Back in 1967, on Easter Sunday, Los Angeles hosted its first “love-in,” a gathering of hippies and their ilk to dance and spread love around. This year, a 50th anniversary celebration is planned to take place in the same section of Elysian Park that the first one happened decades ago, Eastsider LA reports.
The Los Angeles Times summed up the one-day event with its 1967 headline “Hippies Fill Glen With Splendors of Love and Miniskirts,” says ELA. It’s estimated that 4,000 people showed up to hear live music, get down, and put good vibes into the world. The event was advertised by word-of-mouth, but also by this awesome psychedelic poster.
The original event began in the pre-dawn hours on Easter Sunday, and so will the anniversary, which will take place from 4:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. in the “Section 9” picnic area, just north of where Academy Road crosses Solano Canyon Road. “The public and “fellow travelers” are welcome,” event organizer Benjamin Kidwell Lein tells ELA.
The curious can get a feel for what it was like to be at that Easter Sunday gathering from this incredible collection of photos of the inaugural love-in as well as those of later years from the archives of music photographer Michael Ochs, now owned by Getty Images.
The 1968 short film by Les Blank called God Respects Us When We Work, But Loves Us When We Dance is another window into that first love-in. The movie’s trailer conveys the gist of that meet-up of longhairs and flower children: