History of the hippie movement

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Main article: Hippie

See also: History of subcultures in the 20th century and History of the United States (1964–1980)

A 1967 article in Time Magazine asserts that the foundation of the hippie movement finds historical precedent as far back as the counterculture of the Ancient Greeks, espoused by philosophers like Diogenes of Sinope and the Cynics.^[1] The article also claims that the Hippies were influenced by the ideas of Jesus Christ, Hillel the Elder, Buddha, St. Francis of Assisi, Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, and others.^[1]

In fin de siècle Europe, from 1896-1908, a German youth movement known as Der Wandervogel began to grow as a countercultural reaction to the organized social and cultural clubs that centered around German folk music. In contrast to these formal clubs, Wandervogel emphasized amateur music and singing, creative dress, and communal outings involving hiking and camping.^[2] Inspired by the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Goethe, Hermann Hesse, and Eduard Baltzer, Wandervogel attracted thousands of young Germans who rejected the rapid trend toward urbanization and yearned fore the pagan, back-to-nature spiritual life of their ancestors.^[3]

During the first several decades of the twentieth century, these beliefs were introduced to the United States as Germans settled around the country, some opening the first health food stores. Many moved to Southern California where they could practice an alternative lifestyle in a warm climate. In turn, young Americans adopted the beliefs and practices of the new immigrants. One group, called the "Nature Boys", took to the California desert, raised organic food, and espoused a back-to-nature lifestyle. Eden Ahbez, a member of this group, wrote a hit song called Nature Boy, which was recorded in 1947 by Nat King Cole, popularizing the homegrown back-to-nature movement to mainstream America. Eventually, a few of these Nature Boys, including the famous Gypsy Boots, made their way to Northern California in 1967, just in time for the Summer of Love in San Francisco.^[4]

Contents 1 Beat generation 2 1960–1966 2.1 Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters 2.2 Red Dog Experience 2.3 Anti-war protests 2.4 Generation 2.5 Underground press 2.6 Psychedelic rock 2.7 Haight-Ashbury 2.8 Los Angeles 2.9 Millbrook 2.10 Drop City 3 1967 3.1 Summer of Love 3.2 New Communalism 4 1968 4.1 Yippies 4.2 Resurrection City 5 1969 5.1 People's Park 5.2 Woodstock 5.3 Altamont 6 1970-present 6.1 Charles Manson 6.2 Mainstream 6.3 Legacy 6.4 Neo-hippies 6.5 Festivals 7 Notes 8 References

[edit] Beat generation

Main article: Beat generation

See also: San Francisco Renaissance

The Beat Generation gradually gave way to the Sixties counterculture, accompanied by a shift in terminology from "beatnik" to "hippie." Many of the original Beats remained active participants, notably Allen Ginsberg, who became a fixture of the anti-war movement. On the other hand, Jack Kerouac broke with Ginsberg and criticized the 1960s protest movements as "new excuses for spitefulness". Through a variety of popular media, including television shows such as the Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, the beat image became somewhat commercialized, and also a large influence on members of the new counterculture. Bob Dylan became close friends with Allen Ginsberg, and Ginsberg became close friends with Timothy Leary. Both Leary and Ginsberg were introduced to LSD by Michael Hollingshead in the early 1960s, and both became instrumental in popularizing psychedelic substances to the hippie movement.

In 1963, Ginsberg was living in San Francisco with Neal Cassady and Charles Plymell.^[5] Around that time, Ginsberg connected with Ken Kesey, who was participating in CIA sponsored LSD trials while a student at Stanford. Neal Cassady was the bus driver for Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, and he attempted to recruit Kerouac into their group, but Kerouac angrily rejected their invitation and accused them of attempting to destroy the American culture he celebrated^{[citation needed]}.

According to Ed Sanders, the change in the public label from "beatnik" to "hippie" occurred after the 1967 Human Be-In in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, where Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Michael McClure led the crowd in chanting "Om". Ginsberg was also at the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention, and was friends with Abbie Hoffman and other members of the Chicago Seven. Stylistic differences between beatniks, marked by somber colors, dark shades and goatees, gave way to colorful psychedelic clothing and long hair worn by hippies. While the beats were known for "playing it cool" and keeping a low profile, hippies became known for "being cool", and displaying their individuality. Although the beats tended to be essentially apolitical, hippies became active in the civil rights and anti-war movements.^{[citation needed]}.

