What do you think?
Rate this book
Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle
On a hot summer night in 1963, a teenager named Walt Crowley hopped off a bus in Seattle's University District, and began his own personal journey through the 1960s. Four years later at age 19, he was installed as "rapidograph in residence" at the Helix, the region's leading underground newspaper. His cartoons, cover art, and political essays helped define his generation's experience during that tumultuous decade.
Rites of A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle weaves Crowley's personal experience with the strands of international, intellectual, and political history that shaped the decade. As both a member and in-house critic of the New Left and counter-culture, the author offers a unique perspective in explaining why the experiments and excess of the period "made sense at the time."
Anti-war marches, human be-ins, rock festivals, psychedelic drugs, underground newspapers, free universities, light shows, inner-city riots, radical skirmishes, and hippie antics are chronicled with personal anecdotes, contemporary accounts, and historical insights. In the pages of Rites of Passage, the reader will encounter Black (and White) Panthers, the Seattle and Chicago Seven, Weathermen and Radical Women, and many more remarkable characters.
As an engaging blend of history and personal reminiscence, Rites of Passage places the sixties in a context unavailable to its participants at the time. In addition to his text, Crowley has assembled a chronology of the decade beginning with its harbingers in the forties and fifties and continuing through its aftermath. This compilation covers political, social, and cultural events, and provides the most complete synopsis of sixties history now in print.
Rites of A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle weaves Crowley's personal experience with the strands of international, intellectual, and political history that shaped the decade. As both a member and in-house critic of the New Left and counter-culture, the author offers a unique perspective in explaining why the experiments and excess of the period "made sense at the time."
Anti-war marches, human be-ins, rock festivals, psychedelic drugs, underground newspapers, free universities, light shows, inner-city riots, radical skirmishes, and hippie antics are chronicled with personal anecdotes, contemporary accounts, and historical insights. In the pages of Rites of Passage, the reader will encounter Black (and White) Panthers, the Seattle and Chicago Seven, Weathermen and Radical Women, and many more remarkable characters.
As an engaging blend of history and personal reminiscence, Rites of Passage places the sixties in a context unavailable to its participants at the time. In addition to his text, Crowley has assembled a chronology of the decade beginning with its harbingers in the forties and fifties and continuing through its aftermath. This compilation covers political, social, and cultural events, and provides the most complete synopsis of sixties history now in print.
352 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1995
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 1, 2009
Crowley makes it clear that his memoir is about the Sixties in Seattle, and not the other way around -- Seattle in the Sixties. Which makes perfect sense, as he details a turbulent decade that he spent as first a high school student at Nathan Hale (my alma mater), and then as a UW student (of which I’m also an alumni) and leftist political activist behind the short-lived political newspaper Helix.
While the first half of the book was more about the impact of national and world events on Seattle political culture – both on and off-campus – the last portion of Crowley’s memoir is probably his best. And most eye-opening for me, as I wasn’t born until ’72. Which according to Crowley signaled the true end of the 60s with the beginning of the end for Nixon and the Vietnam War.
The year 1969 not only marked the assassinations of such luminaries as MLK and RFK, but it also ushered in a wave of violence here in the States that reached its apogee a year later, in 1970, at Kent State. The latter itself created a wave of violent discontent across university and college campuses -- which was felt even here at the UW. Crowley’s intimate and detailed recounting of its effects here are not just palpable, but surprising for a post-Boomer native like myself.
When I was coming of age in the late 80s and early 90s, I always thought the student uprisings occurred elsewhere. (Or the most dramatic ones, at least.) Yet Crowley sets me right by exposing the anger, police brutality, and incessant sniping between the Times, the PI, and the emerging alternative press – which included Helix – that characterized Seattle during these tense times. (One can only imagine the resignation of Nixon and our disengagement from Vietnam as a valve-release that helped to deflate the pent-up anger of resentment that was building up all these years between Americans of all political stripes.)
As I neared the close of Crowley’s remarkably well-researched memoir – less personal than political – I was struck by two thoughts. First, Crowley drew the explicit connection between the in-your-face vitriol of the radical Left (which they have slowly abandoned in recent years) and the same of today’s Neo-Conservative Right (which Crowley argues was adopted precisely from the former). Second -- and more personal -- I’m thankful that my experience at the UW was less tumultuous. (In fact, my experience as both a UW undergrad and graduate student are quite idyllic. Whenever I think back to those halcyon days, recall being often broke, but happily lost in academic thoughts – all without having to dodge bullets, rocks, or impromptu rallies, strikes, and be-ins.)
As a narrative of the Sixties in general, Crowley’s is not too shabby. But as an intimate account of the political life of the radical Left at the UW during this time, it is quite a story. And one that will make you think twice about that seemingly sleepy giant known as the University of Washington. (Oh, and those Ave “rats” pale in comparison to the influx of hippies that waylaid the University District at the close of the 60s. I’ll pass on the patchouli, thank you very much.)
While the first half of the book was more about the impact of national and world events on Seattle political culture – both on and off-campus – the last portion of Crowley’s memoir is probably his best. And most eye-opening for me, as I wasn’t born until ’72. Which according to Crowley signaled the true end of the 60s with the beginning of the end for Nixon and the Vietnam War.
The year 1969 not only marked the assassinations of such luminaries as MLK and RFK, but it also ushered in a wave of violence here in the States that reached its apogee a year later, in 1970, at Kent State. The latter itself created a wave of violent discontent across university and college campuses -- which was felt even here at the UW. Crowley’s intimate and detailed recounting of its effects here are not just palpable, but surprising for a post-Boomer native like myself.
When I was coming of age in the late 80s and early 90s, I always thought the student uprisings occurred elsewhere. (Or the most dramatic ones, at least.) Yet Crowley sets me right by exposing the anger, police brutality, and incessant sniping between the Times, the PI, and the emerging alternative press – which included Helix – that characterized Seattle during these tense times. (One can only imagine the resignation of Nixon and our disengagement from Vietnam as a valve-release that helped to deflate the pent-up anger of resentment that was building up all these years between Americans of all political stripes.)
As I neared the close of Crowley’s remarkably well-researched memoir – less personal than political – I was struck by two thoughts. First, Crowley drew the explicit connection between the in-your-face vitriol of the radical Left (which they have slowly abandoned in recent years) and the same of today’s Neo-Conservative Right (which Crowley argues was adopted precisely from the former). Second -- and more personal -- I’m thankful that my experience at the UW was less tumultuous. (In fact, my experience as both a UW undergrad and graduate student are quite idyllic. Whenever I think back to those halcyon days, recall being often broke, but happily lost in academic thoughts – all without having to dodge bullets, rocks, or impromptu rallies, strikes, and be-ins.)
As a narrative of the Sixties in general, Crowley’s is not too shabby. But as an intimate account of the political life of the radical Left at the UW during this time, it is quite a story. And one that will make you think twice about that seemingly sleepy giant known as the University of Washington. (Oh, and those Ave “rats” pale in comparison to the influx of hippies that waylaid the University District at the close of the 60s. I’ll pass on the patchouli, thank you very much.)
November 23, 2019
I really struggled to get into this book. It didn’t keep my attention. I had a hard time following the writer. He seemed to get lost in his own thoughts.
January 6, 2021
those were the days/daze! (the unrest too similar to today)
February 14, 2017
Having lived through this era in Seattle I really enjoyed Crowley's perspective on what was happening. His historical and first person memories of events in Seattle and on related national events made this a fun read and would be interesting for non-Seattlites as well.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews