After working in the South during “Freedom Summer” 1964, many white students from the North changed greatly both in appearance and in their attitudes and beliefs. Nonviolent,direct action counter culture

The term “hippie” itself became a universal term in the late sixties. It originated in a 1967 article entitled “The Social History of the Hippies.” Afterward, the name was captured by the mass media as a label for the people of the new movement. Even before this, the word “hip” described someone who was “in” and “down”, wise to what was going on around him. By the 1960s, some of America’s youth created a gap between themselves and their parents. They grew their hair, strange and color clothes and many of them used drugs.

Hippies were part of a youth movement, composed mostly of white teenagers and young adults between the ages of 15 and 25 years-old. Hippies rebelled against established institutions, criticized middle class values, opposed the Vietnam War, embraced aspects of non-Judeo-Christian religions, promoted sexual liberation, and created intentional communities, leading some to describe hippies as a new religious movement. Hippies were against "political and social orthodoxy", choosing a "gentle and non doctrinaire" politics that favored "peace, love, and personal freedom."Vietnam War