One early book hailed as evidencing the transition from "beatnik" to "hippie" culture, was Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me by Richard Fariña, brother-in-law of Joan Baez. Written in 1963, it was finally published April 28, 1966 — two days before its author was killed in a motorcycle crash.

[edit] 1960–1966

[edit] Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters

Main article: Merry Pranksters

The Merry Pranksters are a group of people who originally formed around American novelist Ken Kesey, considered one of the most prominent figures in the psychedelic movement, and sometimes lived communally at his homes in California and Oregon. Notable members include Kesey's best friend Ken Babbs and Neal Cassady, Mountain Girl (born Carolyn Adams but best known as Mrs. Jerry Garcia), Wavy Gravy, Paul Krassner, Stewart Brand, Del Close, Paul Foster, George Walker, Sandy Lehmann-Haupt and others. Their early escapades were best chronicled by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters are remembered chiefly for the sociological significance of a lengthy roadtrip they took in 1964, traveling across the United States in a psychedelically painted school bus enigmatically labeled "Furthur", and for the "Acid Tests". Kesey believed that psychedelics were best used as a tool for transforming society as a whole, and believed that if a sufficient percentage of the population had the psychedelic experience then revolutionary social and political changes would occur. Therefore, they made LSD available to anyone interested in partaking - most famously through the "electric kool-aid" made available at a series of "Acid Tests"; musical and multi-media events where participants were given "acid", the street name for LSD. The tests were held at various venues in California, and were sometimes advertised with colorful crayoned signs asking "Can you pass the acid test?" The first Acid Test was held in Palo Alto, California in November 1965. (LSD was legal in the United States until October 6, 1966.) The young psychedelic music band The Grateful Dead (known earlier as The Warlocks) supplied the music during these events.

[edit] Red Dog Experience

Main article: Red Dog Experience

The Red Dog Saloon was a bar and live music venue located in the isolated, old-time mining town of Virginia City, Nevada. In April 1963, Chandler A. Laughlin III established a kind of tribal, family identity among approximately fifty people who attended a traditional, all-night Native American peyote ceremony which combined a psychedelic experience with traditional Native American spiritual values.^[6] During the summer of 1965, Laughlin recruited much of the original talent that led to a unique amalgam of traditional folk music and the developing psychedelic rock scene.^[6] He and his cohorts created what became known as The Red Dog Experience, featuring previously unknown musical acts--Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Charlatans, The Grateful Dead and others&mdash. There was no clear delineation between "performers" and "audience" in "The Red Dog Experience," during which music, psychedelic experimentation, a unique sense of personal style and Bill Ham's first primitive light shows combined to create a new sense of community.^[7]

[edit] Anti-war protests

Main article: Opposition to the Vietnam War

Although there were many diverse groups and elements protesting the US military involvement in Vietnam as it began to escalate, many of the protesters, rightly or wrongly, came to be associated with aspects of the "hippie" movement in the popular view. A number of them had been highly active in the Civil Rights movement in the first half of the 1960s, travelling across the country to take part in sit-ins and marches against segregation in the South. The first draft card burnings took place May 5, 1965 at University of California, Berkeley (which had already seen a precedent to the subsequent social turmoil, in form of the Free Speech Movement), and a coffin was marched to the Berkeley draft board. As similar protests continued through the summer, President Lyndon Johnson responded by signing a new law on August 31 1965 penalizing the burning of draft cards with up to 5 years in prison and a $1,000 fine, although such burnings went on regardless. In later years, the Viet Cong flag of the "enemy" was even adopted as a symbol by more radical anti-war protesters. However, the core "hippie" philosophy remained staunchly aloof to politics, and politicians, throughout this time.

[edit] Generation

The new "hippie" values, eg. natural childbirth, made an early broadway appearance October 6, 1965 with the opening of a popular new play, Generation by US playwright William Goodhart, starring Henry Fonda, which, according to one of its reviews in Time,^[8] "converts a Greenwich Village loft into a sparring ground for the Establishment and the hippie, the parent and the child." Owing to the success of this play, it went on to be made into a 1969 film, alternately titled Time for Giving.

