Rainbow Gathering - History

History

The first Rainbow Gathering of the Tribes, a four-day event in Colorado in July 1972, was organized by youth counterculture "tribes" based in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. Twenty thousand people faced police roadblocks, threatened civil disobedience, and were allowed onto National Forest land. This was intended to be a onetime event; however, a second gathering in Wyoming the following year materialized, at which point an annual event was declared. The length of the gatherings has since expanded beyond the original four-day span, as have the number and frequency of the gatherings.

Although groups from California and the Northwest region of the U.S. were heavily involved in focalizing (a Rainbow term for providing a focus upon) the first official (or unofficial as some folks would say) Rainbow Gathering, the U.S. Southeast was strongly represented as well. At least 2,600 people from throughout that region focalized at one the four Main Camps/Kitchens and provided invaluable support for the 1972 Rainbow Gathering of the Tribes on Strawberry Lake, above Granby, Colorado. There was also strong representation from the U.S. Northeast and many other regions of the U.S.