"Right on"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 19:47:08 -0600, Dave Hause <dwhause at JOBE.NET> wrote:

>I don't remember use of this expression, but in 64-5, at least in Ann Arbor
>when I was flirting with them, the left white radicals seemed to have
>cordial relations with the black radicals.

And the white radicals clearly borrowed many of their slogans and
catchphrases from the black radicals.  The question is, when did "Right
on" cross over?  Some indication might be given by Garry Trudeau's comic
strip "Bull Tales", the precursor to "Doonesbury" that appeared in the
Yale Daily News from Autumn 1968 to Spring 1970.  The strips are available
online, and "Right on" appears in two of them (alongside "All power to the
people" and other Black Pantherisms):

http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/retro/yale/yale68.html
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/retro/yale/yale79.html

These strips aren't dated on the website, but it's safe to say that they
appeared during the 1969-70 academic year, when the trial of Bobby Seale
and other Black Panthers in New Haven led to the massive May Day campus
protests. (Both strips feature campus radical "Megaphone Mark"
Slackmeyer.)

--Ben Zimmer