[edit] Underground press

Another signal of the rising movement was the sudden appearance of an underground hippie press in several US cities. Among the first of these was the Los Angeles Free Press, which began in May, 1964 as a broadside entitled The Faire Free Press. This was soon followed by the Berkeley Barb in August 1965, the East Village Other of New York, in October 1965, The Fifth Estate, in Detroit in November 1965, and East Lansing's The Paper in December 1965. By 1966 the Underground Press Syndicate had been organized; 80 presses of U.S. and Canada came to a conference sponsored by Middle Earth in Iowa City. Liberation News Service, located in Washington DC, then New York, then split between New York and a commune in rural Massachusetts, served up alternative stories to the underground press world.

[edit] Psychedelic rock

Main article: Psychedelic rock

See also: San Francisco Sound

A Tribute to Dr. Strange

When they returned to San Francisco at the end of Summer, 1965, Red Dog participants Luria Castell, Ellen Harman and Alton Kelley created a collective called "The Family Dog."^[6] Modeled on their Red Dog experiences, on October 16, "1965, The Family Dog hosted "A Tribute to Dr. Strange" at Longshoreman's Hall.^[9][10] Attended by approximately 1,000 of the Bay Area's original "hippies," this was San Francisco's first psychedelic rock performance, costumed dance and light show, featuring Jefferson Airplane, The Great Society and The Marbles. Two other events followed before year's end, one at California Hall and one at the Matrix.^[6]

Trips Festival

A much larger psychedelic event, "The Trips Festival," took place on January 21–January 23, 1966 at Longshoreman's Hall, organized by Stewart Brand, Ken Kesey, Owsley Stanley and others. Ten thousand people attended this sold-out event, with a thousand more turned away each night.^[11] On Saturday January 22, the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company came on stage, and 6,000 people arrived to imbibe punch spiked with LSD and to witness one of the first fully-developed light shows of the era.^[12]

Fillmore Auditorium and Avalon Ballroom

By February 1966, the Family Dog became Family Dog Productions under organizer Chet Helms, promoting happenings at the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore Auditorium in initial cooperation with Bill Graham. These and other venues provided settings where participants could partake of the full psychedelic music experience. Bill Ham perfected his liquid light projection shows which, combined with film projection, and became synonymous with the San Francisco ballroom experience.^[7][6][13]

When San Francisco's Fox Theater went out of business, hippies bought up its costume stock, reveling in the freedom to dress up for weekly musical performances at their favorite ballrooms. As San Francisco Chronicle music columnist Ralph J. Gleason put it, "They danced all night long, orgiastic, spontaneous and completely free form."^[6]

[edit] Haight-Ashbury

Main article: Haight-Ashbury

See also: History of San Francisco, California

Some of the earliest San Francisco hippies were former students at San Francisco State College (later renamed San Francisco State University) who were intrigued by the developing psychedelic hippie music scene and left school after they started taking psychedelic drugs.^[6] These students joined the bands they loved and began living communally in the large, inexpensive Victorian apartments in the Haight.^[14] Young Americans around the country began moving to San Francisco, and by June 1966, around 15,000 hippies had moved into the Haight.^[15] The Charlatans, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the Grateful Dead all moved to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood during this period.

Love Pageant Rally

Main article: Love Pageant Rally

On October 6, 1966, the state of California made LSD a controlled substance, making the drug illegal.^[16] In response to the criminalization of psychedelics, San Francisco hippies staged a gathering in the Golden Gate Park panhandle, called "The Love Pageant Rally",^[16] attracting an estimated 700-800 people.^[17] As explained by Allan Cohen, co-founder of the San Francisco Oracle, the purpose of the rally was twofold — to draw attention to the fact that LSD had just been made illegal, and to demonstrate that people who used LSD were not criminals, nor were they mentally ill. According to Cohen, those who took LSD were mostly idealistic people who wanted to learn more about themselves and their place in the universe, and they used LSD as an aid to meditation and to creative, artistic expression.^{[citation needed]} The Grateful Dead played, and some sources claim that LSD was consumed at the rally.^[18]

Diggers

Main article: Diggers (theater)

