It was the summer of 1967 when America's flower generation set out to change the world and inspire humankind with love and peace. The Summer of Love was born and became a signature piece for the youth movement in America 40 years ago!

K-Hits is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Summer of Love with a series of fun events throughout the summer. The Keystone of the series will be K-Hits Park Stops where the K-Hits Mod Squad will bring fun and games to various parks throughout the greater Portland area.

The beginning of the Summer of Love has popularly been attributed to the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park on January 14, 1967. The size of that event awakened mass media to the hippie counterculture that was blossoming in the Haight-Ashbury. The movement was fed by the counterculture's own media, particularly The San Francisco Oracle, whose pass-around readership topped a half-million at its peak that year. The grassroots street theater/activism of The Diggers also garnered media attention.

College and high school students began streaming into the Haight on their spring break of 1967. City government leaders, determined to stop the influx of young people once schools let out for summer, brought added attention to the scene. An ongoing series of articles in local papers alerted national media to the hippies' growing momentum. That spring, Haight community leaders responded by forming the Council of the Summer of Love, giving the word-of-mouth event an official-sounding name.

The Music:

John Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas took 20 minutes to write the following lyrics for the song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)":

" If you're going to San Francisco,
be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...
If you're going to San Francisco,
Summertime will be a love-in there. "

Scott McKenzie's recording of the song was released in May 1967. The song was designed originally to promote the June 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, the world's first major rock festival, which was attended by over 200,000 people. "San Francisco" became an instant hit (#4 in the U. S., #1 in the U.K.) and quickly transcended its original purpose.

Album cover, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club BandThe evolution of The Beatles and their music also contributed to the global impact of the Summer of Love. The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released on June 1, 1967, in Europe and two days later in the U.S. With its psychedelic influences, Indian instrumentals, vivid album cover and drug references, it encapsulated the very essence of the Summer of Love.

The Beatles had moved beyond their "moptop" era, and on June 25, 1967, their song "All You Need Is Love" was heard around the world as part of the "Our World" radio broadcast, further emphasizing the countercultural ideals of love, freedom, and unity. 

The Summer:

During the Summer of Love, as many as 100,000 young people from around the world flocked to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, Berkeley and other San Francisco Bay Area cities to join in a popularized version of the hippie experience. Free food and free love were available in Golden Gate Park, a Free Clinic (whose work continues today) was established for medical treatment, and a Free Store gave away basic necessities to anyone who needed them.

The Summer of Love attracted a wide range of people of various ages: teenagers and college students drawn by their peers and the allure of joining a cultural utopia, middle-class vacationers who came to gawk like tourists, and even partying military personnel from bases within an easy drive's distance. The large influx of newcomers began to cause problems. The neighborhood could not accommodate so many people descending on it so quickly, and the Haight-Ashbury scene deteriorated rapidly. Overcrowding, homelessness, hunger, drug problems, and crime afflicted the neighborhood. Many people simply left in the fall to resume their college studies. But when the newly recruited Flower Children returned home, they brought new ideas, ideals, behaviors, and styles of fashion to most major cities in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

On October 7, 1967, those remaining in the Haight staged a mock funeral, "The Death of the Hippie" ceremony, to signal the end of the played-out scene.