1967 Summer Of Love Youth Counterculture

The 1967 Summer of Love is remembered as the peak of the peace oriented hippie movement of the 1960s. Although this utopian like community’s sense of appeal seemed to fade over its short lifespan, it began as a showcase of love, community, as well as a new way to think and live. The participants of this newly emerged youth counterculture hoped to spread their central message to, “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” as Timothy Leary urged his audience to do in his memorable speech at Golden Gate park in San Francisco. The 1967 Summer of Love caused a catastrophic shift in the youth culture of this era, contributed to all forms of the arts, created new ideals, senses of spirituality, and overall changed the way the members of this new counterculture viewed themselves, and viewed the world. A scene from the American Experiences’

He says, “It was such an exciting, heady time to find out that under the official reality, there was this seething turmoil of young people learning new music, new thoughts, new ideas, new literature, new poetry, new ways of being” (American Experience: The Summer of Love). This quote solidifies the fact that a catastrophic change in popular thinking was captivating the mind of the youth, the ones who made up the largest portion of this counterculture movement. Drugs played a monumental part in this societal change of ‘consciences’ sweeping the counterculture. They were a driving force behind newly proposed ideas, beliefs about the world, about the self, and how the world’s problems like war and hunger could be solved through peace and unity.