How did the hippie movement all start?

I am of a much newer generation (born in '93) than what I'm guessing post in this specific thread.

In my US history class this past school year, we covered the 50's, 60's and 70's and it sounded like a pretty fucked up time period. A lot of things happened at once, and I can kind of grasp (of course, I didn't live then, so I don't know in any sense) why everybody was so outraged.

I think about the 60's and all the love...its all so alive and vibrant.

My question is, as a generation, how did y'all begin to show this love for one another? How did the peace and love movement begin, and why then?

I remember learning about the Beat Movement that I guess were the hippies of the late 50's and did it become more mainstream, so did those (hippie) ideas became the norm of young people? Why did it change? Why did it die?

My question is kind of all over the place, and I hope someone understands what I'm asking

Peace

 

It all started with the Beats. I strongly encourage you to check out a documentary called "the source" by Chuck Workman. It never died, as you can see, but it did get mainstreamed, diluted and commercialized. In my opinion it began out of necessity. Punks are nothing more than disillusioned Hippies. By design, the military-industrial complex, the imperialistic war machine, has used technology to destroy the concept of community in the industrialized nations, and the Hippies were (and still are) all about community - free communities (as in freedom). Drugs - LSD in particular - was about freeing the mind of the artifice of the ego. Of course, to a lot people, drugs are just about escaping reality, to a real hippie - drugs are a tool to enhance, embrace and encompass reality. I think it changed because people got disillusioned - it was easier to fall into step, have 2.5 children and a salary with benefits, a nice house in the suburbs. Real change is hard. The status quo is easy.

 

I was going to add something, but jamgrasspan pretty much said it all. Well said

 

In my opinion ever since there has been a society there have been those that have been the bohemian artist types. The peaceful outsider so to speak. Throughout history they have existed and given different names. Hippie was just the one given to them at that time. Before that it was Beatnick, Bohemian, Transcendentalist, Ragamuffin, etc. All the same spirit, the same points of view, and the same values with different names.

As for "The Movement" so to speak. It was a media manipulation. It was something that Corporate America could latch on to to sell more shit.

Think about it like this Lou Adler and John Phillips from the Mamas and the Papas had organized "The Monterrey Pop Festival" they needed to promote it so lo and behold Phillips writes a song called "If You're Going to San Francisco" and gives it to Scott MacKenzie to record as a single. Monterrey pop is a screaming success and as a bi product a large group of kids flocks to a shithole neighborhood in San Francisco called Haight Ashbury with very little clue what the scene was really about overdosing, spreading STD's and STI's driving up the rents and giving the local pimps a new stable of flower children to exploit. After a couple of years of this seeing how the kids fucked up the original purpose the Diggers declared "The Death of the Hippie" and held a funeral.

The Hippies for the most part abandoned the Haight and left it to become a shopping mall with dope dealers. Greedy little gutter punk pigs with Pit bulls throwing on Greatful Dead T-shirts selling $5 bags of bunk weed for $10 to some tourist so that the tourist can go back to Indiana or Ohio and brag to his friends that he bought weed from a hippie in Haight Ashbury. It makes me embarrassed because I'm getting lumped together with them.

I know I'm a little cynical. This is why I joke that I'm every punk's hippie friend.

Truth be told there is no exact date that marks the beginning of the Hippie Movement. And no exact date to mark the end. Just as there is no exact date that marks the beginning of human evolution and knowing that it is continuing as we speak.

Stay Brown,
Rev J

 

lizzzeh

There were hippies on in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco long before the "The Monterrey Pop Festival" happened.

Monterey Pop FestivalMonterey Pop Festival
Monterey, California, January 16-18, 1967

Some of the bands that play there had been around long before this date. Lots of hippies too. And right in that neighborhood.

Most all of the Beat Poets (later referred to as Beat Generation by some) live or lived in San Francisco. These people where the scene and precursors of the hippies.

Yes, there was sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, and yes there was love. The people in Berkeley were all jealous because they only had drugs, and mostly for live rock concerts they had to travel across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco. I know because at first I lived in the Berkeley area and went to two concerts a weekend. I went to art college at C.C.A.C.

Later, well after the Diggers declared "The Death of the Hippie" and held their stupid ass funeral, I moved into the Haight Ashbury and lived there for years. Some of the first hippies and the Beat poets still lived there and some still live there today.

As for the movement, it was and is real. It went worldwide and still is. It's dispersed yet still alive and some our still connected.

For instance, the Lady who started this old Haight Ashbury commune thread http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=112058&f=248 shows you 300 pages of thread with these people connecting. These are people who eat together and loved together. More that just room mates or house mates. Family. She herself move to the Haight Ashbury in 1966.

Anyhow, I sent you a Private Message with a link to a web page with the center of all of the info and history that you were talking about.

Have fun with it all.
Ciao, Kenny

 

The beats where a big influence and so where Ken Keasy and the merry pranksters as well as psychadelic drugs like LSD and marijuana but it goes back farther than that. Bohemians and libertines where there hundreds of years before the beats and influenced both subcultures. They where known for wild dress, behavior, using drugs, free love, etc.

