Haight-Ashbury: Hippie Headquarters

Haight-Ashbury played a huge role in the 1960’s hippie movement. It is a district of San Francisco and attracted random runaways and high school dropouts. Early in the sixties many long haired, bearded hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury because of high rents in other San Francisco neighborhoods. Known for its vibrant colored “head shops,” stores that sold psychedelic art and drug paraphernalia, Haight-Ashbury soon became hippie headquarters. LSD, a favored drug, was openly available in the streets because California legalized it in 1965.

This explains it all



Have you ever heard of the “Summer of Love?” Little did I know this occurred in Haight-Ashbury, in 1967. Summer of Love transpired because earlier that year the “World’s First Human Be-In” was organized in Golden Gate Park, right by the district. Twenty thousand costumed flower children rang bells, danced ecstatically, chanted, consumed drugs, and handed flowers out to police officers. This event later drew a hundred thousand people to Haight-Ashbury, because of its media popularity. The young people came that summer to experience the Summer of Love.



Human Be-In 1967


Time magazine reported Haight-Ashbury was “the vibrant epicenter of the hippie movement.” That 1967 summer became a melting pot of music, psychedelic drugs, sexual freedom, creative expression, and politics. As word spread, these neighborhoods became too overcrowded and many hippies fled to isolated farms and college towns.