BE-IN REVOLUTION ANTI SLAVERY

Today the 14^th January is a day that brings on deep feelings of nostalgia for those who were in Golden Gate Park on this day in 1967. The Human Be-In took place, launching the Summer of Love. It was the classic happening on the afternoon and evening of the 14^th January 1967. As a result, The Haight-Ashbury district became the centre of America’s counterculture movement, the hippy revolution.

Ginzburg later came to London in July of that year and the legalise pot rally 'happened' in Hyde Park; but, more of this anon.

Whether that day was by design or pure coincidence, it was the day that commemorated the end of the American Revolutionary War. On 14^th January 1784 the American Continental Congress ratified the Second Treaty of Paris, ending the Revolutionary War. In the treaty, the British officially recognized the independence of the American colonies and agreed to withdraw troops from American soil. In return, Americans agreed to stop confiscating land from British owners. It is no surprise that the treaty was violated on a number of occasions by both sides.

It was also on the 14th January 1514 Pope Leo X, in the first year of his reign, issued a Papal Bull against slavery, stating that slavery was unnatural and should be abolished. Not bad going for a Medici Pope whose own history is crowded with incidents of profligacy. 

George Wallace

Pope Leo X

It was also 449 years later that George Wallace was inaugurated as governor of Alabama on the 14th January 1963. Wallace was the poster boy of the segregationist South and fought to keep schools from integrating. He blockaded the University of Alabama to keep black students from attending.

How long does it take? How different can you be?