Frank Beacham's Journal

Owsley Stanley was born 88 years ago today

Owsley Stanley was born 88 years ago today.

Stanley played a pivotal role in the San Francisco counterculture of the 1960s. As a crafts-person, he became best known simply as “Owsley” – the LSD "cook" (underground chemist).

Under the professional name of "Bear," he worked with the Grateful Dead's international fan "family."

Bear was an early soundman for The Grateful Dead, a band he met when Ken Kesey invited them to an Owsley Acid test party. As their sound engineer, Bear frequently recorded live tapes behind his mixing board and helped "The Dead" become the first performers since Les Paul to custom-develop high-fidelity audio components and sound systems.

Stanley was the first private individual to manufacture mass quantities of LSD. Between 1965 and 1967, Stanley produced more than 1.25 million doses of LSD.

Stanley died in an automobile accident in Australia on March 12, 2011 at age 76.

Muhammad Ali was born 81 years ago today

Muhammad Ali on the Chicago River, 1966

Photo by Thomas Hoepker

Muhammad Ali was born 81 years ago today.

A former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist, Ali was considered an American cultural icon.

Originally known as Cassius Clay, he won the world heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston at the age of 22. Ali changed his name after joining the Nation of Islam in 1964, subsequently converting to Sunni Islam in 1975.

In 1967, three years after Ali had won the heavyweight championship, he was publicly vilified for his refusal to be conscripted into the U.S. military, based on his religious beliefs and opposition to the Vietnam War.

Ali was eventually arrested and found guilty on draft evasion charges. He was stripped of his boxing title, and his boxing license was suspended. Ali was not imprisoned, but did not fight again for nearly four years while his appeal worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it was eventually successful.

Ali's actions as a conscientious objector to the war made him an icon for the larger counterculture generation. Ali would go on to become the first and only three-time lineal World Heavyweight Champion.

Nicknamed "The Greatest," Ali was involved in several historic boxing matches.

Notable among these were three with rival Joe Frazier, which are considered among the greatest in boxing history, and one with George Foreman, where he finally regained his stripped titles seven years later.

Ali was well known for his unorthodox fighting style, epitomized by his catchphrase "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee," and employing techniques such as the Ali Shuffle and the rope-a-dope.

Ali brought beauty and grace to the most uncompromising of sports and through his personal excesses of skill and character, he became the most famous athlete in the world. He was also known for his pre-match hype, where he would "trash talk" opponents — often with rhymes.

In 1999, Ali was crowned "Sportsman of the Century" by Sports Illustrated and "Sports Personality of the Century" by the BBC. In his later years, Ali kept a lower profile as he continued his long-running battle with Parkinson’s disease.

Ali was hospitalized in Scottsdale, Arizona on June 2, 2016, with a respiratory illness. Though his condition was initially described as "fair," it worsened and he died the following day, at the age of 74, from septic shock.

Here is a short film on the champ done on his 70th birthday

Susan Sontag, writer, filmmaker, professor, literary icon and political activist, was born 90 years ago today

Susan Sontag, writer, filmmaker, professor, literary icon and political activist, was born 90 years ago today.

Beginning with the publication of her 1964 essay, "Notes on 'Camp'," Sontag became an international cultural and intellectual celebrity. Her best known works include On Photography, Against Interpretation, Styles of Radical Will, The Way We Live Now, Illness as Metaphor, Regarding the Pain of Others, The Volcano Lover and In America.

Sontag was active in writing and speaking about, and traveling to areas of conflict including during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Sarajevo. She wrote extensively about photography, culture and media, AIDS and illness, human rights, communism and leftist ideology.

Her often provocative essays and speeches sometimes drew criticism. The New York Review of Books called her "one of the most influential critics of her generation."

Sontag died in New York City on December 28, 2004 at the age of 71 from complications of myelodysplastic syndrome which had evolved into acute myelogenous leukemia. She is buried in Paris at Cimetière du Montparnasse.

On January 15, 1929 — 94 years ago today — Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta

On January 15, 1929 — 94 years ago today — Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, the son of a Baptist minister.

King received a doctorate degree in theology and, in 1955, helped organized the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, the first major protest of the African-American civil rights movement.

Influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, he advocated civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance to segregation in the South. The peaceful protests he led throughout the American South were often met with violence, but King and his followers persisted and the movement gained momentum.

A powerful orator, King appealed to Christian and American ideals and won growing support from the federal government and Northern whites.

In 1963, Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph led the massive March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The event's grand finale was King's famous, "I Have a Dream," address. Two hundred and fifty thousand people gathered outside the Lincoln Memorial to hear the stirring speech.

In 1964, the civil rights movement achieved two of its greatest successes: the ratification of the 24th Amendment, which abolished the poll tax, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial discrimination in employment and education and outlawed racial segregation in public facilities.

