The Summer of Love
Where the idealists of 1967 went wrong – and the positive things they left behind
documentary / 9.00pm / BBC4
What began as a social experiment in free love quickly descended into chaos as up to 500,000 naive kids poured into San Francisco’s Haightashbury district in the summer of 1967. This second and concluding part of the exploration of the far-reaching impact of the Summer of Love looks at the dark side of the counterculture. The death of the hippie, the birth of the yippie and a militant new left followed. They lost political arguments, but the cultural influence of hippies can still be felt today in the rise of feminism, not-for-profit enterprises and the development of the internet, with global, collaborative ideals the hippies would recognise.