Meighan Byron's Easy Rider Response
If George had been cast as a black character, it would have been too obvious. With racial tensions as they were at the time, if George was black the message of the film would have been a 'one trick pony' that is just representing the hippies that support the civil rights movement. I don't think a lot of other messages that can be interpreted from the film now, would have been so prevalent if George was black and had been killed. It was important for the audience to identify with george as the normal one of the bunch, and the mindset of society was that everyone was white. If we were in that situation, we (the audience) would have been the George. The normal one who has tried pot but pretty much sticks to boos. I'm sure I wasn't the only one jarred when George was killed savagely. So in a sense we were killed. Society wasn't a safe place anymore when "we" were being killed senselessly. I think this also represented the anguish over the war in Vietnam.
The line Capt America says when Billy suggests they retire to Florida "We blew it." Symbolically they blew their ability to change the things in society they wanted to change. They blew it by getting the money they needed to live illegally, they blew it by messing up their minds by taking drugs. They blew their ability to create real and lasting change legitimately, So retiring to Florida would have ultimately been a cop out and a life not worth living because they had not changed society for the better.