CINCINNATI

One of the most famous Cincinnatians was a man some would call infamous.  Jerry Rubin was a social activist who became famous in the 1960's and 70's.  He was born in Cincinnati in 1938.

He teamed with Abbie Hoffman in 1967 to found the Youth International Party (Yippies).   They stretched the bounds of civility to attract attention to their causes.  They advocated any stunt that might attract media attention.  He was the leader of the 1960's counterculture that used civil disobedience as a method to promote their agenda and attract new members.

Rubin grew up in Cincinnati to Jewish parents.  He attended prestigious Walnut Hills High School. After a short stay at ultra-liberal Oberlin College, he attended and got a BA in History from the University of Cincinnati.  He went on to attend Cal Berkeley, the bee hive of liberal unrest at that time.  The legalization of marijuana was high on his list of objectives.

He lived a few years in Israel; worked in a collective and studied sociology at Hebrew University. When he returned to the U.S. after visiting Cuba, he was forced to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee.  He showed up in a Revolutionary War costume to attract attention and demean the proceedings.  

He organized many Anti-Vietnam War protests;  sit-ins at universities, marches in big cities, demonstrations at military installations including attempts to hinder military movement.  One of the really big events took place in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.  Rubin and many of his followers were arrested.  A group of seven went on trial there and made a mockery of the judicial system.  They were convicted during the spectacle but later had the ruling overturned because the proceedings were so outlandish.  While incarcerated during the trial, Rubin wrote a book about his ordeal called "We Are Everywhere."

In the 1980's, he transformed himself into a button-down business man.  Tragically, in 1994, at the age of 56, he was struck by a motorist in Beverly Hills and died a few weeks later of complications.

He left us with a book he wrote in 1970 called  "Do it!: Scenarios of the Revolution"  an enumeration of his anti-establishment theories.  In 1976 he authored a self-improvement book "Growing up at Thirty- Seven" and in 1980 a self-help book for husbands and wives called "The War Between The Sheets . . ."

Jerry Rubin also left us with a plethora of quotations he made famous.  Here is a sampling:

• "Don't trust anyone over thirty."
• "Most men act so tough and strong on the outside because on the inside we are scared, weak, and fragile.  Men, not women, are the weaker sex."
• "By the end, everybody had a label - pig, liberal, radical, revolutionary . . . if you had everything but a gun, you were a radical but not a revolutionary."
• "I am a child of America.  If ever I'm sent to death row, I'll order as my last meal; a hamburger, french fries and a coke."
• "Until you're prepared to kill your parents, you're not really prepared to change the country because our parents are our first oppressors."

He will forever be a central figure in the shaping of our country.
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