Photo: Elaine Mayes, Rebel, 25, Golden Gate Park, 1968, vintage gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches.
In the summer of 1967, some 100,000 people descended upon the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco to come together as one. Inspired by the Beat Generation of the 1950s who had taken to North Beach, a new wave of nonconformists embraced the counterculture vibes of the times, embracing the ethos of the hippie movement, first espoused by Timothy Leary earlier that year at the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park with the words, “Turn on, tune in, drop out.”
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The Summer of Love, as it came to be known, as a natural extension of the Human Be-In, which embraced the principle of “sex, drug, and rock and roll.” In the face of violence and destruction that raged overseas in the Vietnam War and here at home with the Civil Rights Movement, the hippies sought to take a stand against the system through the message of peace and love.
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