Andrew Midkiff was there, and he took photos! Here are his photos and some of his memories:
The next day the LA Times headlines read ‘YIPPIES OUTBURST SHUTS DISNEYLAND.’ That was BS the headline should have read "COPS SHUT DISNEYLAND TO KICK OUT LONGHAIRS" or better yet ‘YIPPIES TURNED ON IN TOMORROWLAND.’ I was18 years old at the time. August 6, 1970 I hitchhiked from Alhambra to Disneyland to be a part of Yippie Day. All I wanted was to take photos of the event and get high. I took the photos you see here, and getting high was no problem. When I first got to the park I met this guy that had a good size stash of weed on him. He let me hang out with him most of the day. He is pictured in the first photo and is wearing a green tank top. I thought this was an interesting photo because the straight dude on the left seems to be watching us. We spent about an hour at various concerts sitting with the straights and smoking grass right in front of them. That may have been part of the problem as far as complaints. I wanted to score some acid but no luck. After the cops showed up I'm glad I did not get any.
See more Disneyland Yippie Day photos at my main website.
Fascinating post. It easy to see how this happened at this point in history. What's amazing is how Disney kept this from being a repeat event - I suppose the Anaheim Police has something to do with it.
ReplyDeleteSuper post, thanks Dave and Andrew! Love those striped pants on Weed Dude...
Love the shot of the Alpine band with the clean white PeopleMover beam overhead....also the the shot of the Kids of the Kingdom on the Tomorrowland stage!
ReplyDeleteDid any of the guests receive refunds or complimentary passes after they shut the park down that day?
Chris - I've never read anything about discount passes, etc. The handful of people that have written me who were guests made no mention of that; only that their day was marred by the violence that occurred later in the afternoon.
ReplyDeleteI am soooooooooo glad I wasn't there that day.
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