In 1967, Scott McKenzie put flower power on the map by asking visitors to San Francisco to come wearing flowers in their hair. But McKenzie wasn’t a fashion-fiend. In fact, he was a pop singer with a message. Flowers represented peace and love in an era when the USA was at war with Vietnam. And they stood for a counter-culture of non-violent revolution against mainstream society. Although you probably won’t find many people wandering its streets with the same hippie dress sense anymore, the spirit of the “flower child” lingers on. Nowadays, anything goes in the Golden Gate City. And it’s not even The Mamas and the Papas who we’ve got to thank for it. More like our grandmas and our grandpas.
Visit places mentioned in this post:
USA / San Francisco / City Lights Bookstore / Haight-Ashbury / Golden Gate Park
City Lights
The counter-culture movement started with a group of young writers who traveled cross-country from New York City to San Francisco. Calling themselves the Beat Generation—as upbeat anti-conformists, man—they found a home for their musings at San Francisco’s City Lights publishing house. But, thanks to one piece of penmanship in particular, City Lights gained its own level of notoriety. Authorities considered beatnik, Allen Ginsberg’s poem, Howl, so shocking (for its not-so-PG-13 rated material, if you get my drift) that the owners of City Lights were charged with distributing obscene material. Surely it’s no coincidence that Howl went on to become the Beat Generation’s most popular work. Today, City Lights Bookstore is a historic landmark, continuing to publish books on San Francisco’s cultural past and present. And, in 1988, the alley next to the store was renamed Jack Kerouac Alley. It turns out that beatnik writer, Kerouac, liked to spend his days not just On the Road but hanging in that alley, too.
Here come the hippies
Not until the 1960s did those cool cats of the Beat Generation become outnumbered by the psychedelic hippies. And the hippies were a lot more political. The infamous hippie, Abbie Hoffman, wrote a manual called Steal This Book, giving tips on how to start your own pirate radio station, break out of jail and even get a free buffalo from the Department of the Interior! Hippies often gathered and sat down in public places to disrupt normal life in a non-violent way. Known as sit-ins, these became a common form of protest during the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Liberation Movement and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement. And in early 1967, hippies staged a Human Be-In (a twist on a sit-in) in Golden Gate Park to celebrate hippie values of communal living, rejection of materialism and being at one with nature.
Summer of Love
San Francisco is best known for its 1967 Summer of Love—a time when hundreds of thousands of kids from all over the world came to the Haight-Ashbury district for the ultimate Be-In. Yet it also led to the beginning of the end of the hippie movement. With such a massive influx of people, peace and love was replaced by homelessness and disarray. Don’t let that stop you from visiting because things are very different now. Even materialism has made a comeback. In fact, The Haight is now more 21st century hipster than 1960s hippie, with cool vintage clothing stores, high-end boutiques and restaurants serving cuisines from around the world.
Start a revolution
If you’re thinking about starting your own revolution, head over to the East Bay and learn a thing or two from the UC Berkeley students. You’ll be following in the footsteps of 60s hippie singer, Joan Baez, who joined them in 1964 at the USA’s first ever mobilized student rally called the Free Speech Movement. Recent campus activity includes students living in treetops to stop the chop and chained to academic buildings to protest state budget cuts. These students may not be wearing flowers in their hair, but they’re keeping the revolution alive in the 21st century. In the words of famed anthropologist, Margaret Meade, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world, indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” Now that’s flower power, man…