When Did The Summer Of 1967 Become The "Summer Of Love"

The title says it all. The summer of 1967 is known as the "Summer Of Love". Did anyone think that in 1967? Or was it only after the fact that the label was applied. It seems to me that 1967 was a turning point towards darker times culturally, but that's my reading of it - at not only a long distance but also without having been there.

Did anyone alive in 1967 feel like they were living in the "Summer Of Love"? My parents got married on June 17, 1967 but they had no idea about any "Summer Of Love" business. It was summer and they were on vacation because they were both teachers.

The Summer of Love would not have been personally known by ppl who were not already inclined to the "Hippie" movement.

Your parents didn't know about it because they were not into the counter-culture. I was around in 1967 but knew nothing about a Summer of Love. In June 17, 1967 I was discharged from the Air Force and looking for employment.

Specifically it was when thousands of heads converged on San Francisco, but unless you were a freek you would not have known anything more than what the newscast mentioned. All the rioting and civil unrest was more important to most Americans that year.

But, the Summer of Love started a counter-culture movement that eventually spread to all parts of the country. I became aware of the counter-culture a few years later in New Orleans and my personal Summer of Love was the Atlanta Pop Fest on July 4, 1970 (me and a quarter million other heads) and my trip to San Francisco to the Haight-Ashbury, which was in decline.

I was only almost 11 at the start of that summer so I wasn't exactly politically or socially conscious. I do remember the novelty of some guy walking around with long hair. I was still getting crew cuts. I think most of the "love" was confined to a few blocks in San Francisco because I do remember the riots in plcaes like Newark and Detroit. Everything did seem to go in the shitter the following year. MLK. RFK. Tet. The Democratic Convension in Chicago. Nixon was elected.

I don't know. I wasn't around then.