John Sinclair is dead, a legendary activist and political commentator who became one of the ideological representatives of the counterculture of the 1960s. The 82-year-old died in a hospital in Detroit due to congestive heart failure. The information was confirmed by his family.
John Sinclair became famous as a poet, writer and political commentator, he also wrote jazz poetry (with the band Blues Scholars). He was also the manager of a famous team MC5 – thanks to his actions, the group achieved such great success.
“Sinclair is one of those guys who does a lot of things for a lot of people. (…) He's got a lot of passions, a lot of interests, a lot of things that he's into… He wasn't always a saint or the easiest guy to get along with, and sometimes we hated him. But I would say he was a mentor and a friend,” he said in 2018 in an interview with Billboard Wayne KramerMC5 guitarist.
Born in 1941, the activist was interested in writing from a very young age, and thanks to the creation of the underground magazine Ann Arbor Sun (1967) with his wife, he gained wider fame.
Soon after, he became the leader of the anti-racist White Panther Party and publicly supported the legalization of marijuana, which got him into big trouble. In 1969, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for possessing it, and the high penalty meant that the eyes of the entire United States were focused on him.
In 1971, a rally was held in solidarity with Sinclair, attended by, among others, John Lennon, Bob Seger Whether Steve Wonder. Two days later he was released from prison. Lennon also wrote a song in honor of his colleague, “John Sinclair”.