As seen in Issue #8
The Summer of Love was a period of time that was, and still is, surely unlike any other period since. Many believe the Summer started with the release of The Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on June 1, 1967 and closed with Woodstock in August of 1969. It was also during this time that thousands of America’s youth, commonly referred to as hippies, converged in cities all across America to protest industry and live a new path. San Francisco was undoubtedly the center of the hippie movement which included a lot of music, psychoactive drugs,sexual and creative expression. Many of the hippies of the period chose things like communal living, the sharing of resources and an abundance of free love.

The definite prelude to the Summer of the Love was the Human Be-In in 1967 which was initially staged as a protest to a recent law criminalizing LSD in California but grew to become a massive coming together of young people from around the country – an event at the time which was unprecedented. The media came as well and provided the world with pictures of thousands of turned on hippies mingling with celebrities like Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary. These images sparked a movement that reverberated around the world and similar Be-Ins were subsequently held all throughout Europe and even in South America.

The psychedelic culture continued to grow and manifest as a successful social experiment based on free love and communal living. It is ironic that at this time there was also some of the most violent clashes occurring in cities like Detroit and Chicago between civil rights protesters and local authorities. The more the government pressed it seems the more the hippies grew – in 1969 everything culminated with the massive gathering of 100,000 people at the 3-day concert extravaganza called Woodstock which was staged on a rural farm in upstate New York. Performing at the show was an astounding lineup which included Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead amongst many other musical icons of the time.

Although many of the hopes of the Summer Love were never fulfilled, for most it still sets a precedent to a time when we tried something new and different when it came to sharing and caring for each other.