Summer of Love

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1967, San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district

What was life like in San Francisco during the summer of 1967, the "Summer of Love"? Some of us were around to remember it, others have forgotten and many weren't even here yet.

"Summer of Love" recalls how, in 1967, San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district became a mecca for young people seeking free music, free love and cosmic oneness, but quickly became home to rampant drug abuse, food shortages and STDs.

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The Beatles - Revolution (Live)

Revolution - The Beatles

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Were You a Hippie in the 60's? 

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The Beatles (The White Album) 

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Judy Goldhaft is a dancer who moved to San Francisco after college and became part of the radical San Francisco Mime Troupe and an anarchist street theater group, the Diggers.

"If you made a chart of all the things we were trying to do in the Summer of Love, they've all been done. The change with society has been so complete that everything we wanted to accomplish has been accomplished, really. Maybe not the best, maybe it's not finished -- but all the basic things that we were trying to do. A more natural lifestyle ... the organic foods movement is incredibly strong. The local foods movement is incredibly strong. The alternative medicine -- nobody knew about anything except Western industrial medicine at that point. We began experimenting with herbs and looking for less invasive ways to do things. And they began working.

We wanted to move the puritanical Fifties culture into a more sensuous, luxurious, exuberant society. I think that's happened. Everything is out in the open. The sensuality and sexuality has been expanded. It's appreciated. It's delighted in. I think our society has kind of gotten there."

Read more comments on the PBS American Experience Website.
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Summer of Love, Watch the program, the film and more.
Cannabis Chronicles
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Hippie Sounds
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San Francisco - Golden Gate Park - Speedway Meadows - Summer Of Love - 40th Anniversary

Photo by Rojer

Summer of Love 2007 Celebration

We're reconnecting with a time, a place and a feeling once claiming fantasy pasts and sci-fi futures. It was a time, which bathed each and every shared excess in lightning-true rays of a NOW that would never end...
~Cannabis Chronicles

 

San Francisco - Golden Gate Park - Speedway Meadows - Summer Of Love - 40th Anniversary

Photo by Rojer

40th anniversary of the Summer of Love (1967 - 2007) 

San Francisco Celebration 2007

September 4, 2007

SOME of the biggest musical stars of the 1960s counter-culture gathered in San Francisco for a concert to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love, yet backstage many voiced disappointment about the era's unfulfilled ideals.

The Summer of Love of 1967 made San Francisco a magnet for youth who wanted to experiment with sex, drugs, rock'n'roll and an alternative hippie lifestyle.

"We thought, this is it, we're going to change the world, actually, we're going to become the Christian world of love," Ray Manzarek, 68, keyboardist for the Doors, said on Sunday. "Of course, it didn't happen. Here we are, 40 years later, and we are still at war. It was a great disappointment."

Manzarek was at the famed San Francisco January 1967 "Human Be-In," credited with drawing young people to the city, with Doors singer Jim Morrison and other bandmates.

The '60s lived again as Manzarek, Jefferson Starship and other legends performed, thousands of fans donned tie-dye shirts and bell-bottom pants and the smell of marijuana wafted through the air.

Two women wandered through the crowd in Golden Gate Park, offering free hugs.

In keeping with the spirit of those times, the concert was free.

In the 1960s, many in the counter-culture felt they could change the world by removing societal constraints and ending the Vietnam War.

Fito De La Parra, drummer for the band Canned Heat, said his generation never lived up to its ideals.

"On the whole, I feel betrayed," he said backstage after playing before what organisers estimated was 40,000 fans.

Barry Melton, best known by his nickname "The Fish" and his partnership with Country Joe McDonald, said the 1960s social movements deserved credit for advancing issues such as women's and gay rights and environmental consciousness, but the youth of the day went overboard with drugs.

"There are things I cringe about," said Melton, now a criminal lawyer. "For one thing, we had an absolute benign attitude about drugs that was pretty naive." James Gurley, 67, played with Big Brother and the Holding Company, whose lead singer, Janis Joplin, died of a drug overdose.

