Hippies

The Hippie Movement
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s, swiftly spreading to other countries around the world. The Hippie culture remains evident in 2011. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into New York City's Greenwich Village, San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, and similar urban areas. Both the words "hip" and "hep" came from Black culture and denote awareness. To say "I'm hip to the situation" means "I am aware of the situation." Thus the word "hippie" (almost never used by the people the press called "hippies" themselves) means "one who is aware," and expanded awareness was a goal of the movement. The early hippie ideology included the countercultural values of the Beat Generation. Some created their own social groups and communities, listened to psychedelic rock, opposed the Vietnam War, embraced the sexual revolution, and used drugs such as marijuana, LSD and magic mushrooms to explore alternative states of consciousness.
In January 1967, the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco popularized hippie culture, leading to the legendary Summer of Love on the West Coast of the United States, and the 1969 Woodstock Festival on the East Coast. Hippies in Mexico, known as jipitecas, formed La Onda Chicana and gathered at Avándaro, while in New Zealand, nomadic housetruckers practiced alternative lifestyles and promoted sustainable energy at Nambassa. In the United Kingdom, mobile "peace convoys" of New age travellers made summer pilgrimages to free music festivals at Stonehenge. In Australia hippies gathered at Nimbin for the 1973 Aquarius Festival and the annual Cannabis Law Reform Rally or MardiGrass. "Piedra Roja Festival", a major hippie event in Chile, was held in 1970.
Hippie fashions and values had a major effect on culture, influencing popular music, television, film, literature, and the arts.