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The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon and political movement that developed in the Western world during the mid-20th century. It began in the early 1960s, and continued through the early 1970s. It is often synonymous with cultural liberalism and with the various social changes of the decade.
- Overview
- Hippie lifestyle
- The movement’s soundtrack
- Militant resistance
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1960s counterculture, a broad-ranging social movement in the United States, Canada, and western Europe that rejected conventional mores and traditional authorities and whose members variously advocated peace, love, social justice, and revolution. The 1960s counterculture movement, which generally extended into the early 1970s, was an alternative approach to life that manifested itself in a variety of activities, lifestyles, and artistic expressions, including recreational drug use, communal living, political protests, casual sex, and folk and rock music.
The movement was perhaps best encapsulated by the phrase “turn on, tune in, drop out,” coined by the American psychologist Timothy Leary, who demonstrated contempt for authority and championed the use of LSD and other psychoactive drugs. U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon famously called Leary “the most dangerous man in America.” The counterculture movement featured artists such as Andy Warhol, who was famous for his Pop art works. Adherents advocated freedom of expression and a distrust of those in power.
One enduring image of the counterculture movement is that of “hippies,” who were mostly white, middle-class, young Americans. Many felt alienated from their parents’ lifestyles, which they viewed as too focused on material goods and consumerism. That tension drove a “generation gap” that became a hallmark of the 1960s. Hippies often let their hair grow long, and many men had facial hair. The title track of the musical Hair, first performed in 1967, captures this style with the lyrics:
My hair like Jesus wore it
Hallelujah, I adore it
Hallelujah, Mary loved her son,
Why don’t my mother love me?
Hippies wore colourful clothes and typically donned sandals. They eschewed regular jobs, many had vegetarian diets, and some engaged in “free love.” Hippies often traveled the country, sometimes in Volkswagen Microbuses, dubbed “hippie buses,” adorned with peace signs. One of their most famous slogans was “Make love, not war.”
Rock music was an important part of the counterculture movement. Bands like the Grateful Dead—whose fans are known as “Deadheads”—had a strong influence on 1960s counterculture. The Beatles, the most influential band of the era, “helped make rock music a battering ram for the youth culture’s assault on the mainstream,” according to a New York Times article in 1975. The folk music icon Bob Dylan spoke for many alienated youth when in 1965 he sang, “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.” Other artists and bands associated with the counterculture movement included Joan Baez, Jefferson Airplane, the Velvet Underground and the Rolling Stones. A powerful counterculture song was “Almost Cut My Hair” (1970) by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. A song by the Who, “My Generation” (1965)—with its line “I hope I die before I get old”—practically became an anthem of 1960s youth. The era also produced rock musicals, including (in addition to Hair), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1968), and Jesus Christ Superstar (1971).
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Music festivals helped fuel the counterculture movement, most famously Woodstock, a three-day 1969 extravaganza in upstate New York that featured bands and artists such as the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, and Santana. An estimated 400,000 people attended the event. In December 1969, the Altamont festival in Livermore, California, resulted in tragedy. Organizers made the fateful decision to hire the Hells Angels, a motorcycle gang, to provide security, and one of its members fatally stabbed a Black teenager who had drawn a gun as the Rolling Stones were performing. The Associated Press reflected two decades later that this moment “shattered the dream of a utopian counterculture for the ’60s generation.”
The 1960s counterculture was also marked by armed protest groups. The Black Panther Party, for example, a group founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in California, sought to protect Black neighbourhoods from police brutality and declared, “The time has come for Black people to arm themselves.” That prompted the state to pass legislation dubbed...
Learn about the social movement that rejected conventional mores and traditional authorities in the 1960s and 1970s. Explore its lifestyle, artistic expressions, political actions, and influential figures such as Timothy Leary, the Beatles, and the Black Panthers.
- Fred Frommer
Learn about the 1960s, a decade of social and political upheaval in the United States and the world. Explore topics such as Woodstock, the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, the Great Society and more.
Learn how radicals developed alternative cultures that emphasized authenticity, individualism, and community in response to America’s technocratic society. Explore the influences, styles, politics, and legacies of the counterculture movement from 1965 to 1975.
- Blake Slonecker
- 2017
Hippie, member of a countercultural movement during the 1960s and ’70s that rejected the mores of mainstream American life. The movement originated on college campuses in the United States, although it spread to other countries. Read here to learn more about the lifestyle and beliefs of hippies.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Learn about the hippies and other groups that challenged mainstream American values in the 1960s. Explore their lifestyle, music, drugs, politics, and social background.
9 de mar. de 2018 · Woodstock was a three-day concert that attracted half a million people to a dairy farm in New York in 1969. It became a symbol of the 1960s counterculture movement, with its message of peace, music and drugs.