For the past decade Gurley said he had not spoken with his fellow band guitarist after a falling out.

"I expected we'd all be friends later," he said. "My disappointment is in myself. My assessments were off base. I mis-assessed human nature."

Reuters

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Flower power: A colourfully dressed fan enjoys musical tributes during the Summer of Love 40th anniversary concert at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

Add these "Summer of Love" Books to Your Library 

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The Sixties: Photographs by Robert Altman by Robert Altman

The Sixties: Photographs by Robert Altman by Robert Altman

Abbie Hoffman, Mick Jagger, Ken Kesey, and Grace S more...0 points

Liberty Meadows Volume 3: Summer Of Love (New Printing) (Liberty Meadows) by Frank Cho

Liberty Meadows Volume 3: Summer Of Love (New Printing) (Liberty Meadows) by Frank Cho

BACK IN PRINT! As the summer approaches, Brandy se more...0 points

Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era by Christoph Grunenberg

Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era by Christoph Grunenberg

Colorful, thought-provoking, eclectic, and readabl more...0 points

Summer of Love: Psychedelic Art, Social Crisis and Counterculture in the 1960s (Liverpool University Press - Tate Liverpool Critical Forum)

Summer of Love: Psychedelic Art, Social Crisis and Counterculture in the 1960s (Liverpool University Press - Tate Liverpool Critical Forum)

Though more than a generation has passed since the more...0 points

Memories of Drop City: The first hippie commune of the 1960's and the Summer of Love by John Curl

Memories of Drop City: The first hippie commune of the 1960's and the Summer of Love by John Curl

Memories of Drop City follows a group of people an more...0 points

Messenger from the Summer of Love by David Rey Echt

Messenger from the Summer of Love by David Rey Echt

There are moments in history that usher in a new d more...0 points

Where Have All the Hippies Gone? by Sam Yulish

Where Have All the Hippies Gone? by Sam Yulish

Where Have All the Hippies Gone? by Sam Yulish, is more...0 points

Summer of Love: The Inside Story of LSD, Rock & Roll, Free Love and High Times (Plume Books) by Joel Selvin

Summer of Love: The Inside Story of LSD, Rock & Roll, Free Love and High Times (Plume Books) by Joel Selvin

This book weaves a fascinating narrative that sepa more...0 points

Blog Posts About The "Summer of Love" 

THE SUMMER OF LOVE « Theme Park Radio Blog
Three more songs from that magical time in 1967 referred to as THE SUMMER OF LOVE include I'M A MAN from The Spencer Davis Group, written by Steve Winwood, SAN FRANCISCO NIGHTS from Eric Burdon & the Animals and GET TOGETHER from the ...
Pitino's Summer Of Love And The Collateral Damage… « Louisville ...
The ?Summer of Love? has now officially cost us, possibly, the two most embarrassing losses at home in Pitino's tenure here. I will always wonder what it cost the overall number one seed last year as well. ...
Summer of Love, Episode 4 // Current
"Break-a-Leg" (4 of 5) With the largest show of their careers on the horizon, tensions boil over at practice. The band appears on the mainstage at Baltimore's.
Lou. Stories and Stuff. › My summer of love
My summer of love. There was a time, long before arts council grants, Centrelink retraining schemes and selling my belongings on Ebay that I made a living doing something decidedly different, I was a life model. ...

 

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What was life like in San Francisco during the summer of 1967? 

What was life like in San Francisco during the summer of 1967, the "Summer of Love"? Some of us were around to remember it, others have forgotten and many weren't even here yet. Refresh your memories or learn about it first hand (well, second hand) with articles from the Underground Newspaper Microfilm Collection at the San Francisco Public Library. This collection contains several Bay Area publications such as the Black Panther Newspaper, the Oracle and the Berkeley Barb.

