Hippies - known for their love of drugs and sex, they often misled ordinary people about their intentions. In their minds, what they were doing was naively defending themselves and what they considered to be theirs; what they believed in. They believed in their rights and they wanted to do what they wanted; not conforming to the demands of life in the average society of the time. They wanted to create a culture where spiritual awareness was highly valued (sometimes through psychedelic drugs), where everything was given for free, where everyone (even strangers) was considered a brother, where everyone valued peace, and where rights were freely granted to everyone. everyone. (Speak out. (nd)) These rights would include everything from free love to laws against racial discrimination. Hippies believed that these wants (or needs) had to be acquired in society and that America was not a free land without this form of culture. However, when society refused to change, instead of giving up, the hippies stuck to their beliefs and rose up, creating their own counterculture. The goal of the counterculture was to create a community where there was a commonality of ideas and beliefs. The American hippie movement of the 1960s was strengthened by the drastic increase in the youth population due to baby boomers, a longer period of adolescence due to the improving economy and the use of media and communications, such as television and radical academic newspapers. There were two reactions to the hippie movement: the first, an angry outcry across all fifty states from the older upper classes, and the second, an inspiration for a few to try the ways themselves hippies. "A few" people quickly turned into a plentiful environment...... middle of paper ......ov/GI_Bill_Info/history.htm "Hippies from A to Z by Skip Stone." Hip Planet: your portal to the hip universe - Hip Planet. Internet. December 3, 2009. .Hippies..... The philosophy of a subculture... Time Magazine. . (nd). The Farm. Retrieved February 3, 2010 from http://www.thefarm.org/museum/timehippie.html “1967 Hippie Temptation”. Hippie temptation. CBS. Haight-Ashbury District, California, 1967. Magazine 1969. David Webster, October 18, 2009. Web. December 2, 2009. .This day in history 1967: 100,000 people march on the Pentagon. (nd). The History Channel - Home Page. Retrieved February 3, 2010 from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=1434(1994). American Decades: 1960-1969 (American Decades). Chicago: Thomson Gale.