Flower Power by Bernie Boston.
The National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam‘s “March on The Pentagon” took place on October 21, 1967. When the antiwar demonstrators approached The Pentagon, they were confronted by a squad of soldiers. The soldiers pointed their rifles, marched into the crowd and formed a semicircle around the demonstrators to prevent them from climbing the Pentagon steps. Washington Star newspaper photographer Bernie Boston had been assigned by his editor to cover the demonstration. Boston was sitting on a wall at the Mall Entrance which allowed him to see the events unfold.
“When I saw the sea of demonstrators, I knew something had to happen. I saw the troops march down into the sea of people and I was ready for it.” A young man emerged from the crowd of demonstrators and started placing carnations into the barrels of their rifles. Boston captured the moment in what would become an iconic image and his signature photograph.
The young man in the photo is most commonly identified as George Edgerly Harris III, an 18-year-old actor from New York who moved to San Francisco in 1967. Harris performed under the stage name of Hibiscus and co-founded The Cockettes, a “flamboyant, psychedelic gay-themed drag troupe.” Harris died in the early 1980s during the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The Flower power movement began in Berkeley, California as a means of symbolic protest against the Vietnam War. Beat Generation writer Allen Ginsberg, in his November 1965 essay How to Make a March/Spectacle, promoted the use of “masses of flowers” to hand to policemen, press, politicians and spectators to civilly fight violence with peace.
Flower Power was nominated for the 1967 Pulitzer Prize.
Specific exhibits and discussions have been curated solely around the photograph to display the political, cultural and social aspects of the Flower power movement. From Kennedy to Kent State: Images of a Generation, displayed the image as a representation of the antiwar movement.
Flower Power continues to be used as an iconic image of the 1960s.
