Opposing the Vietnam War

The hippie generation was too eccentric for many average Americans. Their lifestyle in general was a joke to the conventional citizens. Though their dress, hair, drug use, and radical beliefs shocked many people, the group’s deep concern about the Vietnam War turned out to be a huge positive impact on America and the world.

Throughout my research on hippies I have learned how these nonconformists walked to their own beat. Hippies did not care about money, or materialistic things, they lived their lives on their own terms, and spoke out with protests and sit-ins on topics they truly cared about. Today, mainly my generation, I see kids just following the “norm.” We don’t protest on issues we’d like to change. Yet, just a few decades ago young people were fighting for change in our country- the Vietnam War fed their fire to fight for what they believed in.

I find it so interesting how hippies practically rejected American values and made their own lifestyles. However, aside from their rebellious attitudes, these people had a strong passion against the war and made a lot of effort to stop it. For some reason this amazes me. People constantly have a disapproving outlook on hippies; yes they did drugs, had premarital sex, and dressed funky, but they cared about other human beings lives and would go to measures of putting together protests of thousands of people just to bring the soldiers home.

Politics played a huge role in their lives and when the topic rose, hippies would put their lifestyles away to voice their beliefs to the world. The counterculture did this in many ways including musical shows, pacifist folk songs, and through peaceful sit-ins. But none of their actions were seen and heard more than from their rallies and protests. Hippies opposed the Vietnam War for a variety of reasons: opposition to the draft, moral, ethical and illegal reasons, and the fear of “imperial” U.S. intervention. The media's portrayal of the situation in South East Asia also was very influential.

One of the biggest “turn-off’s” to the Vietnam War involvement was the draft. The draft is a system of conscription which, according to hippies, threatened lower and middle class registrants. This belief was the driving force behind many protests after 1965. The military draft mobilized early baby boomers who were most at risk of dieing in Vietnam, but grew to include a varied cross-section of Americans. The prevailing sentiment that the draft was unfairly administered inflamed blue-collar and African-American opposition to the Vietnam War and more specifically to the military draft, which it exemplified.



Hippie Vietnman Protest 1967: The Pentagon


Hippies’ opposition to the war arose during a time of unprecedented student activism which followed the free speech and civil rights movements. The growing opposition to the Vietnam War was partly attributed to greater access to uncensored information presented by the extensive television coverage on the ground in Vietnam.

Hippies opposing the draft, also characterized as anti-war protesters, made moral arguments against the United States' involvement in Vietnam. This ideology was especially popular among college-based protesters. Hippies and students both were more likely to accuse the United States of having imperialistic goals in Vietnam than the general public, and were also more likely to criticize the war as immoral as many civilians were killed during the war by our solders as popularized by the media. Photographic evidence illustrated by the main-stream media proved there were civilian deaths in Vietnam, for example, the picture of General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, of the South Vietnam military, holding a pistol to the head of an alleged terrorist during the Tet Offensive. This image, seen on the cover of Life magazine, whether or not true, illustrated the ways in which the Vietnam War was fought and resulted in public outcries that surrounded the mass killings of civilians occurring in Vietnam.






Hippies as well as the general American public were highly influenced by battle footage that was dispensed to the public. These images eliminated any mythic reality surrounding the glory of war as U.S. solders and Vietnamese civilian casualties were shown on the nightly news. With no clear sign of victory in Vietnam, these horrific media images of casualties helped to stimulate opposition to the war.

This opposition against the war also was centered on the perceived illegality of the war itself. Intervention in Vietnam was justified by American leaders, using the domino theory and the threat of Communism as their motives. Many hippies believed that the Communist threat was used as a scapegoat to hide imperialistic intentions, and that the American intervention in South Vietnam interfered with the "self-determination" of the country. In other words, the conflict in Vietnam was a civil war that ought to have determined the fate of the county and, therefore, America was not justified in interfering.

The drug era exploded

Hippies have always been known to experiment with drugs. They were one of the first generations to take drug use to such a high level. Marijuana (pot, grass, Mary Jane), LSD, speed, and other hallucinogenic or mind-altering drugs were hippie favorites. The young counterculture used drugs primarily as a way of escaping from the disillusionment of the times. It helped to turn away from Middle America to focus inward on one’s self.

When marijuana was condemned to be harmful to the user’s health, the hippies refused to believe it. Many youths felt that the older generations, while objecting so forcefully to their use of drugs, were being hypocritical because of the social acceptance of drinking, smoking cigarettes, which were possibly more addictive and harmful than pot, and the extensive adult use of prescription drugs.

