Conference on The Draft

"To Better Explain Your Responsibilities And Legal Alternatives." While not much is known about this event – it was one of many – it was held at Glide Memorial Church on May 27, 1967. Artist Allan "Gut" Terk was a member of the Hells Angels and helped paint Furthur, the iconic bus used by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Allan could put away prodigious amounts of food and yet was still quite skinny and so his nickname was "Gut." Terk was sort of a renaissance man, certainly by Hells Angels standards, and he wound up creating at least 7 posters from the era and also managed one of the local bands, Blue Cheer.

The legendary Glide Memorial Church has been serving the marginalized people of the Tenderloin in San Francisco since 1934 and later in the 1960s became known as a counterculture rallying point. Despite the glamorized remembrance of the Summer of Love in 1967, the great influx of young people, from around the country that summer was controversial from the start.

Glide Memorial poster the Reverend Cecil Williams welcomed the hippies and championed them as early as June 1967, when San Francisco city officials released a statement declaring their rejection of the youthful visitors, who had already begun congregating in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. In a press release, Williams responded on behalf of Glide, defending the youthful arrivals and chastising the City for its unwelcoming response.

“We are very disturbed about the statement by the city officials which in essence rejected the pilgrims,” read the statement from Rev. Williams, “the Flower Children, who are coming to San Francisco this summer. As members of the Christian community, we are committed to the acceptance of all people whether they are on vacation, attending conventions, or seeking a new community.”