The event began with more than 100,000 protesters at a rally near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Later about 50,000 people marched across the Potomac River to the Pentagon and sparked a confrontation with U.S. Army paratroopers who were standing guard there.

[1] Following a concert by Phil Ochs, as well as speeches from David Dellinger and Dr. Benjamin Spock,[2] around 50,000 of those attending were then led by social activist Abbie Hoffman and marched from the Lincoln Memorial to The Pentagon in nearby Arlington, Virginia to participate in a second rally.

[3] In the evening of January 14, 1967 various countercultural figures celebrating the Human Be-In converged in artist Michael Bowen’s San Francisco painting studio.

[5] The initial rally, which was galvanized by a concert performance from counterculture folk singer Phil Ochs,[6] and featured serious as well as antic-laced speeches.

Notable people such as Norman Mailer, Robert Lowell, Dwight MacDonald, Noam Chomsky, and Paul Goodman were in attendance.