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The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during summer of 1967. It opened with the release of The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on June 1st, 1967 and closed with Woodstock in the summer of 1969, when as many as 100,000 people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, creating a cultural and political rebellion. While hippies also gathered in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Seattle, Portland, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and across Europe, San Francisco was the center of the hippie revolution,^[1] a melting pot of music, psychoactive drugs, sexual freedom, creative expression, and politics. The Summer of Love became a defining moment of the 1960s, as the hippie counterculture movement came into public awareness.^[2] This unprecedented gathering of young people is often considered to have been a social experiment, because of alternative lifestyles that became common, both during the summer itself and during subsequent years. These lifestyles included communal living; the free and communal sharing of resources, often among strangers; and free love.^[3]

Ironically, the summer of 1967 also witnessed some of the worst violence in US cities in the country's history, due to race riots that occurred in places such as Detroit and Newark. This aspect of the summer of 1967 is often called "The Long, Hot Summer". Most people attribute this violence to the frustration and anger of black Americans.^[4][5][6] (See: 1967 Detroit riot and 1967 Newark riots.)

Contents 1 Early 1967 2 Popularization through media and music 3 Event 4 Legacy 5 Literature 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Early 1967

Inspired by the Beats of the Fifties, who declared themselves independent from the alleged 'authoritarian order' of America, the Haight-Ashbury 'anti-community' rested on a rejection of American commercialism. Haight residents eschewed the material benefits of modern life, encouraged by the distribution of free food and organized shelter by the Diggers, and the creation of institutions such as the Free Clinic for medical treatment.^[7] Psychedelic drug use became but one means to find a 'new reality'. Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir comments:

'Haight Ashbury was a ghetto of bohemians who wanted to do anything - and we did but I don't think it has happened since. Yes there was LSD. But Haight Ashbury was not about drugs. It was about exploration, finding new ways of expression, being aware of one's existence.'^[8]

The preludes to the Summer of Love were the Love Pageant Rally on October 6, 1966 (the day LSD became federally illegal) and the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park on January 14, 1967. Both were produced and organized by artists Allen Cohen and Michael Bowen^[9][10] with Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary. The Human Be-In was advertised on psychedelic posters as a "gathering of tribes".^[11] The event was announced by the Haight-Ashbury's own psychedelic newspaper, the San Francisco Oracle:

"A new concept of celebrations beneath the human underground must emerge, become conscious, and be shared, so a revolution can be formed with a renaissance of compassion, awareness, and love, and the revelation of unity for all mankind."^[12]

The gathering of approximately 30,000 like-minded people made the Human Be-In the first event that confirmed there was a viable hippie scene.^[13]

[edit] Popularization through media and music

The ever-increasing numbers of youth making a pilgrimage to the Haight-Ashbury district alarmed the San Francisco authorities, whose public stance was that they would keep the hippies away. Adam Kneeman, a long-time resident of the Haight-Ashbury, recalls that the police did little to help. Organization of the hordes of newcomers fell to the overwhelmed residents themselves.^[14]

College and high-school students began streaming into the Haight during the spring break of 1967. San Francisco's government leaders, determined to stop the influx of young people once schools let out for the summer, unwittingly brought additional attention to the scene, and an ongoing series of articles in local papers alerted the national media to the hippies' growing numbers. By spring, Haight community leaders responded by forming the Council of the Summer of Love, giving the word-of-mouth event an official-sounding name.^[15]

The mainstream media's coverage of hippie life in the Haight-Ashbury drew the attention of youth from all over America. Hunter S. Thompson labeled the district "Hashbury" in The New York Times Magazine, and the activities in the area were reported almost daily.^[16]

The movement was also fed by the counterculture's own media, particularly the San Francisco Oracle, whose pass-around readership topped a half-million at its peak that year.^[17]

The media's fascination with the "counterculture" continued with the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, where approximately 30,000 people gathered for the first day of the music festival, with the number swelling to 60,000 on the final day.^[18] The song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" written by John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas and sung by Scott McKenzie was initially designed to promote the Monterey Pop Festival:

–

If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair... If you're going to San Francisco, You're gonna meet some gentle people there.

–

"San Francisco" became an instant hit (#4 in the U. S., #1 in the UK) and quickly transcended its original purpose by popularizing an idealized image of San Francisco. In addition, media coverage of the Monterey Pop Festival facilitated the Summer of Love, since large numbers of fledgling hippies headed to San Francisco to hear their favorite bands, among them the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Otis Redding, The Byrds, and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin.^[19]

In the media "revivals" of the Summer of Love were frequently mentioned in the context of large pop festivals and use of psychedelic drugs. In 2004, the British magazine NME pronounced that that year would be "the third summer of love" thanks to the resurgence of the "'shroom". The drug LSD allegedly "fueled" the first summer of love in 1967; ecstasy and LSD the second in 1988 ^[20].

