Newsfeed
Printer-Friendly ModeAge not slowing agenda for 1960s Detroit radical
November 9, 2009 —
With the economic and employment landscapes in the country facing continual changes, retirement is no longer a sure thing. That’s fine by John Sinclair.
Best known for his counter-culture activism of the late 1960s, Sinclair, now 68, still keeps his plate full.
The Detroit-born poet hosts The John Sinclair Radio Show, a weekly program of music and discussion that airs on Radio Free Amsterdam.
But Sinclair does more than just man the microphone for the program. He also produces, records, edits and assembles each week’s show.
The radio program helps keep Sinclair’s counter-culture political beliefs in the public’s ear more than four decades after he founded the White Panther Party.
Sinclair reflected on his activism during a visit to campus last week.
He explained the founding of the White Panther Party was in response to Black Panthers founder Huey P. Newton’s call to arms of how white people could support the group’s cause.
“We couldn’t take it, anymore,” Sinclair said. “The censorship, the unequal treatment. We couldn’t stand things the way they were.”
In addition to his duties with the White Panthers Party, Sinclair used the punk rock band MC5 as a vehicle for spreading his radical political viewpoints.
The band performed at the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The event is well remembered for the televised police brutality against the thousands of protesters that flocked to the convention.
Sinclair’s activism, particularly in Michigan, is one of the main reasons associate professor of art Mike Mosher helped bring him to campus.
“He was such an important figure of cultural life in Michigan during the 1960s and 1970s that I thought students should know about him,” said Mosher.
Mosher conducted a sit-down conversation with Sinclair that was open to the public during Sinclair’s campus visit.
As the conversation proved, age has not tempered Sinclair’s outspoken personality.
He pulled no punches when discussing the late music journalist Lester Bangs, who Sinclair identified as “an unpleasant drunk.”
Bangs’ first major published work was a scathing review of MC5’s debut album, which he dubbed a “ridiculous, overbearing, pretentious” LP.
Though now nearly 70, Sinclair remains an advocate for drug liberation, chiefly the legalization of marijuana.
Sinclair, arrested several times for possession, said he sees no real difference between marijuana and alcohol and cigarettes.
“I can go get these anywhere I want,” he said, referring to the lit cigarette in his hand. “I can go have a beer anywhere, because that’s American. But drugs? They don’t want that.”
Sinclair said he doesn’t understand the double standard that exists between the acceptance of alcohol and cigarettes against the condemning of recreational drugs.
He said he advocates the decriminalization of such drugs, since he believes it would significantly decrease drug-related crimes.
Sinclair’s influences are still felt today. The annual Hash Bash in Ann Arbor got its start as a protest against Sinclair’s imprisonment following a drug-related arrest.
Regardless, Sinclair said he thinks the effect of what he and other figures of history do is minimized with each passing generation.
“Each wave starts fresh, having to learn everything over,” he said. “That’s because they don’t tell you any of this stuff in school. And the process of what they do tell you is so boring and offensive that you don’t even listen to that.”