations that accompanied the 1968 Democratic National Convention
1968 Democratic National Convention
The 1968 Democratic National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, from August 26 to August 29, 1968. Because Democratic President Lyndon Johnson had announced he would not seek a second term, the purpose of the convention was to...

 in Chicago by helping to organize the Yippie "Festival of Life" in Lincoln Park
Lincoln Park
Lincoln Park is an urban park in Chicago, which gave its name to the Lincoln Park, Chicago community area.Lincoln Park may also refer to:-Urban parks:*Lincoln Park , California*Lincoln Park, San Francisco, California...

 and speaking at an anti-war rally at the Grant Park
Grant Park
Grant Park may refer to:Parks*Grant Park , Georgia, USA*Grant Park , Illinois, USA*Grant Park , Oregon, USACommunities*Grant Park, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, a neighborhood*Grant Park, Illinois, USA, a village...

 bandshell on August 28, 1968. Violence between Chicago police and demonstrators (which an official government report called a "police riot
Police riot
A police riot is a confrontation between police and civilians. The term can also describe a riot by civilians caused or instigated by police...

") eventually led to the indictment of Rubin and seven others (Abbie Hoffman, Rennie Davis
Rennie Davis
Rennard Cordon “Rennie” Davis is a former, prominent American anti-Vietnam War protest leader of the 1960s. He was one of the Chicago Seven....

, John Froines
John Froines
John R. Froines is a chemist and anti-war activist.He is noted as a member of the Chicago Seven, a group charged with involvement with the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Froines, who holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Yale, was charged with interstate travel for purposes of...

, David Dellinger
David Dellinger
David T. Dellinger , was an influential American radical, a pacifist and activist for nonviolent social change.-Chicago Seven:...

, Lee Weiner
Lee Weiner
Lee Weiner , a member of the Chicago Seven, was charged with conspiracy and making incendiary devices for his part in the demonstrations that surrounded the 1968 Democratic National Convention.J...

, Tom Hayden
Tom Hayden
Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden is an American social and political activist and politician, known for his involvement in the animal rights, and the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s. He is the former husband of actress Jane Fonda and the father of actor Troy Garity.-Life and...

, and Bobby Seale
Bobby Seale
Robert George "Bobby" Seale , is an activist. He is known for co-founding the Black Panther Party with Huey Newton.-Early life:...

) on several charges of conspiracy and incitement to riot.

The defendants were commonly referred to as the "Chicago Eight". Seale's trial, however, was severed from the others after he demanded the right to serve as his own lawyer and was sentenced to four years in prison for contempt of court, making the Chicago Eight the Chicago Seven. Rubin, along with the six other defendants, was found not guilty on the charge of conspiracy but guilty (with four other defendants) on the charge of incitement. He was also sentenced by the judge to more than three years in prison for contempt of court. All the convictions for incitement were later thrown out by an appeals court, who cited judicial and prosecutorial misconduct. Most of the contempt of court citations were also overturned on appeal.

Post activism

After the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

 ended, Rubin became an entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

 and businessman. He was an early investor in Apple Computer
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...

. During much of the 1970s and 1980s, he lived in Echo Park, California and ran a legal and civil rights office on the southwest corner of Echo Park Avenue and Sunset Blvd.

In the 1980s, he embarked on a debating tour with Abbie Hoffman titled "Yippie versus Yuppie
Yuppie
Yuppie is a term that refers to a member of the upper middle class or upper class in their 20s or 30s. It first came into use in the early-1980s and largely faded from American popular culture in the late-1980s, due to the 1987 stock market crash and the early 1990s recession...

." Rubin's argument in the debates was that activism was hard work and that the abuse of drugs, sex, and private property had made the counter-culture "a scary society in itself." He maintained that "wealth creation is the real American revolution. What we need is an infusion of capital into the depressed areas of our country." A later political cartoon portrayed Rubin as half-guerrilla and half-businessman. Rubin's differences with Hoffman were on principle rather than personal. When Hoffman died in 1989, Rubin attended his funeral.

Other appearances

Jerry Rubin appeared posthumously in the 2002 British documentary by Adam Curtis
Adam Curtis
Adam Curtis is a British BAFTA winning documentarian and a writer, television producer, director and narrator. He works for BBC Current Affairs.-Early life and education:Curtis was born in 1955...

, The Century of the Self
The Century of the Self
The Century of the Self is an award winning British television documentary film. It focuses on how Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, and Edward Bernays influenced the way corporations and governments have thought about,‭ dealt with, and controlled ‬people....

. He appears in episode part 3 of 4. This segment of the video discusses the Erhard Seminars Training
Erhard Seminars Training
Erhard Seminars Training, an organization founded by Werner H. Erhard, offered a two-weekend course known officially as "The est Standard Training"...

, of which Rubin was a graduate.

Rubin also appeared on Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...

s second episode of its first season (in one of the few comedic moments in a show almost entirely devoted to a Paul Simon
Paul Simon
Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...

 musical performance). He was announced as "Jerry Rubin, Leader of the Yippie Movement." His sketch is a fake commercial for wallpaper featuring famous protest slogans from the 1960s and 1970s (i.e., "Make Love, Not War", "Off The Pig!", "Give Peace A Chance", "Hell, No, We Won't Go!", etc.). He ends the sketch by parodying a famous radical slogan as "Up against the wall-paper, motherfuckers!" (with the last word bleeped out). The fake commercial was later played in a few other first season episodes, including the episode featuring Ron Nessen
Ron Nessen
Ronald Harold Nessen was White House Press Secretary for President Gerald Ford from 1974 to 1977. He replaced Jerald terHorst, who resigned in the wake of President Ford's pardon of former president Richard Nixon....

, then President Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...

's press secretary.

