What Did the Summer of Love Leave Behind?
They came by the thousands from all over the country to Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco—college students, teenage runaways, political dreamers, “flower children”—seeking free love, radical change, communal living, drugs, and perhaps a piece of history. By some accounts, it was the largest migration of young people ever. Some estimate that as many as 100,000 flocked to the city, urged on by word of mouth and media reports of a “hippie invasion.” This summer San Francisco observes the fortieth anniversary of the “Summer of Love,” the famous few months of countercultural experimentation that came to define the 1960s for many people. Part spontaneous social phenomenon, part media-sponsored (and -manipulated) news event, just what the Summer of Love was and what it accomplished politically is still debated. But no one questions that it left a mark on the American consciousness. If ever a time was ripe for social upheaval, the spring and summer of 1967 was. With race riots erupting in Detroi
