The Diggers were a communal living group based in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhoods of San Francisco during 1967 and 1968. They performed live street theater and were known for giving out free food to the public. The diggers desired to live without relying on material goods and wanted to be free from capitalistic society. In the Golden Gate park the diggers would handout free food everyday at 4 o’clock an typically fed more than 200 people daily using donated meats and vegetables. They also allowed people to sleep in their “crash-pads”, which would typically house youth who came to San Francisco without a home or occupation to support themselves. The diggers also gained notoriety when on December 17th 1966 they carried a coffin full of fake money down Haight Street while singing the song “Get out my life, why don’t you babe?”
This footage below has interviews with founding members of the diggers communal group Peter Borg and Peter Coyote. Peter Coyote says, “Let’s make the world you imagine real by acting it out… and if you can act it out it’s real.” This quote highlights the attitude of not just the diggers, but San Francisco at large during that era. People in that time and that place genuinely believed the world was something you can change and make great and through that belief they were able to provide food and housing for hundreds of people.
The World They Imagined 