“	It is nothing new. We have a private revolution going on. A revolution of individuality and diversity that can only be private. Upon becoming a group movement, such a revolution ends up with imitators rather than participants...It is essentially a striving for realization of one's relationship to life and other people...	”
—Bob Stubbs, "Unicorn Philosophy", [19]

Hippie action in the Haight centered around the Diggers, a guerrilla street theatre group that combined spontaneous street theatre, anarchistic action, and art happenings in their agenda to create a "free city." By late 1966, the Diggers opened stores which simply gave away their stock; provided free food, medical care, transport and temporary housing; they also organized free music concerts and works of political art.^{[citation needed]} The Diggers criticized the term 'hippie' with their October, 1967, 'Death of Hippie' event.^[20]

By mid-1968, it was widely noted that most of the original "Flower Children" had long since departed the Haight Ashbury district, having been replaced by a more cynical and exploitative crowd.^[21]

[edit] Los Angeles

Los Angeles also had a vibrant hippie scene during the mid-1960s. The Venice coffeehouses and beat culture sustained the hippies, giving birth to bands like The Doors. Sunset Strip became the quintessential L.A. hippie gathering area, with its seminal rock clubs Whisky-a-Go-Go and the Troubadour. The Strip was the location of the protest described in Buffalo Springfield's early 1966 hippie anthem, "For What It's Worth."

[edit] Millbrook

Before the Summer of Love, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert formed the International Foundation for Internal Freedom in Newton, Massachusetts, inhabiting two houses but later moving to a 64-room mansion at Millbrook, New York, with a communal group of about 25–30 people in residence until they were shut down in 1967.^[22]

[edit] Drop City

Main article: Drop City

In 1965, four art students and filmmakers, Gene Bernofsky, JoAnn Bernofsky, Richard Kallweit and Clark Richert, moved to a seven acre tract of land near Trinidad, Colorado. Their intention was to create a live-in work of Drop Art, continuing an art concept they had developed earlier, and informed by "happenings." As Drop City gained notoriety in the 1960s underground, people from around the world came to stay and work on the construction projects. Inspired by the architectural ideas of Buckminister Fuller and Steve Baer, residents constructed geodesic domes and zonahedra to house themselves, using geometric panels made from the metal of automobile roofs and other inexpensive materials. In 1967 the group, consisting of 10 core people and many contributors, won Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion award for their constructions.

[edit] 1967

[edit] Summer of Love

Main article: Summer of Love

On January 14, 1967, the outdoor Human Be-In in San Francisco popularized hippie culture across the United States, with 20,000 hippies gathering in Golden Gate Park. The Monterey Pop Festival from June 16 to June 18 introduced the rock music of the counterculture to a wide audience and marked the start of the "Summer of Love."^[23] Scott McKenzie's rendition of John Phillips' song, "San Francisco," became a hit in the United States and Europe. The lyrics, "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair", inspired thousands of young people from all over the world to travel to San Francisco, sometimes wearing flowers in their hair and distributing flowers to passersby, earning them the name, "Flower Children."

Bands like the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company (with Janis Joplin), and Jefferson Airplane continued to live in the Haight, but by the end of the summer, the incessant media coverage led the Diggers to declare the "death" of the hippie with a parade. According to the late poet Stormi Chambless, the hippies buried an effigy of a hippie in the Panhandle to demonstrate the end of his/her reign. Regarding this period of history, the July 7, 1967, TIME magazine featured a cover story entitled, "The Hippies: The Philosophy of a Subculture." The article described the guidelines of the hippie code: "Do your own thing, wherever you have to do it and whenever you want. Drop out. Leave society as you have known it. Leave it utterly. Blow the mind of every straight person you can reach. Turn them on, if not to drugs, then to beauty, love, honesty, fun."^[24]

It is estimated that around 100,000 people traveled to San Francisco in the summer of 1967. The media was right behind them, casting a spotlight on the Haight-Ashbury district and popularizing the "hippie" label. With this increased attention, hippies found support for their ideals of love and peace but were also criticized for their anti-work, pro-drug, and permissive ethos. Misgivings about the hippie culture, particularly with regard to drug abuse and lenient morality, fueled the moral panics of the late 1960s.^[25]

