Hibiscus aka George Harris III in “Femme Fatale -The Shocking Pink Life of Jayne Champagne” Photo by Dan Nicoletta c 1976
Talented photographer and friend Dan Nicoletta had this to say about “Caravan to Oz”
Hibiscus aka George Harris III in “Femme Fatale -The Shocking Pink Life of Jayne Champagne” Photo by Dan Nicoletta c 1976
Talented photographer and friend Dan Nicoletta had this to say about “Caravan to Oz”
Photo: Bernie Boston/RIT Archive Collections. Rochester Institute of Technology
On October 21, 1967 – Bernie Boston’s photo of the brave, peace-loving teenager in a turtleneck sweater putting flowers into the gun barrels of military police went far beyond being a runner up for the Pulitzer Prize. This iconic moment became the origin of “Flower Power,” the most popular anti-war catchphrase of the 1960s. Mr. Boston told Alice Ashe of Curio magazine in 2005, “I saw the troops march down into the sea of people, and I was ready for it. One soldier lost his rifle. Another lost his helmet. The rest had their guns pointed out into the crowd, when all of a sudden a young hippie stepped out in front of the action with a bunch of flowers in his left hand. With his right hand he began placing the flowers into the barrels of the soldiers’ guns. ‘He came out of nowhere,’ says Boston, ‘and it took me years to find out who he was . . . his name was Harris.'”
“Harris” was George Harris III, at 18 years of age, whose life’s work was an example of Flower Power and free expression. George went on to rename himself “Hibiscus” and created powerful new forms of theater and political expression around the world. He passed away from AIDS in 1982 at the age of 32. His life story is recounted in ‘Caravan to Oz: a family reinvents itself off-off-Broadway,’ a memoir written by his family. www.caravantooz.com
Mary Lou Harris and original Cockette, Rumi Missabu, resplendent from head to toe wearing Machine Dazzle Flower at Judson Memorial Church for Keeping the Tigers Away & The Blue Hour. Dedicated to the memory of Mario Montez, Marsha P. Johnson and Hibiscus aka George Harris III. Mary Lou brought along the Harris family memoir, Caravan to Oz: a family reinvents itself off-off-Broadway. Judson Poets Theater was one of our Off Off Broadway homes.