John Sinclair’s protests took various targets. He was among the founders of the socialist antiracist “White Panther Party,” white supporters of the Black Panther group. His proto-punk band MC5 played at the massive anti-Vietnam War rally at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago – the only ones who had time to play before club-wielding police broke up the rally (leading to the arrest and famous trial of the Chicago Seven). But his biggest target was marijuana restriction. Marijuana opens the mind, he argued, allows one to see more possibilities. Sinclair unwisely passed out joints to anyone who would ask, and after passing two to an undercover police officer, he was arrested.

On this day, December 13 in 1971, after the Michigan State Supreme Court ruled the marijuana laws used on John Sinclair’s conviction were unconstitutional, Sinclair was released.

He ended up serving just two years of his 10 year sentence. Three years before his release, a massive “John Sinclair Freedom Rally” took place in Ann Arbor, at Michigan’s Chrysler Arena. John Lennon and Yoko Ono performed, as did Phil Ochs, Bob Seger, Stevie Wonder, and others. Allen Ginsberg, whose works gave the censors fits, delivered a speech, along with Abbie Hoffman, who was with Sinclair at the DNC convention in 1968.