What Was The 1960's Hippie Movement

Savannah Olson

Mr.Brown

English 11B Period 2

20 March 2015

1960’s Hippie Movement

The 1960’s Hippie movement was brought together by a group of individuals that had the same beliefs. Although they were associated with drugs, they also made a very large impact on todays society and past history. As individuals joined the hippie movement they often began to mock their parents, shut out patriotism, and became very devoted to hard work. They would put their mind to accomplishing something and then achieve it, and they believed the only way to do so was through hard work. They also worked hard to gain world peace, they tried to put an end to the Vietnam War and other major political conflicts. Throughout the Hippie movement there were
also many misinterpretations causing them to be focused on by criminals selling addictive drugs such as heroin, and the females often were forced into prostitution. Hippie’s in the 1960’s were often mistaken for a group of people that were associated with drugs and seen for their idealistic views on life, but they were a counter culture within society that wanted to save lives by putting and end to violence, leading them to have an outrageous impact on society today.

Hippies were both a political and cultural phenomenon, ideally, many people became hippies to protest what they saw as wrong with american society in the 1960s such as rampant materialism, the vietnam war, conformity, and suburban middle class values.
They aspired to more communitarian roots, peace, and living together. The most extreme among them founded hippie communes. Many hippies were merely attracted to the lifestyle and the drugs that were heavily associated with hippiedom. There was an underside to the hippie movement, it wasn't all hugs and happiness. San Francisco's Haight Ashbury district became a magnet for runaway kids from all over the country. Many would agree that there weren't were too many negative effects on society as a whole by the hippies, the negative effects were mainly on the hippies themselves, which were the individuals who suffered from drug problems, homelessness, etc. Many hippies came from middle class families and had parents who supported their hippie lifestyles, but others from lower class backgrounds did not fare as well. People often assume that all youth in the 60s were hippies, but in reality this is not true. The hippies were just a small subset of the overall population. And they were geographically concentrated in certain places much more than
others.

During the time of the Hippie movement many political changes and conflict were arising.
John F. Kennedy had been elected for presidency by the democratic party on July 13th, and many did not agree with him. He increased the United States involvement in the Vietnam War, which was increasing violence and conflict. Many massive events had been occurring that ended many unnecessary lives. On june 21st three young civil rights workers went missing, until found murdered and buried on a farm just outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi (Epstein). The hippie’s wanted badly to stop these acts of violence and to discover peace, there were many agreeing citizens that wanted change. Also during this time, human rights activist, Malcolm X was assassinated by rival black muslims during a speech at Harlem’s Audubon. The Vietnam War was also an affect on the Hippie movement, the hippies believed to make love not war and and wanted to stop the violence and end the war. The vietnam war was a very bloody and tragic war. Another unnecessary event that happened because of the hate circulating was on September 15th, a church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed and left four young colored girls dead. There was so much violence, including the assassination of president John F. Kennedy while riding in Dallas motorcade
(Epstein).

The Vietnam war was a war that the U.S. government viewed American involvement in the war as a way to prevent a Communist takeover of South Vietnam. But the citizens majority believe it was pointless to be fighting. It was said to have be the loss of thousands of lives that were fighting for absolutely nothing, and they believed it was helping their country. The outcome of the war was even more disappointing and didn’t achieve much of anything. This highly impacted the Hippie movement by increasing its members. After the outcome and gruesome war many were looking for a way to find world peace. Anti-war marches and protests were supported heavily for many years as the war carried on and the end of it seemed to be nowhere near. The anti-war activists mostly involved college aged students but individuals of all ages supported them.

These events had a major impact on the development of the Hippie movement. It made the young people in society that grew up in such a destructive time want it to be stopped and changed. Some individuals even attempted to improve the world by postponing career pursuits and volunteering for programs such as the peace corps that were founded in 1962 (Littleproud). A mass majority of the hippies were also active in the “anti-war” movement and in presidential campaigns. Others achieved political activism but rebelled against “the establishment” through their clothing, hair length, sexual values, music, use of drugs, and other lifestyle choices. Two of the most well known manifestations of the “youth revolt” of the 1960’s were the group of students for a democratic society and the cultural rebels known as hippies. When LSD research spilled out of the secret government and onto the streets around 1965, it unleashed a wave of psychedelic madness that transformed America almost overnight. “LSD raised the consciousness of the human race” (Epstein) Any and all traditional practices were challenged. Buddhism, Hinduism, and other eastern religious practices including meditation, which replaced religion for some. Acid was a dividing line between the old and the new, between the old beat scene and the youth counterculture. Beat veterans used the prerogative term “hippies” to describe middle class kids slumming it in North beach, but it only betrayed how threatened they felt now that they were no longer running the show.

The new styles of flowing locks and robes went hand in hand with the new acid consciousness. Psychedelic disciples were the world of new, casting off clothes and attitudes that they had acted like were straight jackets through their represented adolescence. “Hippie innovations such as organic health food, environmentalism, and relaxed social mores were quickly accepted by mainstream American culture as the people of the counterculture took what they had learned at “acid tests” and the Human Be-in and applied it to their own lives.” (Kallen) The Hippies went to see the show man Jimi Hendrix who was an amazing guitarist that blew minds, seeing it, hearing it, and feeling it. The Hippies fashion and values influenced society and media by the kinds of music, television, and arts that they enjoyed.