Flower power is a
sloganA slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a political, commercial, religious and other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose. The word slogan is derived from slogorn which was an Anglicisation of the Scottish Gaelic sluagh-ghairm . Slogans vary from the written and the...
used by the American
counterculture movementThe counterculture of the 1960s refers to a cultural movement that mainly developed in the United States and spread throughout much of the western world between 1960 and 1973. The movement gained momentum during the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam...
during the late 1960s and early 1970s as a symbol of passive resistance and non-violence
ideologyAn ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
. It is rooted in the opposition movement to the Vietnam War. The expression was coined by the American Beat poet
Allen GinsbergIrwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
in 1965 as a means to transform war protests into peaceful affirmative spectacles.
HippieThe hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
s embraced the symbolism by dressing in clothing with embroidered flowers and vibrant colors, wearing flowers in their hair, and distributing flowers to the public, becoming known as flower children. The term later became generalized as a modern reference to the hippie movement and a culture of drugs,
psychedelicThe term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...
music, psychedelic art and social permissiveness.
Origin
Flower Power originated in
BerkeleyBerkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
,
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
as a symbolic action of protest against the Vietnam War. In his November 1965 essay titled
How to Make a March/Spectacle, Ginsberg advocated that protesters should be provided with "masses of flowers" to hand out to policemen, press, politicians and spectators. The use of props like flowers, toys, flags, candy and music were meant to turn anti-war rallies into a form of street theater thereby reducing the fear, anger and threat that is inherent within protests. In particular, Ginsberg wanted to counter the "specter" of the
Hells AngelsThe Hells Angels Motorcycle Club is a worldwide one-percenter motorcycle gang and organized crime syndicate whose members typically ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles. In the United States and Canada, the Hells Angels are incorporated as the Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporation. Their primary motto...
motorcycle gang who supported the war, equated war protesters with communists and had threatened to violently disrupt planned anti-war demonstrations at the
University of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. Using Ginsberg's methods, the protest received positive attention and the use of "flower power" became an integral symbol in the counter-culture movement.
Movement
By late 1966, the Flower Power method of guerilla theater had spread from California to other parts of the United States. The
Bread and Puppet TheaterThe Bread and Puppet Theater is a politically radical puppet theater, active since the 1960s, currently based in Glover, Vermont...
in New York City staged numerous protests which included handing out balloons and flowers with their anti-war literature.
Workshop in Nonviolence (WIN), a magazine published by New York activists, encouraged the use of Flower Power. In May 1967,
Abbie HoffmanAbbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman was a political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ....
organized the Flower Brigade as an official contingent of a New York City parade honoring the soldiers in Vietnam. News coverage captured Flower Brigade participants, who carried flowers, flags and pink posters imprinted with LOVE, being attacked and beaten by bystanders. In response to the violence, Hoffman wrote in WIN magazine, "Plans are being made to mine the East River with daffodils. Dandelion chains are being wrapped around induction centers.... The cry of 'Flower Power' echoes through the land. We shall not wilt."
On the following Sunday in May 1967, WIN activists declared the
Armed Forces DaySeveral nations of the world hold an annual Armed Forces Day in honor of their military forces. - Armenia :Բանակի օր is celebrated on 28 January to commemorate the formation of the armed forces of the newly independent Republic of Armenia in 1992....
as "Flower Power Day" and held a rally in
Central ParkCentral Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
to counter the traditional parade. Turnout was low and, according to Hoffman, the rally was ineffective because guerilla theater needed to be more confrontational.
In October 1967, Hoffman and
Jerry RubinJerry Rubin was an American social activist during the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1980s, he became a successful businessman.-Early life:...
helped organize the
March on the PentagonThe movement against US involvment in the in Vietnam War began in the United States with demonstrations in 1964 and grew in strength in later years. The US became polarized between those who advocated continued involvement in Vietnam, and those who wanted peace. Peace movements consisted largely of...
using Flower Power concepts to create a theatrical spectacle. The idea included a call for marchers to attempt to levitate the
PentagonThe Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
. When the marchers faced off against more than 2500 Army national guard troops forming a human barricade in front of the Pentagon, demonstrators held flowers and some placed flowers in the soldier's rifle barrels.
Photographs of flower-wielding protesters at the Pentagon March became seminal images of the 1960s anti-war protests. An image by French photojournalist
Marc RiboudMarc Riboud is a French photographer, best known for his extensive reports on the East: The Three Banners of China, Face of North Vietnam, Visions of China, and In China.-Early life and education:...
that was printed throughout the world was of seventeen-year-old high school student
Jan Rose KasmirJan Rose Kasmir is a former US high-school student who took part in the protest against America’s involvement in Vietnam in Washington DC where thousands of anti-war activists had gathered in front of The Pentagon on 21 October 1967 and was photographed by famous French photographer Marc...
clasping a daisy and gazing at bayonet-wielding soldiers. Smithsonian Magazine later called it "a gauzy juxtaposition of armed force and flower child innocence".