You can even go further afield to other locations as it also includes hundreds of alternative newspapers from all over the United States and around the world. Available only on microfilm, not online, you will need to come to the Magazines and Newspapers Center to read the newspapers.
San Francisco Public Library
San Francisco Public Library Website

French and Saunders: The Mamas and the Papas 

French and Saunders: The Mamas and the Papas

I actually think that spoof is worth a own CD. They got the sound so well. :D

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San Francisco Scott Mc Kenzie 

San Francisco

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Summer of Love on YouTube  

Scott McKenzie - If You're Going To San Francisco

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 For those who come to San Francisco Summertime will be a love-in there In the streets of San Francisco Gentle people with flowers in their hair All across the nation such a strange vibration People in motion There's a whole generation with a new explanation People in motion people in motion For those who come to San Francisco Be sure to wear ...

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Summer of Love From Wikipedia 

:See Summer of Love (disambiguation).

The Summer of Love refers to the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, creating a phenomenon of 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,E. Vulliamy, "Love and Haight", Observer Music Monthly 20 May 2007 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.P. Braunstein, and M.W. Doyle (eds), Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960s and 70s, (New York, 2002), p.7 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 total strangers; and free love.Roots of Communal Revival 1962-1966

Ironically, the summer of 1967 also saw some of the worst violence in US cities in the countrys history ? this was because of the race riots/insurrections that occurred in places such as Detroit and Newark. This aspect of the summer of 1967 is often called "The Long, Hot Summer". The cause of this violence is generally attributed to racial discrimination against African-Americans and the frustration and anger it inspired in Blacks.http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_VQSQJRShttp://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-lessons-of-the-long-hot-summer-4400http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070722/OPINION04/707220492/-1/PRINT

Were You In San Franscisco in the Summer of Love? 

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The Good and the Bad 

There was good and there was bad in the world in the summer of love. What do you remember? If you didn't live it, what have you learned about the summer?

Peter Coyote came to San Francisco to get a Masters degree in creative writing. He directed the national tours of the radical San Francisco Mime Troupe and joined an anarchist street theater group, the Diggers.

"Whatever we learned, we learned from making a complete commitment. ... The search for some kind of moral stance ... the search for justice and some kind of economic equity ... trying to leave a smaller footprint on the planet ... exploring alternative spiritual and medical practices ... they were all valid searches and they've all been completely integrated into the culture today. They're so integrated that you don't even notice them. No, we didn't end imperialism. We didn't end capitalism. We didn't do a lot of things we wanted to do. But there's no place you can go today where you can't find organic food, where you can't find yoga lessons or a chiropractor or you can't find some kind of spiritual alternative or some kind of acupuncture or alternative medicine.

We did that, our generation. I'm proud of that. I wish we'd been omniscient. You know, I wish we hadn't made any mistakes or been able to do everything we wanted to do. But that would have probably meant that the world would come to an end because there'd be nothing left for the next generation to do. So -- I did my part. I'm still doing it."

Read more remembrances on the PBS site listed below.

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Learn More About Our History 

What was the Summer of Love all about? Why did kids from all over the country leave their comfy homes and families to join the party in San Franscisco?

Maybe the following reading and listening will give you an insight into the phenomenon.
NPR The Worldwide Revolution in Love, Sex, and Marriage
Traditional marriage is the kind where men protect their wives, mothers care for their kids, and couples are faithful. Right? No! Historian Stephanie Coontz has the facts. Marriage used to be all kinds of things: like polygamous, chauvinistic and adulterous. But even more interesting: now that marriages are about love, they've become more fragile.

Coontz's talk is called Courting Disaster: The Worldwide Revolution in Love, Sex, and Marriage. Stephanie Coontz spoke at Town Hall Seattle on June 6th, 2007. Town Hall Center for Civic Life and Elliott Bay Book Company sponsored her visit.
PBS Women and Work
In this interview, University of Minnesota historian Elaine Tyler May discusses women and work in the postwar era.
PBS The Pill and the Sexual Revolution
People & Events: The Pill and the Sexual Revolution

As the feminist movement evolved in the late 1960s, women started challenging their exclusion from politics and the workplace. They also began to question traditional sexual roles.

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