Later that year, King became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the late 1960s, King openly criticized U.S. involvement in Vietnam and turned his efforts to winning economic rights for poor Americans. He was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968 at age 39.

Here is Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963

Thanks History.com

Martin Luther King mugshot

King was photographed by Alabama cops following his February, 1956 arrest during the Montgomery bus boycotts. The historic mug shot, taken when King was 27, was discovered in July, 2004 by a deputy cleaning out a Montgomery County Sheriff's Department storage room.

Jack London, author, journalist and social activist, was born 147 years ago today

Jack London, author, journalist and social activist, was born 147 years ago today.

A pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone.

Some of his most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire," "An Odyssey of the North" and "Love of Life."

He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen," and of the San Francisco Bay area in The Sea Wolf.

London was part of the radical literary group, "The Crowd," in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of unionization, socialism and the rights of workers. He wrote several powerful works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel, The Iron Heel, his non-fiction exposé, The People of the Abyss, and The War of the Classes.

Jim Hightower, syndicated columnist, progressive political activist and author, is 80 years old today

Photo by Caleb Bryant Miller

Jim Hightower, syndicated columnist, progressive political activist and author, is 80 years old today.

From 1983 to 1991, Hightower served as the elected commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture.

Born in Denison in Grayson County in north Texas, Hightower came from a working class background. He received a Bachelor of Arts in government from the University of North Texas in Denton, where he served as student body president. He later did graduate work at Columbia University in New York City in international affairs.

In the late 1960s, he worked in Washington, D.C., as legislative aide to U.S. Senator Ralph Yarborough. After managing the presidential campaign of former Senator Fred R. Harris of Oklahoma in 1976, he returned to Texas to become the editor of the The Texas Observer magazine.

In 1982, Hightower was elected Agricultural Commissioner, having unseated fellow Democrat Reagan V. Brown, who had ordered a quarantine of fruit coming into Texas from California. He served as agriculture commissioner until he was unseated in 1990 by the Democrat-turned-Republican, Rick Perry, later the governor of Texas.

His tenure was noted for fostering organic production, alternative crops, direct marketing by small farmers and strong gross materials regulations. During that time, he also became a leading national spokesman for Democrats and endorsed Jesse Jackson for president in 1988. Soon after Bill Clinton was elected president, Hightower became a critic.

He criticized Clinton for having accepted corporate soft money contributions, his support of NAFTA, his health care plan and his refusal to crack down on "corporate welfare." He also criticized Clinton’s inadequate efforts at fighting unemployment and poverty.

In 2000, he joined with talk show host Phil Donahue and actress Susan Sarandon to co-chair the presidential campaign of Ralph Nader. He also appeared at Nader's "super-rallies" and stumped across the country for him.

Since 1993, Hightower has produced "Hightower Radio," a daily two-minute commentary carried by over 130 affiliates. He also hosted a weekend talk show on the American Broadcasting Company radio network and a weekday midday talk show on the United Broadcasting Network (later called America Radio Network). The show aired in thirty-eight markets around the United States.

Hightower had endorsed Bernie Sanders for President in 2016, actively campaigning for the Democratic candidate. Despite the Democratic party losing each house of power in the United States, Hightower talked of his optimism toward a greater progressive revolution after meeting with Sanders.

Hightower cites the large number of progressive initiatives passed to counter the idea that Donald Trump and far right rhetoric is surpassing progressive ideals.

Hightower currently writes a nationally syndicated column carried by seventy-five independent weekly newspapers and other publications through Creators Syndicate. He also writes for The Progressive Populist.'

A protest began in Washington, D.C. 106 years ago by the National Woman’s Party. It led to giving women the right to vote

A protest began in Washington, D.C. 106 years ago by the National Woman’s Party. It led to giving women the right to vote.

It all began on the eve of Woodrow Wilson’s second inauguration and drew more than a 1,000 people to circle the White House. The “silent sentinels” stayed on Lafayette Square protesting for months.

The civil disobedience by the National Woman’s Party was the main force behind the 19th Amendment, which gave women a national right to vote in 1920.

Some pickets were arrested on the charge of obstructing traffic, and in prison, some went on hunger strikes. Abusive treatment of the protesters, who called themselves political prisoners, angered some Americans and created more support for the suffrage amendment. They were released and their arrests were later declared unconstitutional.

After the women helped replace anti-suffrage senators in the 1918 elections, the 19th Amendment finally passed both houses of Congress and was sent to the states for ratification. The Amendment was ratified by enough states by 1920, thus giving women the right to vote.

But the party suffered from some of the same segregationist tendencies circulating in society at the time. It took the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s to finally secure full suffrage for black women.

In 1912, W.E.B. Du Bois of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called out the party’s parent group for rejecting black members and associations.

The following year, when the anti-lynching journalist, Ida B. Wells, led a contingent of black suffragists from Chicago to a march in the capital, organizers told them to stay in the rear.

