No Long Hair on New Jersey Turnpike!
A lawsuit, filed on this day, challenged harassment of long-haired young men by the New Jersey State Police on the New Jersey Turnpike.
In the mid-1960s, there were a number of cases of harassment of young people with long hair by police and school officials. Hair was a symbol of rebellion and the youth counterculture. After all, why did they name the popular musical Hair?
On August 17, 1968, for example, hippies in Aspen, Colorado, claimed they were being harassed by the police because of their long hair.
In the early 1990s the issue of racial profiling, which also became known as “driving while black,” exploded and became a national civil rights issue. See David Harris’ pioneering book below.
Read about the impact of the hippies: Skip Stone. Hippies From A to Z: Their Sex, Drugs, Music and Impact on Society from the Sixties to the Present (1999)
Learn more about the Sixties and the counterculture: Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (1987)
And more: Terry Anderson, The Sixties (1999)
Watch a documentary on the Sixties: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUc2eLe-ruI&list=RD9G8O7mkIjpM
Read David Harris’ pioneering book: David Harris, Profiles in Injustice: Why Racial Profiling Cannot Work (2002)