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Outlook

Factual: Life Stories

True stories of ordinary people and the extraordinary events that have shaped their lives.

Outlook: San Francisco: City of Freedom?

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31/03/2014

San Francisco: City of Freedom?

BBC World Service - Outlook, San Francisco: City of Freedom?

San Franciscans share their stories of freedom, but is the city's spirit under threat?

Matthew Bannister asks San Franciscans for their stories of freedom. He meets a former hippie, a gay rights campaigner, a legendary music journalist and two tech entrepreneurs.

As part of the BBC's season of programmes on the theme of freedom, Outlook has been to San Francisco, a city long-associated with social and creative liberty, to find out if that spirit still exists. 

Matthew Bannister meets Jay Thelin, a former hippie who, in the 1960s grew his hair long, took mind-altering drugs and believed he could change the world. 

Ben Fong-Torres was the News Editor of the legendary Rolling Stone magazine in the 60s and early 70s; he got up close and personal with the rock stars of his generation whose experimentation was redefining popular music. 

Rights activist Cleve Jones tells us about the freedom he experienced as a young gay man arriving in San Francisco in the 1970s and how things changed when AIDs devastated his community. 

We also meet the new breed of San Franciscan: hi-tech entrepreneurs already worth millions of dollars, and by contrast - a single parent family living in public housing on the other side of the tracks.

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