The Human Be-In led the way to the Summer of Love , which introduced hippie life and the word psychedelic to everyday Americans , and made the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco famous as the center of an American counterculture . It was a prelude to San Francisco 's Summer of Love , which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol as the center of an American counterculture and introduced the word ` psychedelic ' to suburbia .