Sisters of the Psychedelic Revolution: A Conversation with Leni Sinclair and Genie Parker

Hippie culture left a lasting impression on the Mid-West of the United States. Historians tend to portray the Haight Ashbury of San Francisco and the East Village of Manhattan as America’s foremost psychedelic hotspots, but it was in the college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, that the psychedelic revolution seems to have succeeded, at least partially. Leni Sinclair and Genie Parker were at the heart of Ann Arbor’s hippie scene. From their commune, Trans-Love Energy, they co-coordinated a robust alternative community, which included numerous underground newspapers, free health care clinics, free healthy food programs, a network of crashpads and communes, and weekly concerts in the park. Their motto was “.,” which stood for Serve The People. When the Black Panther Party called on the hippies to join them in an alliance, Sinclair and Parker co-founded the White Panther Party, which later broadened its coalition of allies and became the Rainbow People’s Party. Honoring the global anti-colonialist struggle, t