[edit] Event

During the Summer of Love, as many as 100,000 young people from around the world flocked to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, as well as to nearby Berkeley and to other San Francisco Bay Area cities, to join in a popularized version of the hippie experience.^[21] Free food, free drugs and free love were available in Golden Gate Park, a Free Clinic (whose work continues today) was established for medical treatment, and a Free Store gave away basic necessities to anyone who needed them.^[22]

The Summer of Love attracted a wide range of people of various ages: teenagers and college students drawn by their peers and the allure of joining a cultural utopia; middle-class vacationers; and even partying military personnel from bases within driving distance. The Haight-Ashbury could not accommodate this rapid influx of people, and the neighborhood scene quickly deteriorated. Overcrowding, homelessness, hunger, drug problems, and crime afflicted the neighborhood. Many people left in the fall to resume their college studies.^[22]

On October 6, 1967, those remaining in the Haight staged a mock funeral, "The Death of the Hippie" ceremony, to signal the end of the played-out scene.^[15] Mary Kasper explained the message of the mock funeral as follows:

–

We wanted to signal that this was the end of it, don't come out. Stay where you are! Bring the revolution to where you live. Don't come here because it's over and done with.[23]

–

[edit] Legacy

When the newly-recruited Flower Children returned home, they brought new ideas, ideals, behaviors, and styles of fashion to many major cities in the U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.^{[citation needed]}

The phrase "Summer of Love" (or, more accurately, the "Second Summer of Love") is sometimes used (particularly in the UK) to refer to the summers of 1988 and 1989 and the rise of Acid House music and rave culture. On September 2, 2007, San Francisco celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love.^[24] The 40th anniversary was also celebrated at various locations in the UK including Hawkhurst in Kent, where a small mini-festival was held on 07/07/07.^[25] The special guest that day was Barry Melton, "the Fish" of Country Joe and the Fish fame.

[edit] Literature

• Lee, Martin A.; Shlain, Bruce (1985). Acid Dreams: the CIA, LSD, and the Sixties Rebellion. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 0-394-55013-7, ISBN 0-394-62081-X. 

• Gene Anthony, Summer of Love, Haight-Ashbury At Its Highest]. Last Gasp, 1980. ISBN 0-86719-421-9. Entire text on line at erowid.org.

[edit] See also

• 1967 in music
• Central Park Be-In
• Allen Ginsberg
• Ken Kesey
• Timothy Leary
• Second Summer of Love
• Where Have All the Flowers Gone? (film, 2008)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Summer of Love: 40 years later, from SFGate, the online publication of the San Francisco Chronicle
• Monterey Pop art director and poster designer Tom Wilkes
• The Summer of Love, Performers in Britain and the United States, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and the American National Biography
• Long Hot Summer of Love Writer Mark Jacobson reminisces about his experiences during the Summer of Love in New York, from New York magazine
• CIS: 'Summer of Love' Reached Behind Iron Curtain, by Salome Asatiani. RFE/RL, August 30, 2007 (an article about the impact of the Summer of Love event on Soviet youth culture)

v – d – e Hippies History Etymology of 'hippie'– Beat generation/Beatniks– Counterculture of the 1960s– Human Be-In– Red Dog Experience– San Francisco Sound– Haight-Ashbury– Drop City– Summer of Love– Monterey Pop Festival– The Farm– Woodstock Festival– Nambassa People and groups Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters– Diggers– Yippies– The Brotherhood of Eternal Love– Jesus movement– Rainbow Family– Deadhead– New Age travellers– Radical Faeries Politics and ethics Free love– Anti-authoritarianism– Simple living– Environmentalism– Pacifism– Communalism– Counterculture– Bohemianism– Make love, not war– Turn on, tune in, drop out Culture and fashion Psychedelia– Flower power– Hippie trail– Happening– Peace symbols– Bell-bottoms– Long hair– Tie-dye– Intentional community– Free festival– Music festival– List of films related to the hippie subculture– List of books and publications related to the hippie subculture Music Folk rock– Psychedelic rock– Folk music– Psych-folk– Progressive rock– Jam bands– Psychedelic trance– Psychedelic music– World music– New Age music– Space rock Related subjects Subcultures– Underground press– New Age movement– Freak scene– Anti-war movement– Civil rights movement– Protests of 1968– New Left– UK underground– New social movements– Post-materialism– Neotribalism– Second Summer of Love