 

Kenny, my opinions of the Haight as it stands now doesn't stem from being in Berkeley. It comes from the 6 years I lived in SF. When I first moved out here my third day I went to Haight Ashbury. Right there on the corner of Haight and Ashbury was the fucking Gap. That said it all to me.

It seems like its gotten to the point in the Haight where the panhandlers are so aggressive that it feels more like strong arm robbery then asking for change. There are really not that many places to "Hang Out" because it is mostly business. There are a couple of restaurants that I like. It's crowded with tourists and most of those businesses are the same type of places that you find in tourist traps. Then you have some aggro kid with a fucking pitbull in a Greatful Dead t-shirt trying to intimidate everybody who walks around calling himself a hippie.

And it pisses me off because I get lumped in with that bullshit. Maybe back in the day it was a beautiful and soulful place where you could easily find good people but now it is shallow and plastic. There may be a few holdouts from the old days but they seem to be fewer and further between

Stay Brown,
Rev J

 

Yeah, Rev.

I got you about today.

But she's asking for clarifications about history and real back in the day input from people. As I read it. lizzzeh, Rev is right. The Haight Ashbury is a Mall shit hole. However if I cruised it I bet I could still find a few old friends and a few cool people.

She asked: How did the hippie movement all start?

"Her U.S. History class says it was a pretty fucked up time period."

"My question is, as a generation, how did y'all begin to show this love for one another? How did the peace and love movement begin, and why then?"

"My question is kind of all over the place, and I hope someone understands what I'm asking "

I would love to know the name of your school history book so that I can get a copy and read it.
Could you post the name here for me.

Signed, Old Guy

How did the hippie movement all start?

 

You should check out www.hippy.com as it is loaded with the sort of info you are in need of.

It was created by Skip Skipperson, who also created these forums. He provides his book for free on that site, it should tell you everything you ever wanted to know about these dirty commie retar... I mean, hippies.

 

It started with the Québécois and the province of Québec Canada and Kerouac defined generation called ""Beatniks."

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2sp73_inoubliable-kerouac_travel

Jack Kerouac was born to French-Canadian parents, Léo-Alcide Kéroack and Gabrielle-Ange Lévesque, natives of the province of Quebec, Canada. He spoke the French-Canadian dialect called Joual until he learned English at age six, not speaking it confidently until his late teens.

 

I guarantee you won't find Abbie Hoffman's name mentioned in any U.S. High School History Textbook to this day - (sure as hell not in the Midwest or Bible belt). I never heard the man's name mentioned until I was a Sophomore in College - and that was after I transferred from a CC to a liberal arts school. I have nothing but seething hatred toward most of my high school "educators" for their "shape by omission" brand of education.

 

I was too young to witness the 60's as I was born in '56 but in England we had our own little version of it in the 70's. We had bands that toured in crappy old buses and we had free festivals, took drugs, lived in big houses together and generally had a rocking time! We didnt regard ourselves as hippies as such. In fact I don't believe the original hippies did. Slapping a label on you is something for other people to do. It was however in both instance, a counter-culture. It was about being peaceful, creative and having fun.
What happened in Haight has been well documented. The "movement" became commercialised and become something that could be sold to people, rather than an informed decision that individuals came to.
The speed of this change is interesting to note. It happened over a year. Nowadays there is no counter culture as such. There cannot be. Of course there are still people living together in caravans, farms, communities etc and generally keeping quiet and doing there thing.
But if anything like a "youth culture" started to develop now it would be gobbled up by the media and sold back to society within, what.... a month? A week?
I read a book by Dennis McNally recently about The Grateful Dead, and the whole history of the Bay Area and its role in what happenend in the 60's and there is a great quote from Phil Lesh the bass player. At some street festival in San Francisco - he looked out at the scene and said "You know what? These are the good old days"

That was in 1967.
Wise man.

 

I would love to teach an "Alternative History" class dedicated to contemporary US History. Granted I graduated High School in 1994 I remember getting a fairly thorough and consistent view of history up to about 1945 and the end of WW II then kind of coasted through Korea and Vietnam and all of the shit surrounding them in the last month of class.

What I learned about post WWII US History I had to teach myself. Fortunately for me I am a reader with a drive to become at least a low level expert on things that catch my attention for the moment (thank god for Attention Deficit Disorder).

Stay Brown,
Rev J

 

Just so you know, I'm a HS Senior in a public school in Midwestern suburbia. Last year I took an advanced placement US History course. For our discussion of the sixties and seventies, we discussed the civil rights, counterculture, feminist, indian rights, and gay liberation movements.

We actually DID talk about Abbie Hoffman, as well as Timothy Leary and LSD. We had an entire day where we just listened to war protest songs and analyzed them. Mind you, my teacher wasn't anything special, just an average history teacher.

Just so you know.

 

History taught in Britain is awful. I learned practically nothing from my school. And those that specialise in history don't seem to learn much more about the cool parts of history, just super lame stuff.

 

Sorry for the length of this but I thought you should have a first hand perspective on all the parts of your question.

