Beyond the Summer of Love
Even when the first chill of winter set in and the Summer of Love faded from view, the power, the art and the movement of the Flower Power Era still marched on. In the months that followed that heady, revolutionary summer, this generation like no other before it and none that came after it kept on changing the world.
Nearly 100,000 people marched in Washington DC on October 21, 1967 to protest the Vietnam War and sent a powerful message to President Johnson, only days after Joan Baez is arrested during a sit-in at the Oakland (CA) Army Induction Center. Thurgood Marshall was sworn in that same month as the first African American Supreme Court Justice while “Hair” made its debut at The Public Theater in New York City.
By November, 1967, the official population of the United States hit the 200 million mark and The Beatles released their epic “Magical Mystery Tour” album. Art and creativity continued to flourish, supported by President Johnson signing the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 which paved the way for the launch of PBS and NPR. And the first issue of Rolling Stone magazine was published, with John Lennon on the cover.
The Vietnam War protests continued, with Benjamin Spock and Allen Ginsberg both arrested in New York City while the year came to a close with a literal and symbolic breakthrough in medicine as the first human heart transplant was performed in December.
By 1968, the world had indeed changed and continues to embrace the ideals of the Summer of Love to this very day, even as a new season begins.