The baffling history of mankind is full of obvious turning points and
significant events: battles won, treaties signed, rulers elected or
deposed, and now, seemingly, planets conquered. Equally important are
the great groundswells of popular movements that affect the minds and
values of a generation or more, not all of which can be neatly tied to
a time and place. Looking back upon the America of the ’60s, future
historians may well search for the meaning of one such movement. It
drew the public’s notice on the days and nights of Aug. 15 through 17,
1969, on the 600-acre farm of Max Yasgur in Bethel, N.Y. What took place at Bethel, ostensibly, was the Woodstock Music and Art
Fair, which was billed by its youthful Manhattan promoters as “An
Aquarian Exposition” of music and peace. It was that and more—much
more. The festival turned out to be history’s largest happening. As the
moment when the special culture of U.S. youth of the ’60s openly
displayed its strength, appeal and power, it may well rank as one of
the significant political and sociological events of the age. By a conservative estimate, more than 400,000 people —the vast majority
of them between the ages of 16 and 30 —showed up for the Woodstock
festival. Thousands more would have come if police had not blocked off
access roads, which had become ribbonlike parking lots choked with
stalled cars. Had the festival lasted much longer, as many as one
million youths might have made the pilgrimage to Bethel. The lure of
the festival was an all-star cast of top rock artists, including Janis
Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and the Jefferson Airplane. But the good
vibrations of good groups turned out to be the least of it. What the
youth of America—and their observing elders—saw at Bethel was the
potential power of a generation that in countless disturbing ways has
rejected the traditional values and goals of the U.S. Thousands of
young people, who had previously thought of themselves as part of an
isolated minority, experienced the euphoric sense of discovering that
they are, as the saying goes, what’s happening. Adults were made more
aware than ever before that the children of the welfare state and the
atom bomb do indeed march to the beat of a different drummer, as well
as to the tune of an electric guitarist. The spontaneous community of
youth that was created at Bethel was the stuff of which legends are
made; the substance of the event contains both a revelation and a
sobering lesson.