[edit] New Communalism

See also: Back-to-the-land movement

When the Summer of Love finally ended, thousands of hippies left San Francisco, a large minority of them heading "back to the land". These hippies created the largest number of intentional communities or communes in the history of the United States, forming alternative, egalitarian farms and homesteads in Northern California, Colorado, New Mexico, New York, Tennessee and other states. According to Timothy Miller, communes were organized in many different ways, some along religious, political, and even sexual orientation. Poet and writer Judson Jerome, who studied the American commune movement, estimates that by the early 1970s, about 750,000 people lived in more than ten thousand communes across the United States.^[26]

The Farm

Main article: The Farm (Tennessee)

In 1967, Stephen Gaskin began to develop a philosophy of hippie perspectives at San Francisco State College, where Gaskin taught English, creative writing, and General Semantics. Gaskin's "Monday Night Class" became a broad, open discussion group involving up to 1,500 students and other participants from the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1970, Gaskin and his wife, Ina May Gaskin led a caravan of 60 buses, vans and trucks on a cross country speaking tour. Along the way, they checked out various places that might be suitable for settlement. When they got back to San Francisco, they decided to return to Summertown, Tennessee, where they bought 1,700 acres (688 hectares) and created an intentional community called "The Farm." The Farm became a widely respected, spiritually-based hippie community that still thrives, although it is now more a hip village of 300 than a commune of 1,200. The Farm continues in many public-service and philanthropic enterprises through the Farm Midwifery Center, Plenty International, and other sub-organizations.^[27]

[edit] 1968

By 1968, hippie-influenced fashions were beginning to take off in the mainstream, especially for youths and younger adults of the populous "Baby Boomer" generation, many of whom may have aspired to emulate the hardcore movements now living in tribalistic communes, but had no overt connections to them. This was noticed not only in terms of clothes and also longer hair for men, but also in music, film, art, and literature, and not just in the US, but around the world. Eugene McCarthy's brief presidential campaign successfully persuaded a significant minority of young adults to "get clean for Gene" by shaving their beards or wearing lower miniskirts; however the "Clean Genes" had little impact on the popular image in the media spotlight, of the hirsute hippy adorned in beads, feathers, flowers and bells.

The year 1968 also saw the development of two new, but dissimilar, genres of music that each exerted some influence on, and were influenced by, the hippie movements: Heavy metal, and reggae.

[edit] Yippies

Main article: Youth International Party

The Yippies, who were seen as an offshoot of the hippie movements parodying as a political party, came to national attention during their celebration of the 1968 spring equinox, when some 3,000 of them took over Grand Central Station in New York — eventually resulting in 61 arrests. The Yippies, especially their leaders Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, became notorious for their theatrics, such as trying to levitate the Pentagon at the October 1967 war protest, and such slogans as "Rise up and abandon the creeping meatball!" Their stated intention to protest the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, including nominating their own candidate, "Lyndon Pigasus Pig" (an actual pig), was also widely publicized in the media at this time.^[28]

By the time of the convention, city officials were prepared for the worst, with 23,000 police, National Guard, and Federal troops. Following the pig's nomination on the first day, Rubin and 6 others were arrested, but protests and music concerts were allowed to continue in Lincoln Park for two days, albeit an 11:00 PM curfew was enforced. On the Convention's second night, poet Allan Ginsberg led protesters out of the park, thus avoiding confrontation, by chanting "Om". On the third night, riots erupted in response to the curfew, causing police to indiscriminately attack protesters and innocent bystanders alike, including journalists from around the world and even visiting dignitaries, throughout the streets of Chicago. The violence suffered by the journalists, who included even Mike Wallace, Dan Rather and Hugh Hefner, resulted in a mainstream media that was more sympathetic to certain hippie ideals, and less to politicians, for several years. However, this galvanized the protest movement, and the following year, the trial of Hoffman, Rubin, and others as the "Chicago Seven" (originally Eight) generated significant interest.

