Morrison and Morrison's, Chapter 8, "the Making of Youth Culture"

The last paragraph of Morrison and Morrison's, chapter 8, "The Making of Youth Culture", summarizes a very explosive, graphic time in the 60's. The writers suggest that the "beloved community", which the "Beats to Afrocentrists to commune-dwellers", tried to create, was not only an "unsurprising failure...but the desire still endures." What a true statement. One only has to look at the media accounts of the Occupy Movement to see that history does repeat itself. The message is somewhat different, for the "free love", free drugs, and waiting for the next Zen moment of the 60's, led to years of retribution for a "such a time as this" era. Such "fun" led to AIDS, mental illness, and a whole host of "gateway drugs".

The 60's was a very unique decade which could be considered an "era", for we saw social upheaval with both the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. However, the protests and demonstrations of the 60's weren't just limited to civil rights or the war. The "establishment" was an enemy also under attack. There were many people, White and Black alike, who openly protested the "establishment", therefore making them the "anti-establishment." The mindset against the "establishment" was primarily a justice issue over the powers that be, which they perceived had an unauthorized grip on society. The "establishment" , as hippies and Afrocentrists portrayed it, were those insiders who, by their position, were able to influence government decisions, and, thus had no "checks or balances on their presumed power. The hippie's focus was primarily on the media for their untruthfulness, large corporations for their exploitative practices, and the federal government for their restrictive and sterile rulings. It was also believed that these those institutions, were in essence, in collusion with each other.

As a "baby-boomer" now, but an adolescent growing up in Buffalo, NY, I have vivid memories of Hari Krishna youth teams begging for money, Afros, love beads, city art festivals with hippies in the midst, peace and love symbols, and a host of "heady" music from Hendrix to Sly and the Family Stone's "Stand". I remember my aunt, with an Afro, sneaking to smoke cigarettes and marijuana, driving a VW bug wagons, experimenting with women and men, hiding Playboy magazines and "love comic books". Living in upstate New York, close to Canada, hippies, revolutionaries in the Black community, and those who sympathized, were experimenting in everything -- all in the name of "free expression". After seeing it first-hand, and, reading the Morrison account, my memory has done nothing to fail me. As Jane DeGennaro's interview, in the Morrison and Morrison text, page 205, she recounts her relationship which started very innocent, then graduated from an innocent interests to experimentation with drugs and