Eventually, business interests would find a way to profit from the “peace and love” market, exploiting its music and fashion, while co-opting its language for political gain. Within a couple of years a street that had been a fairly benign, even innocent, meeting place had mutated into a mecca for dropouts, acid casualties, bikers, consumers of bad speed, exploitative entrepreneurs and sexual predators. Be that as it may, the Sunset Strip riot is best thought of as a statement regarding the right to congregate, part of a protest movement that continues to this very dayand includes such diverse sites as Stonewall, Zuccotti Park, Tahrir Square and the streets of Ferguson, Missouri. Maybe what was happening on Sunset Boulevard, as the song says, wasn’t exactly clear, but it was certainly part of a process to own the night, reclaim the streets and say no to arbitrary authority.
The Guardian, “‘Anarchy on Sunset Strip’: 50 years on from the ‘hippie riots’ “