One photo, titled
Flower Power by Washington Star photographer
Bernie BostonBernie Boston was an American photographer most noted for his iconic Pulitzer Prize-nominated photograph, Flower Power.-Life and career:...
, was nominated for the 1967
Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
. Taken on October 21, 1967, the photo shows a young, long-haired man in a turtleneck sweater, placing carnations into the rifle barrels of military policemen. (The young man in the photo was not named by Boston and his identity is disputed. He was most commonly identified as George Edgerly Harris III, an 18-year-old actor from New York who later performed in San Francisco under the stage name of
HibiscusHibiscus was one of the leaders of the psychedelic gay liberation theatre collective group known as the Cockettes in early 1970s San Francisco; in today's theatrical parlance he would be considered to be a "Creative Director".-Early life:Harris was born in Bronxville, New York in 1949 to George...
. The young man also has been identified by
Paul KrassnerPaul Krassner is an author, journalist, stand-up comedian, and the founder, editor and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine The Realist, first published in 1958...
as
Youth International PartyThe Youth International Party, whose members were commonly called Yippies, was a radically youth-oriented and countercultural revolutionary offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the 1960s. It was founded on Dec. 31, 1967...
organizer, "Super-Joel" Tornabene.)
Cultural legacy
The iconic center of the Flower Power movement was the Haight Ashbury district in San Francisco,
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. By the mid-1960s, the area, marked by the intersection of Haight and Ashbury Streets, had become a focal point for psychedelic rock music. Musicians and bands like
Jefferson AirplaneJefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
, the
Grateful DeadThe Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
and
Janis JoplinJanis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
all lived a short distance from the famous intersection. During the 1967
Summer of LoveThe Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, creating a cultural and political rebellion...
, thousands of hippies gathered there, popularized by hit songs such as
San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)"San Francisco " is a song, written by John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas, and sung by Scott McKenzie. It was written and released in 1967 to promote the Monterey Pop Festival....
. A July 7, 1967,
Time magazineTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
cover story on "The Hippies: Philosophy of a Subculture," and an August
CBS NewsCBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...
television report on "The Hippie Temptation" as well as other major media interest exposed the hippie subculture to national attention and popularized the Flower Power movement across the country and around the world.
The avante garde art of
Milton GlaserMilton Glaser is a graphic designer, best known for the I Love New York logo, his "Bob Dylan" poster, the "DC bullet" logo used by DC Comics from 1977 to 2005, and the "Brooklyn Brewery" logo. He also founded New York Magazine with Clay Felker in 1968.-Biography:Glaser was born into a Hungarian...
,
Heinz EdelmannHeinz Edelmann was a German illustrator and designer. He was born in Ústí nad Labem, Czechoslovakia, into a Czech-German family of Wilhelm Edelmann and his wife Josefa née Kladivová...
, and
Peter MaxPeter Max is a German-born Jewish American artist. At first, works in this style appeared on posters and were seen on the walls of college dorms all across America. Max then became fascinated with new printing techniques that allowed for four-color reproduction on product merchandise...
became synonymous with the flower power generation. Edelman's illustration style was best known in his art designs for
The BeatlesThe Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
1968 animated film
Yellow Submarine. Glaser, the founder of
Push Pin StudiosPush Pin Studios is a graphic design and illustration studio formed in New York City in 1954. Cooper Union graduates Milton Glaser, Seymour Chwast, Reynold Ruffins, and Edward Sorel founded the studio....
, also developed the loose psychedelic graphic design, seen for example in his seminal 1966 poster illustration of
Bob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
with paisley hair. It was the posters by pop artist
Peter MaxPeter Max is a German-born Jewish American artist. At first, works in this style appeared on posters and were seen on the walls of college dorms all across America. Max then became fascinated with new printing techniques that allowed for four-color reproduction on product merchandise...
, with their vivid fluid designs painted in Day-Glo colors, which became visual icons of flower power. Max's cover story in
Life Magazine (September 1969) as well as appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and the Ed Sullivan Show further established "flower power" style art into mainstream culture.
Further reading
- Bennett M. Berger, "Hippie morality—more old than new ",Society, Volume 5, Number 2 / December, 1967
- Stuart Hall, "The Hippies: an American 'moment'", CCCS selected working papers, Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Routledge, 2007, ISBN 0415324416