John Lennon Institute for Human Rights event: Wednesday, 13 April 2016

The Walrus and the Elephants: John Lennon’s Years of Revolution

Wednesday, April 13 at 7:00pm to 9:00pm 

Emerson Library , Library Conference Room

Journalist James A. Mitchell discusses his latest book, The Walrus and the Elephants: John Lennon’s Years of Revolution, and how lessons from the Vietnam War era resonate with U.S. social movements today. His book begins post-Beatlemania in late 1971, when John Lennon moved to New York eager to join the youth movement to rally for social justice and against the war. Embraced by the revolutionary movement of NYC’s Greenwich Village, Lennon and wife Yoko Ono championed the antiwar movement and a variety of social causes. The White House and the FBI regarded the couple as a threat to national security, and President Richard Nixon tried to deport Lennon as a “strategic counter-measure” to help preserve his presidency. The Walrus and the Elephants includes interviews with a diverse cast of Lennon’s friends, including musicians of his band Elephant’s Memory, feminist leader Gloria Steinem, congressional black caucus co-founder Ron Dellums, “Chicago Seven” veteran Rennie Davis, immigration attorney Leon Wildes, and legendary poet-activist John Sinclair (whose imprisonment for marijuana – a ten year sentence for possessing two joints – began Lennon’s American journey of activism).