Diggers, The (fl. c. 1966 - 1970)

The Diggers (fl. c. 1966 – 1970) were a countercultural, anti-capitalist, anarchist group of community activists and artists based in San Francisco, and more specifically the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, who were an important component of the 1967 Summer of Love. Named for a 17th century English egalitarian movement that split off from the Levellers during the English Civil War, the San Francisco Diggers overlapped with and inspired other radical social and artistic movements that emerged in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s, including the San Francisco Mime Troupe and the Yippies. Like Dada artists of an earlier generation, their art tipped from avant-gardism into absurdism, while maintaining a roughly left-wing, anti-capitalist, collectivist mindset. At the same time, as the decade advanced, the Diggers became increasingly critical of the Sixties counterculture, which they felt had been coopted and corrupted, straying from its roots. In fact, they felt little affinity for the stereotypical hippie that came to be associated with Haight-Ashbury. Towards the end of the decade, many of the most active members of the group left San Francisco for Berkeley or destinations further afield.