[edit] Resurrection City

Beginning May 12, 1968, the newly-formed Poor People's Campaign, started by the recently assassinated Martin Luther King, Jr., organized a shantytown known as Resurrection City, composed of around 3,000 black, native, and Latino militants, along with a significant contingent of hippies and diggers, encamped on the National Mall in Washington, DC. This culminated in the June 19 "Solidarity Day" protest which drew 55,000 protesters, after which the tent settlements' population dwindled to around 300. It was finally razed, after almost 6 weeks, on June 24, 1968 by 1,000 riot police using tear gas.

[edit] 1969

[edit] People's Park

Main article: People's Park (Berkeley)

In April 1969, the building of People's Park in Berkeley, California received international attention. The University of California, Berkeley had demolished all the buildings on a 2.8 acre parcel near campus, intending to use the land to build playing fields and a parking lot. After a long delay, during which the site became a dangerous eyesore, thousands of ordinary Berkeley citizens, merchants, students, and hippies took matters into their own hands, planting trees, shrubs, flowers and grass to convert the land into a park. A major confrontation ensued on May 15, 1969, and Governor Ronald Reagan ordered a two-week occupation of the city of Berkeley by the United States National Guard. Flower power came into its own during this occupation as hippies engaged in acts of civil disobedience to plant flowers in empty lots all over Berkeley under the slogan "Let A Thousand Parks Bloom."

[edit] Woodstock

Main article: Woodstock Festival

In August 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Festival took place in Bethel, New York, which for many, exemplified the best of hippie counterculture. Over 500,000 people arrived to hear the most notable musicians and bands of the era, among them Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Santana, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, and Jimi Hendrix. Wavy Gravy's Hog Farm provided security and attended to practical needs, and the hippie ideals of love and human fellowship seemed to have gained real-world expression.

[edit] Altamont

Main article: Altamont Music Festival

In December 1969, a similar event took place in Altamont, California, about 30 miles (45 km) east of San Francisco. Initially billed as "Woodstock West," its official name was The Altamont Free Concert. About 300,000 people gathered to hear The Rolling Stones; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Jefferson Airplane and other bands. The Hells Angels provided security that proved far less beneficent than the security provided at the Woodstock event: 18-year-old Meredith Hunter was stabbed and killed while drawing a gun in front of the stage during The Rolling Stones performance, and four accidental deaths occurred. There were also four births at the concert.

[edit] 1970-present

By 1970, the 1960s zeitgeist that had spawned hippie culture seemed to be on the wane,^[29][30], at least in the US. The events at Altamont shocked many Americans, including those who had strongly identified with hippie culture. Another shock came in the form of the Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca murders committed in August 1969 by Charles Manson and his "family" of followers.

Nevertheless, the oppressive political atmosphere that featured the bombing of Cambodia and shootings by National Guardsmen at Jackson State University and Kent State University still brought people together. These shootings inspired the May 1970 songs by Quicksilver Messenger Service "What About Me?," where they sang "You keep adding to my numbers as you shoot my people down" and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's protest song "Ohio".

Meanwhile, in England, the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (August) drew an even bigger attendance than Woodstock, and was a major gathering of the hippie movement (as well as one of the last major concert appearances for a few prominent musicians of the time, such as Jimi Hendrix).

Also in 1970, coverage of the Chicago Seven trials provided the mainstream media an opportunity to highlight the most radical aspects of the movement. Yippie leader Jerry Rubin's guest appearance on the Phil Donahue Show in that year (April 1) represents the virtual apex of such publicity — surpassed only by his appearance November 7 that same year on The David Frost Show, where he lit a joint and tried to pass it to Frost, then summoned an army of expletive-using hippies planted in the audience to swarm the stage, all on live television.

[edit] Charles Manson

Main article: Charles Manson

Charles Manson was a lifelong criminal who had been released from prison just in time for San Francisco's Summer of Love. With his long hair, charisma and the ability to charm a crowd with his guitar playing, his singing and rhetoric, Manson exhibited many of the outward manifestations of hippie identity. Yet Manson hardly exemplified the hippie ideals of peace, love, compassion and human fellowship; through twisted logic and psychological manipulation, he inspired his followers to commit murder. Manson's highly publicized 1970 trial and subsequent conviction in January 1971 irrevocably tarnished the hippie image in the eyes of many Americans.^[29] Other factors, such as the proliferation of drugs and their associated dependency, also contributed to the decline.