When the facts rolled in, they didn’t lie. In 1958, there had been less than ten thousand arrests throughout the country on drug charges. By 1968, that figure had reached to 162,000, with hundreds of thousands more taking drugs but avoiding detection by the law. In addition, the age level of those arrested dropped drastically. In 1958, only thirty-five percent of those arrested had been under twenty-five; in 1968, almost seventy-five percent were. Soon middle and high school kids were trying to “get-high” with anything and everything in sight. Their experimentations were drastic. The youngsters were sniffing model airplane glue, eating morning glory seeds, and baked banana peel scrapings, and smoking catnip, all of which were alleged to be hallucinogenic.

A man known as Professor Timothy Leary was very popular in the sixties. He was the high priest of the drug culture to the hippies. Leary was fired from Harvard University with Professor Richard Alpert for LSD experiments with students. In New York, they founded the League of Spiritual Discovery, a religion declaring LSD as its holy sacrament, in part of an unsuccessful attempt to maintain legal status of the use of LSD and other psychedelics for the religion’s adherents, based on a “freedom of religion” argument. Prescribing LSD even for seven-year-olds, Leary created the famous motto, “Turn on, tune in, or drop out,” meaning that one should use drugs, get in touch with the psychedelic experience, and drop out of contemporary society.



In a 1968 interview with Dane Archer, Leary told Archer, “Laws are made by old people, who don’t want young people to do exactly those things young people were meant to do- to make love, turn on, and have a good time.” Drug use began to have an even harsher affect on society, especially between parents and teenagers. Which lead to the sudden rise in teenage runaways. In 1968, it was estimated that the number was over half a million, almost doubled that of just four years earlier.

60's Lingo

Every culture develops its own unique slang. Hippie slang was so far out there, that it seemed like a foreign language to some adults. Today, some of the words are commonly used, others disintegrated along with the hippies.

“Dig” meant to understand something, a sentence might sound like, “Yea, I dig that band.” Teens began to say goodbye to each other with counterculture clichés like, “See ya later alligator.” “Too much” meant excessive. “Heads” referred to drug-users. “Pigs” meant cops. “Far out” was a long reach beyond the comprehensible. “Groovy” meant great. “Vibes” signified the ambience of a place ofrevent. A “pad” was a place to “crash” or sleep. “Out of sight” meant terrific. “Tuning in” meant taking drugs, mainly LSD, or “acid.” “Making it” was to be successful and “making out” meant making love. Getting high on drugs was known as “freaking out,” getting “stoned,” “spaced out” or “zonked,” “tripping,” or “blowing your mind.” “Getting your head straight” meant coming out of a drug fantasy.

“Bread” referred to money. A “roach” was a marijuana cigarette butt. A “bummer” meant a bad trip. A “be-in” meant a gathering of counter culturists, particularly those using drugs. To “rap” meant to discuss. Approval was voiced with “Right on!” Throbbing rock music was described as “heavy sounds.” An “ego trip” expressed vain behavior. A young hippie trying to persuade people to love instead of fight one another was a “flower child.”

Popular slogans of the time were: “Make love, not war”; “Give peace a chance”; “Black is beautiful.” The hippies recognized that power was the decisive factor in changing society; the counterculture raised the slogans of “People Power” and “Black Power.”

The Unforgettable Woodstock

At some point or another, people of my generation have heard about Woodstock. Many of us don’t know the full works of the festival but just the obvious fact: Woodstock was a wild concert that young people of the sixties and hippies attended and experienced events unimaginable.

The largest gathering of the counterculture was Woodstock. The hippies had gathered for “be-ins” in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, attended outdoor rock festivals, and other free music venues, but nothing could compare to the concert of August 15, 1969. Woodstock was a three day event held on a farm in rural New York. A large crowd was expected to show for several days of music, but when as many as 400,000 people flooded the area, everything went haywire. People were jumping over fences, abandoned cars filled the highway and the rain seemed endless.

Aerial View of Woodstock


But officials weren’t dealing with raging, belligerent people. The festival goers were peaceful, shared everything to anyone who needed it, were harmonious. The police even spoke well of the fans. The people had a precise objective of the festival; to be in a setting were their values prevailed. Drugs, nudity, and sex were a few highlights of the three-day festival.

The music that was heard at Woodstock could never be repeated. Some of the most famous musicians and rock bands played for the animated young crowd. The musicians had to be air-lifted in on helicopters because traffic was backed up for miles. Fans from all over the country heard, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Janis Joplin, Country Joe and the Fish, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and many others including Jimi Hendrix; who closed the festival with a psychedelic, rock version of the national anthem.


