CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 8/15/2019

Woodstock's message of peace and music, fifty years to the day

Today, we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Woodstock, which ran August 15–18, 1969. Organized by Michael Lang, author of the stellar new scrapbook-like illustrated book from Reel Art Press, the festival remains the world's greatest icon of hippie ideals. "Though the counterculture was in full bloom in California and New York, hippies were still a rarity in lots of places," Lang writes. "But when all these people came together at our festival, it became clear there was a Woodstock Nation. Rob Kennedy, a teenager who hitched to Bethel from New Jersey, told me, 'I don’t think any of us believed there were that many hippies in the USA. We were the only freaks in our high school at that time. We knew there were some in surrounding towns, but we had no idea. That was one of the most empowering aspects of Woodstock. We realized we had the numbers.'"