Many events in history have influenced America and have changed it. Some have been for the good. Some have been for the bad. Some events have taken place when America was a small nation, and some have happened during its glory years. Everything that has happened in American history, no matter how small, has impacted America sometime down the road.

Whether the event has affected the social, economical, and political side of America, nothing has affected the American way of life like the hippie movement that took place in the late 60’s and early 70’s.

The Hippie Movement started in 1960. The Vietnam War was the major event during that time and was dragging on and on. In the first part of the war, people did not mind the war. But as the death toll increased, people decided that America should get out of Vietnam. They did not want killing and a lot did not want to be apart of society.

Allen Ginsberg, the father of the Hippie Movement, started by writing about what he saw wrong in the world. He was a poet so he expressed his thoughts to the world in poems. His poems would be read with music, which made them very popular. This started to catch on and coffee shops and jazz shops started to open up for hippies to recite poems.

In 1961 if you went to the subway you could see beatniks, a group of people that would do a beat on a drum and say a poem about what they thought should be changed.

The Hippie Movement was an offspring of the beatniks. They were a group of people with alternative lifestyle and radical beliefs. It spread through United States to Canada, and into parts of Europe but the greatest influence was in America.

The age of a hippie ranged from 15 to 25 years old. A lot of young teens ran away from their families to join this popular group of careless people. The Hippie movement appealed to teens because it represented Freedom and a way to have fun.

Hippies believed in a utopian society in which all differences in class, race, social status, and gender should disappear so that each individual could satisfy his or her actual needs. They believed in the Zen version of Buddhism, in which the use of drugs, especially LSD, was perfectly acceptable. They were tossing aside the old and traditional values that were so strong in America in earlier years, and were setting a lower standard for people to be accepted.

An article from the July, 1967 issue of Time Magazine shows how ignorant adults were to what the Hippie Movement was going to turn into: “Whatever their meaning and wherever they may be headed, the hippies have emerged on the U.S. scene in about 18 months as a wholly new subculture, a bizarre permutation of the middle-class American ethos from which it evolved. Hippies preach altruism and mysticism, honesty, joy and nonviolence. They find an almost childish fascination in beads, blossoms and bells, blinding strobe lights and ear-shattering music, exotic clothing and erotic slogans. Their professed aim is nothing less than the subversion of Western society by ‘flower power’ and force of example.”

In the beginning of the movement, people tried to ignore the hippies. Adults thought that hippies were attention-deprived teens and if they ignored them long enough, they would go away. California’s Bishop James Pike said “There is something about the temper and quality of these people, a gentleness, a quietness, an interest, something good.”

The point that hippies tried to put across was a very positive one. They wanted peace and for people to be happy, but the measures they took to reach that goal and added to the way of life they were living, was very negative. It was a time when the very way of American life was threatened and very few saw it coming.

It was common for hippies to put a nickel in a parking meter, then set up blankets and lie down in the space for a half hour. This was very weird to people, so most just did not take them seriously. Television shows like “Laugh In” made fun of them. Movies made fun of them also. One called the “Presidents Analyst” was dedicated to “the life, liberty, and pursuit of happenings,” and was based on the Hippies weird lifestyle.

People all over the America were mad at how strange these people were and at the same time were laughing at how funny they were. Even though the Hippies seemed harmless and was something to laugh at, in reality they were devastating the American family and were tearing the Nation in two.

While the adults of the time were conservative, hard-working, and caring mainly about money, the Hippies didn’t care about any of that. They cared about four things; drugs, sex, music, and peace, all in that order. Many did not work unless it was completely necessary, they never went to church nor did they care for saving their virginity until after they were married. Premarital sex was more common in the sixties than any other time in history and that number never saw a decline. They were anything but conservative and their families rejected them for it.

The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, and many more bands came from the 60’s era. Most of these bands played “rock and roll” but not what people would think of when they think rock and roll today. Rock and Roll in the sixties saw a new type of guitar effect, distortion. Distortion to most adults of the time was very unattractive, evil, and loud when compared to big bands of the forties and fifties.

A concert before the sixties was usually sit-down or dancing type concert. The concerts of the sixties were full of violence and drugs. This would change the view of bands forever. Even today, a lot of musicians in the rock and roll world come out drunk or stoned. The lyrics of music were also changed by the Hippie Movement. Sixties bands usually sang about drugs, sex, violence, anti-religion, and anything else that was considered radical before this time.

Profanity first started to appear in music during the hippie era. The music today is the shadow of the music then, if not an identical replica. People no longer care of how people view them. Thousands of deaths have occurred in concerts and “mosh” pits during the last decade. Thanks to the Hippies, music will never be the same.

The fashion of the Hippies either made people turn their head in disgust or look twice to make sure they actual saw what they thought they saw the first time. Bell bottoms, tie-dyed shirts, long hair on women and men, and often, no clothes at all, were very common for hippies. People in nice dresses and suits were laughed at by the hippies. They believed that to get rid of social classes, you had to have clothes that everyone could wear, or not wear as the case might be.

Today, dress codes are not common. Immodest clothing is being accepted by everyone, and the fashions of the early seventies are coming back into style.

LSD was considered a religion to some Hippies. They thought it put you in touch with your surroundings and opened your mind. Some hippies were handing out LSD like candy to anyone that would take it. Bad LSD was very common and people were freaking out and having bad “trips”, but Hippies kept on using the drug. Even a Doctor from Harvard was a follower of the LSD religion. He claimed it to be the western version of yoga. People were dying from the affects of drugs on their body, but that did not stop them.

The Hippies had positive and negative effects on America. After the sixties were over, new laws for anti-racism were passed. Without the hippies, this would not have happened. Drugs were being used by teenagers more and more frequently because of this group. The world of music was changed forever because of the Hippies.

If you look at America today, a lot of politicians and things considered popular were because of the Hippie Movement. Besides the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the hippie movement has had the most lasting impact and has influenced America the most.