Storming the Pentagon
by Mitchel Cohen, Brooklyn Greens/Green Party, and co-founder, Red Balloon Collective
FORTY YEARS IT’S BEEN. In October 1967, I was an 18-year-old junior at SUNY Stony Brook, organizing students to participate in the first militant demonstration on the East Coast against the Vietnam war. At the Pentagon.
Phil Ochs — my hero — was scheduled to perform at Stony Brook that night. Many students were saying they weren’t going on the march because they wanted to go to Phil’s concert instead. SDS wrote letter after letter trying to get him to change the date. No answer. Finally — oh, how it cut my heart out — we organized a boycott of his records. (more…)