Wells declined. She quietly walked alongside two white supporters with the Illinois contingent.

Thanks New York Times!

Joan Baez is 82 years old today

Joan Baez performs at the Beacon Theatre, New York City, Nov. 8, 2011

Photo by Frank Beacham

Joan Baez is 82 years old today.

A folk singer, songwriter, musician and prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice, Baez has a distinctive vocal style, with a strong vibrato. Her recordings include many topical songs and material dealing with social issues.

Baez began her career performing in coffeehouses in Boston and Cambridge, and rose to fame as an unbilled performer at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival. She began her recording career in 1960 and achieved immediate success.

Her first three albums, Joan Baez, Joan Baez, Vol. 2, and Joan Baez in Concert, all achieved gold record status, and stayed on the charts of hit albums for two years.

Baez has had a popular hit song with "Diamonds & Rust" and hit covers of Phil Ochs's, "There But For Fortune," and The Band's, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." Other songs associated with Baez include "Farewell, Angelina," "Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word," "Joe Hill," "Sweet Sir Galahad" and "We Shall Overcome."

She performed three of the songs at the 1969 Woodstock Festival, helped to bring the songs of Bob Dylan to national prominence and has displayed a lifelong commitment to political and social activism in the fields of nonviolence, civil rights, human rights and the environment.

Baez has performed publicly for over 58 years, releasing over 30 albums. Fluent in Spanish as well as in English, she has also recorded songs in at least six other languages.

She is regarded as a folk singer, although her music has diversified since the 1960s, encompassing everything from folk rock and pop to country and gospel music.

Although a songwriter herself, Baez is generally regarded as an interpreter of other people's work, having recorded songs by The Allman Brothers Band, The Beatles, Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan, Violeta Parra, Woody Guthrie, The Rolling Stones, Pete Seeger, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Leonard Cohen and many others.

In recent years, she has found success interpreting songs of modern songwriters such as Ryan Adams, Josh Ritter, Steve Earle and Natalie Merchant. Baez was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year.

Here, Baez sings her song about Bob Dylan — “Diamonds and Rust” — in 1975

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, Rolling Thunder Review, April 25, 1976, Gainesville, Florida

Photo by Frank Beacham

Simone de Beauvoir was born 115 years ago today

Simone de Beauvoir was born 115 years ago today.

De Beauvoir was a French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist and social theorist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, she had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory.

She wrote novels, essays, biographies, autobiography and monographs on philosophy, politics and social issues. She is known for her 1949 treatise, The Second Sex, a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism.

Her novels include She Came to Stay and The Mandarins.

She had a lifelong relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre.

Max Eastman, influential radical activist, was born 140 years ago today

Max Eastman meets Charlie Chaplin in Hollywood in 1919

Both were lovers of actress Florence Deshon

Max Eastman, influential radical activist, was born 140 years ago today.

A poet, a prose writer on literature, philosophy and society and a prominent political activist, Eastman moved to New York City for graduate school. There, he became involved with liberal and radical circles in Greenwich Village.

Eastman supported socialism and became a leading patron of the Harlem Renaissance, and an activist for a number of liberal and radical causes. For several years, he edited The Masses. With his sister, Crystal Eastman, in 1917, he co-founded The Liberator, a radical magazine of politics and the arts.

In later life, however, Eastman changed his views, becoming highly critical of socialism and communism after his experiences during a nearly two-year stay in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, as well as later studies.

He was influenced by the deadly rivalry between Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin, by which Trotsky was assassinated, as well as the wholesale abuses of the 1930s show trials under Stalin, who conducted widespread terror against his citizens, repression and purges that resulted in the imprisonment and deaths of millions of people in the Soviet Union.

Eastman became an advocate of free-market economics and anti-communism, while remaining an atheist and independent thinker. In 1955, he published Reflections on the Failure of Socialism. He published more frequently in The National Review and other conservative journals in later life, but always remained independent in his thinking.

For instance, he publicly opposed United States involvement in the Vietnam War in the 1960s, earlier than most. He also wrote two volumes of memoirs, as well as two volumes of recollections of his friendships and personal encounters with many of the leading figures of his time.

These included Pablo Casals, Charlie Chaplin, Eugene Debs, John Dewey, Isadora Duncan, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, H. L. Mencken, John Reed, Paul Robeson, Bertrand Russell, Edna St. Vincent Millay, George Santayana, E. W. Scripps, George Bernard Shaw, Carlo Tresca, Leon Trotsky, Mark Twain and H. G. Wells.

Eastman's last memoir was Love and Revolution: My Journey Through an Epic (1964). In 1969, he died at his summer home in Bridgetown, Barbados, at the age of 86.

Edward Herrmann portrayed Eastman in the film, Reds (1981), directed by and starring Warren Beatty, which was based on the life of John Reed.