A love-in is a peaceful public gathering focused on

meditation Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, "discursive thinking", achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditat ...

love Love is a feeling of strong attraction and emotional attachment (psychology), attachment to a person, animal, or thing. It is expressed in many forms, encompassing a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most su ...

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

sex Sex is the biological trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing organism produces male or female gametes. During sexual reproduction, a male and a female gamete fuse to form a zygote, which develops into an offspring that inheri ...

and/or use of

recreational drug Recreational drug use is the use of one or more psychoactive drugs to induce an altered state of consciousness, either for pleasure or for some other casual purpose or pastime. When a psychoactive drug enters the user's body, it induces an Sub ...

s. The term was coined by Los Angeles radio comedian

Peter Bergman Peter Michael Bergman (born June 11, 1953) is an American television actor best known for his portrayals on soap operas: as Cliff Warner on ''All My Children'' (1979–89) on ABC and as Jack Abbott on ''The Young and the Restless'' (1989–pre ...

, creator of comedy group The Firesign Theater, who also hosted the first such event on

Easter Easter, also called Pascha ( Aramaic: פַּסְחָא , ''paskha''; Greek: πάσχα, ''páskha'') or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in t ...

, 26 March 1967 in Elysian Park. Love In at Mardi Gras Fountain New Orleans 1969 poster

The term

The term love-in has been interpreted in varying manners, but is often connected to

protest A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration, or remonstrance) is a public act of objection, disapproval or dissent against political advantage. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooperation in which numerous people cooperate ...

ing local, social or

environmental Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, referring respectively to all living and non-living things occurring naturally and the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism ...

issues. Such protests were often held in opposition to the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

. As such, love-ins are largely considered a staple of the 1960s

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture of the mid-1960s to early 1970s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States and spread to dif ...

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Ho ...

. More recently the term is occasionally used figuratively to describe a situation in which people shower praise on one another in excess.

Background

The First ''Love-in'' was preceded by the ''Heavenly Happening'', at midnight, on November 16, 1966, on the

Sheep Meadow Sheep Meadow is a meadow near the southwestern section of Central Park, between West 66th Street (Manhattan), 66th and 69th Streets in Manhattan, New York City. It is adjacent to Central Park Mall to the east, The Ramble and Lake to the nor ...

Central Park Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...

, organized by New York Parks Commissioner,

Thomas Hoving Thomas Pearsall Field Hoving (January 15, 1931 – December 10, 2009) was an American museum executive and consultant and the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Early life He was born in New York City to Walter Hoving, the head of Tiff ...

January 1967 Human Be-In

The

Human Be-In The Human Be-In was an event held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Polo Fields on January 14, 1967. It was a prelude to San Francisco's Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol of American counterculture an ...

at the

Polo Fields The Polo Fields is a large multi-purpose stadium and sporting field located on the West Side (San Francisco), West Side of San Francisco in Golden Gate Park. Despite its name, polo is rarely played on the Polo Fields. The facility has a multitud ...

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

Golden Gate Park Golden Gate Park is an urban park between the Richmond District, San Francisco, Richmond and Sunset District, San Francisco, Sunset districts on the West Side (San Francisco), West Side of San Francisco, California, United States. It is the Lis ...

on January 14, 1967.

First Love-in on Easter in Elysian Park

The First ''Love-in'' started before dawn. The ''

Los Angeles Free Press The ''Los Angeles Free Press'', also called the "''Freep''", is often cited as the first, and certainly was the largest, of the underground newspapers of the 1960s. The ''Freep'' was founded in 1964 by Art Kunkin, who served as its publisher un ...

'' promoted the event. 15,000 people crowded in a natural amphitheater in Elysian Park, and listened to the

psychedelic rock Psychedelic rock is a rock music Music genre, genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelia, psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound ...

bands Strawberry Alarm Clock,

The Peanut Butter Conspiracy The Peanut Butter Conspiracy was an American, Los Angeles-based, psychedelic pop/rock group from the 1960s. The band is known for lead singer Barbara Robison and for briefly having Spencer Dryden of Jefferson Airplane as a band member. His ...

, Clear Light, and the

Flamin' Groovies Flamin' Groovies is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965, originally co-led by Roy Loney and Cyril Jordan. After the Groovies released three albums, on Epic ('' Supersnazz'') and Kama Sutra (''Flamingo'' and '' Teenage He ...

1967 New York Easter Be-in

The New York Easter 1967 be-in was organized by Jim Fouratt, an actor; Paul Williams, editor of ''

Crawdaddy! ''Crawdaddy'' was an American rock music magazine launched in 1966. It was created by Paul Williams, a Swarthmore College student at the time, in response to the increasing sophistication and cultural influence of popular music. The magazine w ...

'' magazine; Susan Hartnett, head of the

Experiments in Art and Technology Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), a non-profit and tax-exempt organization, was established in 1967 to develop collaborations between artists and engineers. The group operated by facilitating person-to-person contacts between artists and ...

organization; and Chilean poet and playwright Claudio Badal.

1967 Cambridge Common Concerts

Founded in 1967 at Harvard Square by J. Robert “Bob” Gordon, it recurred for nearly eight years, until 1975.

References

External links

* Sulfiati Magnuson. (1967
Elysian Park Love-In
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* Michael Ochs. (1967
Elysian Park Love-In
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Hippie movement Anti-war movement Civil disobedience Counterculture of the 1960s Drug culture Environmental movements Human sexuality Love Meditation Nonviolence Nonviolent resistance movements Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War Peace Protest tactics Recurring events established in 1967 Sexology {{socio-stub