Live at Woodstock: Jimi's version of National Anthem



Woodstock is known today as one of the most peaceful large events ever, as well as, the greatest and most famous festival of all time. The conditions were tough. I think that if you weren’t a free-spirited hippie you would have been toast. For three nights the people slept on top of mud, either in a wet sleeping bag or nothing. Food was scarce and the unsanitary conditions were frightening. Yet none of this put the slightest damper on the meaning of the festival. There was a genuine atmosphere of sharing and friendship, and though they were cold and hungry, they found the hardships exhilarating.





During the event and the days after, the media was exclaiming Woodstock was a war zone. One local newspaper headlined the event as, “The Biggest Drug and Sex Orgy Since The Roman Empire.” Through the assumptions of reporters, the festival was deemed atrocious; until the people who attended spoke out. “You heard the wonder in their voices, saw it in their eyes, as they said, ‘We were all their together. It was beautiful.’” The celebrants called themselves, “The Woodstock Nation.”

Music became a lifestyle

Music for most people is an outlet and an easy way to escape through the singers lyrics. In the sixties, the hippie culture practically lived through music. They fed off their favorite musicians and followed the lifestyles that were sung by the Rock ’n’ Rollers. The hippie youth began to dance, dress, overdose, talk, and basically live just as the rockers did.

One of the most successful and influential bands was the Rolling Stones; which Time magazine called, “perverted, outrageous, violent, repulsive, ugly, incoherent, a travesty. That’s what’s good about them.” The Stones displayed a darker and negative side of mankind. Fans went crazy over this offbeat group. Mick Jagger, the lead vocalist, was one of a kind. The band would often make headlines like “Stones throw TV out of the window.”

The early Rolling Stones



In 1965 America discovered the rock group, the Grateful Dead in the Haight-Ashbury district. The band had the early support of an alleged LSD chemist known as Owsley, and under its leader Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead developed a drug-related style called “acid rock.” In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Jerry Garcia quoted Grateful Dead band member Phil Lesh stating, "acid rock is what you listen to when you are high on acid." The group had a flock of fans known as the “Dead Heads” who gathered at the bands often free concerts. Grateful Dead is one of the most popular bands to the hippies.


Grateful Dead 1967 San Fancisco


A new form of music formed out of the psychedelic bands that played to the hippies in Haight-Ashbury known as the San Francisco Sound. Bands that were in the movement were, the Grateful Dead, the Diggers, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Santana and many more. The lyrical content of the San Francisco Sound was both intelligent and emotional. Lyrics were deliberately and often skillfully, poetic.

During the sixties two of the most famous singers emerged, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. The New York Times reported them to be, “the king and queen of gloriously self-expressive music.” The hippie counterculture went through a whirlwind of experimental drugs and rock music as they followed these musicians. On stage Jimi Hendrix played his guitar like no other instrumentalist could dream of. He would interact with it like the guitar was his lover and played rifts that seemed unimaginable. At 24 years old, Jimi was known as a rock star. He would put on shows of moaning, screaming, and heart rendering sound ending with the burning of his guitar. Also 24, Janis Joplin was the “soul belter.” From her style of dress to her style of music hippies loved her. She would stomp her feet, sway her hips, and wear jangling bracelets, funky dresses, and big floppy hats. Her voice was a bluesy one of a kind that screamed (literally) soul. These two stars began to heavily drink and use drugs and eventually their lifestyle caught up with them when they both died sixteen days apart, both were 27 years old.


Jimi and Janis

The Uniform

The hippie dress code was the talk of the town. Most school authorities disputed the style and numerous cases went to court. To school authorities, their nonconventional appearance implied defiant dress and grooming as a rejection of authority. Long hair was the most popular symbol of the young people’s right to look the way they pleased. Following that were beards, headbands, miniskirts, tie-die, and many other bohemian looks. Their need for individuality shook up the Middle American dress code.

The hippie look went even further with patched and torn blue jeans, fringed jackets, funky dresses, ragged T-shirts, desert boots, and sandals. Even more controversial, were the women going braless and the people walking barefoot. Hippies also enjoyed painting their bodies and faces with psychedelic colors and wearing flowers in their hair and behind their ears. The more shocking they dressed the more they outraged adults- and the more they enjoyed the commotion they created. Soon fashion designers were manufacturing the counterculture’s style of dress.

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.