It seems so long ago that attendees lined up with cars at the Woodstock Music Festival on Aug.16, 1969, in Woodstock, New York. (Photo by Warner Bros/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Woodstock was held 55 years ago in August. I remember that summer well. Not because I was there (I was 12), but because all the counselors-in-training ran away from my summer camp that year to attend.
The festival opened with a three-hour set by the singer-songwriter Richie Havens, who ended with the repeated refrain of one word: “freedom.” It included a moment that was celebrated for its seemingly transgressive message. Jimi Hendrix played “The Star-Spangled Banner,” our national anthem, on his electric guitar. Throughout the weekend, there was reckless, abundant joy.
It seems so long ago.
But there are threads connecting that moment to where we are now, and some eerily similar conflicts are in front of us again. Then, young people, and many not so young, were resisting the status quo. They wanted to expand our sense of what being free in America meant. This included the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and an increasing acceptance of LGBTQ rights. Also, there was a pervasive sense that our government did not always do right by all of us, driven in part by the war in Vietnam.
America: Love it or conceive it
Those resisting change did so angrily. Young people were accused of not being patriotic, and the challenging slogan, “America, love it or leave it” was thrown at protestors of all stripes. While Woodstock itself, and the participants, were seen as fringe to society, society itself changed in the decades afterwards. But it did seem that the charge of anti-Americanism kind of stuck, as did a notion that “real Americans” were those who looked backwards for their inspiration in how to live.
It is worth thinking about this now because the truth is that fighting for change, and the right to do so, is a very American principle. Today, some seek to roll back the changes in our society that have been made in the last half-century. But, finally, those who work to prevent that rollback are asserting that doing so invokes basic, and even historic, American values, including a deep love of country. Redefining and reclaiming our patriotism and affirming the value of all of our diverse and unconventional selves, will be an essential task in how we move forward as a nation.
I have written before about thinking about love of country in a way that transcends nationalism, exclusionary thinking, blindness to our own faults, and nostalgia. In other words, and more bluntly, to refute those who think of patriotism as the province of those who assert values which are exclusively white, Christian, male, and common in the 1950s.
Redefining and reclaiming our patriotism and affirming the value of all of our diverse and unconventional selves, will be an essential task in how we move forward as a nation.
I am not alone in this, as is clear as Kamala Harris runs for President. The themes of freedom (this time embodied by Beyonc é ), and patriotism, are central to her movement. This combined with the need for continued change and evolution feels right and natural to me. Because even though I have spent most of my career looking to the past for inspiration and education, there is something extraordinarily compelling about “we are not going back.” And recently, when crowds at her rallies started chanting “USA, USA,” I found it profoundly moving.
Barack Obama in his speech at the Democratic National Convention reminded us that America is large and extremely diverse, and devoted to the individual liberties of each of us, “funny names” and all. That our democratic government is an experiment, one we must continue to work to get right. Each generation must do some reinventing, but based, always, on our actual historic values of diversity and freedom. In doing so, we can be an example to the rest of the world, and a place where we will want to live, and can be proud of.
So, was the Democratic National Convention this moment’s Woodstock? OK, I am pushing the comparison well past its usefulness. But the reminder that there is nothing anti-American about seeking a more just, more open, and more joyful country is very welcome.
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