Hippies In The 1960's

The 1960’s was one of the most tempestuous decades in American history, remembered for its nationwide protests against the vietnam war and strive for political change. During this decade, a group of people called hippies, emerged and created their own liberal counterculture by refusing to participate in mainstream society. Hippies were white, well-educated, middle class adolescents who were products of the “baby boom” generation. As Hippies entered their early twenties in the late 1960’s, they began to advocate for individual freedom and highly promoted people to “do their own thing”. At the same time, they rejected any ideas of conformity and materialism that their parents had constructed and abided by the decade before them. Their unwillingness to participate in society usually lead them to communities in neighborhoods across the United states. The most familiar of these communities was Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco (Bove). Although each hippy commune was different, most of the structure and daily routines revolved around “free love” and drug use.

By looking at hippies in the 1960’s, they were simply troubled youth, and did not promote a positive social change because of their life style of idleness, drugs, and sex to avoid a world they do not approve of rather than taking action to reform