Last week, deejay Jimmy O'Neill died at his home in West Hollywood at
age 73. O'Neill was a central figure in hippie culture, and he got a
pretty raw deal from The Man for his efforts. O'Neill was host of the
enormously popular teen music show Shindig!, then used his clout to
open a nightclub called Pandora's Box on the Sunset Strip and book his
favorite acts. This led to massive throngs of teens and traffic on the
strip, and soon the killjoys descended. The city hastily enacted a
series of loitering and curfew laws targeting teenagers. The footage
in this clip from November 12, 1966 shows what happened next.
In what would become a template for youth resistance, young people
gathered at Pandora's Box to defy the 10pm curfew. The riots kept
growing, and the panicked L.A. City Council quickly moved to condemn
and demolish Pandora's Box, which they ultimately did in 1967. The
incident inspired many songs, including Buffalo Springfield's anthem
“For What It's Worth," often interpreted as an anti-war song. The
young people who witnessed this injustice, including Peter Fonda, Phil
Proctor, and Jack Nicholson, came away with renewed resolve to fight
even bigger political battes.
