Haight and Masonic, April 2, 1967. View East on Haight. Crowd of Hippies marching in street for unknown event. OpenSFHistory / wnp27.6069

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The Haight Ashbury neighborhood is the birthplace of 60s counterculture. The summer of 1967, also known as the “Summer of Love” attracted over 100,000 bohemians and flower children from all over the country along with the Berkeley radicals. They embraced free love, rock music, drugs, and social activism. The period was intense but short-lived, lasting less than a year, but the impact of the hippie movement still lives on today.

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Young people expressed their disillusionment with the materialistic mainstream American culture and authority, joining political rallies for civil rights and anti-war protests. Unlike today’s "blissed out" stereotypes, the hippies in the 60s challenged the status quo by organizing political and social marches and establishing communes with organic farming. Not surprisingly, their use of drugs in pursuit of alternate consciousness did not help gain support for their movement with the mainstream America.