At the Park in 1967

What Was San Francisco’s Summer Of Love?

In the summer of 1967, tens of thousands of young supporters of the counterculture flocked to the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Virtually taking over the neighborhood, these so-called ‘hippies’ brought vibrant colors and personalities to the city, filling it with music, drugs and free love in what would go down in history as the Summer of Love.

The hippie movement was an iconic part of the 1960s in America that emphasized values like freedom of sexuality and drug use, liberal politics, raised consciousness, environmental friendliness, individual empowerment and communal living. Students from the colleges in and around San Francisco took up the movement, also drawing inspiration from the Beat poets and jazz musicians of the era.