[edit] Mainstream

Much of hippie style had been integrated into mainstream American society by the early 1970s.^[31][32][33] Large rock concerts that originated with the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and the 1968 Isle of Wight Festival became the norm. Mustaches, beards and longer hair became commonplace and colorful, multi-ethnic clothing dominated the fashion world.

In the mid-1970s, with the end of the draft and the Vietnam War, and a renewal of patriotic sentiment associated with the approach of the United States Bicentennial, the mainstream media lost interest in the hippie counterculture, and hippies became targets for ridicule, coinciding with the advent of punk rock and disco. Although not as visible as it once was, hippie culture has never died out completely: hippies and neo-hippies can still be found on college campuses, on communes and at festivals; while many still embrace the hippie values of peace, love, and community. Although many of the original hippies and those who were core to the movement remained (or remain) dedicated to the values they originally espoused, many of those who played more peripheral roles are often seen as having "sold out" during the 1980s by becoming a part of the corporate, materialist culture they initially rejected.<name=Lattin_2004">Lattin 2004, pp. 74.</ref>^[34]

[edit] Legacy

Since the 1960s, many aspects of the hippie counterculture have been assimilated by the mainstream.^[32][35] Public political demonstrations are considered legitimate expressions of free speech. Unmarried couples of all ages feel free to travel and live together without societal disapproval. Frankness regarding sexual matters has become the norm—even conservative talk radio hosts, like Dr. Laura Schlessinger, feel free to exclaim "Orgasms are cool!" In urban centers especially, and in corporate America, the rights of homosexual, bisexual and transsexual people have expanded.

Religious and cultural diversity has gained greater acceptance. Eastern religions and spiritual concepts, karma and reincarnation in particular, have reached a wider audience with around 20% of Americans espousing some New Age belief.^[36] A wide range of personal appearance options and clothing styles have become acceptable, all of which were uncommon before the hippie era.^[37][38] Co-operative business enterprises and creative community living arrangements are widely accepted. Interest in natural food, herbal remedies and vitamins is widespread, and the little hippie "health food stores" of the 1960s and 1970s are now large-scale, profitable businesses.

The immediate legacy of the hippies included: in fashion, the decline in popularity of the necktie which had been everyday wear during the 1950s and early 1960s, and generally longer hairstyles, even for politicians such as Pierre Trudeau; in literature, books like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test;^[39] in music, the blending of folk rock into newer forms including acid rock and heavy metal; in television and film, far greater visibility and influence, with some films depicting the hippie ethos and lifestyle, such as Woodstock, Easy Rider, Hair, The Doors, and Crumb. Even children's television shows like H.R. Pufnstuf,^[40] and educational shows such as The Electric Company^[41] and Mulligan Stew were influenced by the hippies.

While many hippies made a long-term commitment to the lifestyle, some younger people argue that hippies "sold out" during the 1980s and became part of the materialist, consumer culture.^[42] Hippies may still be found in bohemian enclaves around the world.^[43]

Contemporary hippies have made use of the World Wide Web and can be found on virtual communities. In the United Kingdom, the New age travellers movement, while eschewing the label 'hippie', nevertheless revived many hippie traditions into the 1980s and 1990s. Current events, festivals and parties continue to promote the hippie lifestyle and values. The "boho-chic" fashion style of 2003-2007 had a number of hippie features and the London Evening Standard even used the term "hippie chic" (11 March 2005).

Some hippie ideals were an influence on anarcho-punk bands such as Crass, as well as on many peace punk and some crust punk bands. Crass's drummer Penny Rimbaud wrote an essay called "The Last Of The Hippies" recalling how a hippy friend, Phil Russell (a.k.a. Wally Hope), was allegedly committed to a mental institution after becoming a thorn in the side of the establishment. The members of Crass were old enough to have been members of the hippie counter-culture.

[edit] Neo-hippies

Neo-hippies, some of whom are sons, daughters and grandchildren of the original hippies, advocate many of the same beliefs of their 1960s counterparts. Drug use is just as accepted as in the "original" hippie days, although most neo-hippies do not consider it necessary to take drugs in order to be part of the lifestyle, and others reject drug use in favor of alternative methods of reaching higher or altered consciousness such as drumming circles, community singing, meditation, yoga and dance.