Wow. The perspective of many of these posts are painful to read. I lived in San Francisco for about 8 years, leading up to Haight 67. I was young but always seeking the edge and dismissive of the explanations that I was given about life, society, "reality", etc. So I had contacts and spent time with some who had been part of the Haight community.

Early summer 67, I ran away and lived the streets of Haight. Because of my earlier contacts and falling in with those who had been part of the community for well before summer, I got to know the core philosophies that seemed to anchor the community together.

It was a community that was developing an alternative to what was seen as the "canned reality" that mainstream society was conned into believing. It was apolitical. We did not see society’s problems as political or economic. The problems were caused by human attitudes that grew out of the false imagery foisted upon us, for the purposes of control. I often sold "The Oracle" a free form psychedelic oriented paper written and printed in the Haight, for pocket money. When I saw the "Berkley Barb", it was so foreign (because of its political nature and angry tone) to everything we were about that I refused to sell it on the street.

What the world needed was a change of orientation and heart. This (we believed, naively) could be brought about by rejecting all the premises of society and living our lives based on the principles of "Love" and "Peace" (described later, not what most believe they are). The utopia this creates would be seen by the outside world and more and more would adopt the principles and change themselves internally to live by them and spread until it becomes a new age. To focus on politics etc., is to just be caught up in the false game of society. The goal was to change ones self and hence contribute to the "movement" by our inner-personal change. This is at least partially why Acid (LSD) was such an integral part of us. It is a powerful psychiatric/spiritual tool in the right doses, support and circumstances, which tears apart the assumptions we live by and have never questioned. Montreal Marks cautions are wise.

“Love” and “Peace” was the foundational goal of the community. But what they meant to us was not what most think. The calls for peace were not about the war. The war was just another manifestation of the real problem of orientation and human attitudes. Peace was the (total if possible) avoidance of all forms of interpersonal conflict. This requires an incredible degree of tolerance and acceptance, while trying to dismiss any pre-conceptions of what another person is supposed to be like. This was why so many of the tolerance movements of the 60’s and 70’s came out of those affiliated with the movement.

“Love” had nothing to do with recreational sex or a feeling. It was/is an outgoing concern for the happiness and well being of others. The willingness to step outside of oneself to enhance anothers experience. Unlike today, when I was there, no one could find themselves waking up on the street. If someone passed out on the street, they would not be left there. Somebody would drag them up into their apartment and at least let them sleep it off in the hall. I, as a 14 yr old kid with no money resources or place to live, lived the Haight for over a month and never once had to sleep outside or went hungry. It was not because anyone took responsibility for me. It was just a culture where the community stepped in to fill any perceived need.

As wonderful as it was, rejecting all parts of society also eliminated acceptance of those things that produce the things we need (food, clothing, health care, etc, etc,). For it to exist as long as it did required others to bring things we needed into the community from the outside. The Diggers provided meals in the park, volunteers would get donations for the Free store (very short lived), started to provide health care services, etc.

This was very short lived anyway. The media got a hold of it. The newspaper article (I think the Chronicle) “I was a hippy” went national. Shortly after that, the deluge started. 100,000+ others (mostly runaways, I guess I could be considered one of them) converged on Haight in about a 3 week period. No system, much less a neighborhood, could maintain what it was with 100,000+ new homeless, resource-less kids being dropped into it like that. Reports of rapes, muggings, rip-offs were everywhere. Most had no place to stay and people no longer felt safe. All the originals I knew were leaving (most I knew were going to Big Sur and Oregon). It went from utopia to (I don’t know what to call it, Hell is a little strong) in just a couple weeks. By mid August, cops were everywhere, harassing everyone. The movement was gone. I got busted for curfew and family sent me to Chicago. The following summer I ran away and went back. I stayed for about 2 hours, went to the park and just cried. It had become what it is today. In 2007, I went back to volunteer with Rock-Med for the 40th anniversary and it is still what it was in 1968, an unsafe slum with the streets at night filled with homeless young people, some with dogs for safety. I spent a lot of time just talking with the Kids. I could find none with a hopeful vision for their future or thoughts of how to make a better world, just ideas on who else to blame. In my perception, there is nothing there that has any relationship with what was there in early summer 1967.

Like then I still believe that our problems and the solutions are not to be found in politics, economics, tearing down unjust systems, power, control, etc. It will take a revolution in human attitudes, but it seems that even those ideas have faded. Maybe introspection and personal change is seen as too hard, but then everything of value is.

Sorry for the length of this, but once I started I wanted to address your whole question.

 

Did you read Kerouac's biography? I have a copy. Desolate Angel by Dennis Mcnally. Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, born an American, to French-Canadian parents, Léo-Alcide Kéroack and Gabrielle-Ange Lévesque. And after Lowell High school he left New England for New York City. Remember his book was titled On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

Bizzzz, "Sorry, Thanks for playing."

Besides, the beats started in New York City and San Francisco. Look it up on the web.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kerouac


Addendum: WOW. Somebody sure deleted that posting. Makes it sound like I'm crazy. That's kinda neat! I like it.