North Carolina "The Hippie State"

On Earth 72, the Summer of Love was actually started in 1964 and went on until 1973. The hippie philosophy of peace and love was many times more attractive to young people than it ever was in our world, spreading worldwide and eventually toppling dictatorships and most of the communist governments. In the United States, things got really interesting in 1968, when some hippie leaders thought it might be "a good teaching event" if many thousands of hippies "took over a redneck state." So, in the summer of 1969, they put together a huge music and arts festival just outside the town of Wilson. The state was told that 50,000 tickets had been sold.

500,000 hippies showed up for the 4 day festival.

Another 300,000 showed up after it was over.

Only 150,000 left the state over the next 6 months.

The hippie leaders had stealthily rented or purchased houses, business properties, farms and undeveloped land all over the state. Enough to house about 200,000 people. The rest moved onto the undeveloped land and built houses, tipis, tent villages, etc.

Most of the money came from wealthy hippie supporters. The rest came from the several million dollars made at the festival.

The North Carolina government tried everything to get the hippies out and they did manage to get about 25% of them out, but it was a losing battle because they just snuck back in and even more hippies arrived every day. Eventually, the cost of all the hippie eradication just became too much.

The redneck vigilantes tried a tougher approach, but backed off fast when they found that many hippies had armed themselves.

Today (current year: 2010), the Hippie State is peaceful, prosperous and mellow, man. It is a favorite destination for tourists from all over the world.