Diane J. Purvis’s memoir offers a unique view from the Los Angeles County suburbs as she was coming of age during the era of civil rights activism, the women’s movement, and Vietnam anti-war movement. More than Flower Power recalls the youthful energy that surged in the 1960s as political and cultural tensions rose to the surface. Her parents, Midwest transplants to California, sought the postwar American dream and went from pinching pennies to living in upper middle-class suburbs, which were imbued with rigid social and political codes. Purvis rejected this conservative bias while attending racially integrated schools and witnessing the dichotomy between suburban and inner-city students, motivating her to embrace social justice. Purvis and her peers were influenced by images of the Vietnam War and political protests they saw on television and the music they heard on their transistor radios, two emerging technologies that shaped popular perceptions during this tumultuous decade.
Purvis was possessed by the desire to make a difference even though inroads to social and political equality looked impossible in the face of America’s cultural consensus and conformism of the era. Through the lens of one person’s experience, More than Flower Power offers an intimate portrait of a West Coast generation’s optimism, idealism, and transformative influence on American culture and society.