Fact #93276
When:
Short story:
Twenty thousand hippies turn out for The Human Be-In, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California, USA, with music from Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother And the Holding Company and Quicksilver Messenger Service. Similar events are held on the same day in Los Angeles and New York City, and the Human Be-In is widely regarded as the starting point of the Summer Of Love. Numerous songs will be inspired by the ideas and philosophy of The Summer Of Love, including San Francisco by Scott McKenzie, Get Together by The Youngbloods and All You Need Is Love by The Beatles.
Full article:
Jackson Browne : In New York, I lived for a while on the Lower East Side. New York was such a fascinating place. I was there in the spring of '67 for the first be-in. They had a be-in in New York and a be-in in San Francisco and a love-in in Los Angeles, and it all happened on the same day. It was some sort of synergy going on, people heading for these places with this wild understanding happening between everyone. It was really amazing.
Allen Ginsberg (Beat poet) : Gary Snyder and I circumambulated the meadow in Golden Gate Park, doing Hindu and Buddhist mantras to purify the ground. Suzuki Roshi, the great Zen master, was seated on the platform in meditation most of the afternoon unbeknownst to most people, who didn't recognise him.
We recruited the formerly hostile Hell's Angels to be the guardians. They weren't very good at it but at least it neutralised them.
Michael McClure : I was sitting onstage next to Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder. Timothy Leary was up there, and Lenore Kandel. I sang one of my poems, "The God I Worship Is a Lion.'' It was the first great congregation of the young seeker people, known as the counterculture, who were drawing together to create their own huge family, and to celebrate it in their own huge tribe, and to celebrate it with music and dance and song and psychedelics and some real good political things.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti : I was onstage right next to Allen Ginsberg at the Human Be-In. I had an autoharp, which I was playing in those days. Luckily, they never allowed me to perform because it would've been a disaster. There was a sea of 10,000 faces. Don't know how many they actually counted. I remember, in the sunset, this lone parachutist descended on the crowd.
(Source : San Francisco Chronicle, May 21, 2007)
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Allen Ginsberg (Beat poet) : Gary Snyder and I circumambulated the meadow in Golden Gate Park, doing Hindu and Buddhist mantras to purify the ground. Suzuki Roshi, the great Zen master, was seated on the platform in meditation most of the afternoon unbeknownst to most people, who didn't recognise him.
We recruited the formerly hostile Hell's Angels to be the guardians. They weren't very good at it but at least it neutralised them.
Michael McClure : I was sitting onstage next to Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder. Timothy Leary was up there, and Lenore Kandel. I sang one of my poems, "The God I Worship Is a Lion.'' It was the first great congregation of the young seeker people, known as the counterculture, who were drawing together to create their own huge family, and to celebrate it in their own huge tribe, and to celebrate it with music and dance and song and psychedelics and some real good political things.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti : I was onstage right next to Allen Ginsberg at the Human Be-In. I had an autoharp, which I was playing in those days. Luckily, they never allowed me to perform because it would've been a disaster. There was a sea of 10,000 faces. Don't know how many they actually counted. I remember, in the sunset, this lone parachutist descended on the crowd.
(Source : San Francisco Chronicle, May 21, 2007)