by Shay Henckel

Created on: June 15, 2009   Last Updated: July 06, 2009

In the 1960s, the subculture called hippies was originally a youth movement that began in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco as a protest group against the Vietnam War and other political and economic events at that time, including controversy over civil rights and segregation. They were a more social, colorful version of the 1950s' Beat generation, which began as reaction against society's conformism, materialism, and closed-mindedness. Hippies were well known for being young, radical and rebellious. This rebelliousness included sexual exploration; nonconformist political and religious beliefs and fashion, music, and art; and drug use: practices that were not generally socially accepted. The people known as hippies created their own communities, listened to psychedelic rock, created the sexual revolution, and experimented with soft hallucinogenic drugs such as marijuana and LSD, which they believed provided self-awareness and enlightenment, and used them to explore and expand their minds and break free of societal mind control.

Hippie values affect music, art, literature, fashion, food, and culture to this day. They promote nonviolent anarchy and advocate a diversity which is now widely accepted, and want to expand their minds and other people's. Hippies were and are pacifists who seek to free themselves from societal restrictions and materialism, choose their own ways, and find new meanings in life. In the '60s they were mostly white and tended to be very liberal democrats or socialists and were very concerned with what was going on in the world: war, poverty, women's rights, civil rights, youth's rights, and the environment. They expressed their views through nonviolent demonstrations. Hippie symbols purposely reflected a rebellious and disorderly style. Both men and women in the hippie movement wore jeans and long hair, and wore sandals or went barefoot. Men often wore beards and women wore little or no makeup. Hippies often wore brightly colored clothing and unusual styles such as bell bottoms, vests, tie-dye, peasant blouses, and long skirts. Hippie clothes, cars, and other possessions were often decorated with psychedelic art.

The word hippie derives from hipster, meaning someone who rejects the established culture and advocates extreme liberalism in politics and lifestyle. They also called themselves flower children. This term comes from "flower power, which describes a form of anti-violent protest, putting a flower in a gun as a protest

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