Portrayal In Popular Culture

In a motion picture about Abbie Hoffman
Abbie Hoffman
Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman was a political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ....

, Steal This Movie, Rubin was portrayed by Kevin Corrigan
Kevin Corrigan
Kevin Fitzgerald Corrigan is an American actor who has appeared mostly in independent films and television since the 1990s.-Life and career:Corrigan was born in The Bronx, New York to an Irish-American father and a Puerto Rican mother...

. In the 2007 documentary
Chicago 10: The Convention Was Drama. The Trial Was Comedy Rubin is featured both with film footage and with animation using Mark Ruffalo
Mark Ruffalo
Mark Alan Ruffalo is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He starred in films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Zodiac, Shutter Island, Just Like Heaven, You Can Count on Me and The Kids Are All Right for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best...

 as his voice. In the television show Dark Skies
Dark Skies
Dark Skies is an American UFO conspiracy theory-based sci-fi television series that aired from the 1996 to 1997 season for 18 episodes, plus a two-hour pilot episode. The success of The X-Files on Fox proved there was an audience for science fiction shows, resulting in NBC commissioning this...

, Rubin is shown organizing an anti-war protest group in Berkley that has been infiltrated by aliens - he is portrayed by Timothy Omundson
Timothy Omundson
Timothy Michael Omundson is an American actor perhaps most notable for his supporting roles as Sean Potter on the CBS television series Judging Amy, Eli on the syndicated series Xena: Warrior Princess, and as Carlton Lassiter in the hit USA Network series Psych...

.

Author

Jerry Rubin's anti-establishment beliefs were put down in writing in his book,
DO IT!: Scenarios of the Revolution (1970), with an introduction by Black Panther
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....

 Eldridge Cleaver
Eldridge Cleaver
Leroy Eldridge Cleaver better known as Eldridge Cleaver, was a leading member of the Black Panther Party and a writer...

 and unconventional design by Quentin Fiore
Quentin Fiore
Quentin Fiore is a graphic designer, who has worked mostly in books.Having taken art lessons from renowned artists George Grosz and Hans Hofmann, Fiore later studied at the "New Bauhaus" in Chicago....

. In 1971, his journal, written while incarcerated in the Cook County Jail
Cook County Jail
The Cook County Jail, located on in Cook County, Illinois, is the largest jail in the United States of America housing approximately 9,800 men and women. The facility is located at 3015 S California Ave in the city of Chicago...

, was published under the title
We are Everywhere. The book includes an inside view of the trial of the Chicago Seven
Chicago Seven
The Chicago Seven were seven defendants—Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, and Lee Weiner—charged with conspiracy, inciting to riot, and other charges related to protests that took place in Chicago, Illinois on the occasion of the 1968...

, but otherwise focuses on the Weather Underground
Weatherman (organization)
Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization , was an American radical left organization. It originated in 1969 as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society composed for the most part of the national office leadership of SDS and their...

, the Black Panthers, LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...

, women's liberation
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...

 and his view of a coming revolution.

In 1976, Rubin wrote another book entitled
Growing (Up) at Thirty-Seven, which contained a chapter narrating his experience at an Erhard Seminars Training
Erhard Seminars Training
Erhard Seminars Training, an organization founded by Werner H. Erhard, offered a two-weekend course known officially as "The est Standard Training"...

 (EST) session that was later included in the reader "American Spiritualities."

Business

Near the end of his life, Rubin was heavily involved in multi-level marketing of health foods and nutritional supplements.

Death

On November 14, 1994, Rubin jaywalked
Jaywalking
Jaywalking is an informal term commonly used in North America to refer to illegal or reckless pedestrian crossing of a roadway. Examples include a pedestrian crossing between intersections without yielding to drivers and starting to cross a crosswalk at a signalized intersection without waiting...

 on Wilshire Boulevard
Wilshire Boulevard
Wilshire Boulevard is one of the principal east-west arterial roads in Los Angeles, California, United States. It was named for Henry Gaylord Wilshire , an Ohio native who made and lost fortunes in real estate, farming, and gold mining. Henry Wilshire initiated what was to become Wilshire...

, in front of his penthouse apartment in the Westwood area of Los Angeles, California. It was a weekday evening and traffic was heavy, with three lanes in each direction. A car swerved to miss Rubin but a second car, immediately behind the first, was unable to avoid him. He was taken to the UCLA Medical Center, where he died 14 days later. He is interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery
Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery
The Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary is a Jewish cemetery located at 6001 West Centinela Avenue, in Culver City, California, USA. Many Jewish people from the entertainment industry are buried here.-Notable interments:*Irving Aaronson, composer...

 in Culver City, California
Culver City, California
Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883, up from 38,816 at the 2000 census. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also shares a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Culver...

.

In popular culture

  • DO IT! was also the inspiration for a track of the same name on the 1972 Aphrodite's Child
    Aphrodite's Child
    Aphrodite's Child was a Greek progressive rock band formed in 1967, by Vangelis Papathanassiou , Demis Roussos , Loukas Sideras , and Anargyros "Silver" Koulouris . Their band's name was derived from the title of a track from another Mercury act, Dick Campbell, from his Sings Where It's At album...

     album 666
  • DO IT! was the apparent inspiration for the titles of two other books: Eat It: A Cookbook by Dana Crumb and Grow It! The Beginner's Complete In-Harmony With Nature Small Farm Guide by Richard W. Langer.
  • Danny Masterson
    Danny Masterson
    Daniel Peter "Danny" Masterson is an American actor and DJ best known for his role as Steven Hyde in That '70s Show.-Early life:...

     will portray Jerry Rubin in the upcoming movie The Chicago 8, written and directed by Pinchas Perry. It was filmed in September and October 2009 but not yet released. The film is based closely on the trial transcripts and most of the action takes place in the courtroom.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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