Summers of Love: Interracial couple bonded over rhythm & blues and music nightlife

WHEN A BLACK man asked her out in San Francisco in 1960, interracial dating just wasn’t being done and Marty Harper was no pioneer. But as the ’60s rolled on, things were being done that hadn’t been before.

Young people were bucking the establishment’s war, work and cultural ethics. The Civil Rights movement spotlighted racial discrimination. Rock and folk music were bringing people together. Harper, too, was meeting new and diverse people in the “hippie” culture, through hangouts like Vesuvio’s in North Beach.