In the United States, some hippies refer to themselves as "Rainbows," a name derived from their tie-dyed T-shirts, and for some, from their participation in the hippie group, "Rainbow Family of Living Light". Since the early 1970s, the Rainbows meet informally at Rainbow Gatherings on U.S. National Forest Land as well as internationally. "Peace, love, harmony, freedom, and community" is their motto.

[edit] Festivals

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The tradition of hippie festivals began in the United States in 1965 with Ken Kesey's Acid Tests, where the Grateful Dead played stoned on LSD and initiated psychedelic jamming. For the next several decades, many hippies and neo-hippies became part of the Deadhead and Phish Head communities, attending music and art festivals held around the country. The Grateful Dead toured continuously, with few interruptions between 1965 and 1995. Phish toured sporadically between 1983 and 2004. With the demise of the Grateful Dead and Phish, the nomadic touring hippies have been left without a main jam band to follow. Instead, they attend a growing series of summer festivals, the largest of which is called the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, which premiered in 2002.

The Oregon Country Fair began in 1969 as a benefit for an alternative school. Currently, the three-day festival features hand-made crafts, educational displays and costumed entertainment in a wooded setting near Veneta, Oregon just west of Eugene. Each year the festival becomes the third largest city in Lane County.

The annual Starwood Festival, founded in 1981, is a six-day event held in Sherman, New York indicative of the spiritual quest of hippies through an exploration of non-mainstream religions and world-views. It has offered performances and classes by a variety of hippie and counter-culture icons, from musical guests like Big Brother and the Holding Company, Merl Saunders and Babatunde Olatunji to speakers such as Timothy Leary, Terence McKenna, Paul Krassner, Stephen Gaskin, Robert Anton Wilson, Harvey Wasserman and Ralph Metzner.

The Burning Man festival began in 1986 at a San Francisco beach party. Now an annual gathering, the event is held in the Black Rock Desert northeast of Reno, Nevada. Though few participants would accept the "hippie" label, Burning Man is a contemporary expression of alternative community in the same spirit as early hippie events. The gathering becomes a temporary city (36,500 occupants in 2005), with elaborate encampments, displays and many art cars.

Held annually in Manchester, Tennessee, the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival has become a tradition for many music fans, since its sold-out premiere in 2002. Approximately 70-80,000 attend Bonnaroo yearly. The festival producers have made investments in their property, constructing vast telecommunications networks, potable water supplies, sanitation facilities, and safety features such as first aid shelters for every 200-300 fans.

The 10,000 Lakes Festival is an annual three-day music festival in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. Also referred to as '10KLF' (K for thousand, LF for Lakes Festival), the festival began in 2003. Attendance in 2006 was around 18,000.^[44]

In the UK, there are many new age travellers who are known as hippies to outsiders, but prefer to call themselves the Peace Convoy. They started the Stonehenge Free Festival in 1974, especially Wally Hope, until the English Heritage legally banned the festival, resulting in the Battle of the Beanfield in 1985. With Stonehenge banned as a festival site new age travellers gather at the annual Glastonbury Festival to see hundreds of live dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other performances. Others argue that it has now become too much of a commercial event, and instead opt for smaller festivals such as Beautiful Days or The Big Green Gathering. In 2005, Glastonbury festival covered 900 acres (3.6 km²) and attracted 150,000 people.

Between 1976 and 1981, hippie music festivals were held on large farms around Waihi and Waikino in New Zealand- Aotearoa. Named Nambassa, the festivals focused on peace, love, and a balanced lifestyle, featuring workshops and displays advocating alternative lifestyles, clean and sustainable energy, and unadulterated foods. Nambassa is also the tribal name of a trust that has championed sustainable ideas and demonstrated practical counterculture and alternative lifestyle methods since the early 1970s.

Many of the bands performing at hippie festivals, and their derivatives, are called jam bands, since they play songs that contain long instrumentals similar to the original hippie bands of the 1960s. Psychedelic trance or "psytrance," a type of techno music influenced by 60s psychedelic rock and hippie culture is also popular among neo-hippies worldwide. Psytrance hippies usually attend separate festivals where only electronic music is played.

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