Atlanta in the 1970s: photo exhibit shows a strange old world

A fan holds a sign critical of Major League Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn for his interference in Hank Aaron’s drive to eclipse Babe Ruth’s home run record in Atlanta. When the Atlanta Braves opened the 1974 season at Cincinnati, Aaron was two home runs shy of the mark and hoped to sit the bench to better position himself to break the record in Atlanta, but the commissioner refused. Read more about the work of Boyd Lewis and the new exhibition of his work here.

In May 1970, Reverend Ralph David Abernathy helped lead the “March Against Oppression” to protest the shooting deaths by police of black demonstrators and students in Augusta, Georgia, and Jackson Mississippi, and four white students at Kent State University by the National Guard.The march, which began in Perry, Georgia, culminated in Atlanta as Abernathy was joined by United Auto Worker’s President Leonard Woodcock and other prominent national figures. Read more about the work of Boyd Lewis and the new exhibition of his work here.

Boyd Lewis, the photographer, is captured in a mirror carried by a protester in a street demonstration, one of many that he covered.

Maynard Jackson defeated Sam Massell in the mayoral election of 1973. He won with 95% of the black vote, signifying an historic change of political leadership and culminating in a grandiose inaugural, as the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra performed behind him.

Members of the rock band ZZ Top pose while making their handprints in a cement block in front of Peaches Records and Tapes on Peachtree Street, September 1975. This ceremony became an Atlanta tradition similar in concept to the Hollywood Walk of Fame as artists visited the city while on tour and promoted their appearance.

Courageous and controversial – and in his words, “unbossed and unbought” – civil rights leader Hosea Williams was a top aide to Dr. King and credited as the organizer and leader of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965, the day known as “Bloody Sunday.” When Boyd Lewis covered Hosea Williams for the Atlanta Inquirer, Williams remained an outspoken advocate of social justice and the poor. His targets included Holy Family Hospital, a progressive Catholic care center that fired black employees who attempted to form a union in 1972. In 1974, he led protests against Atlanta Police Chief John Inman. Hosea Williams served on the Atlanta City Council and in the Georgia General Assembly. Read more about the work of Boyd Lewis and the new exhibition of his work here.

Speaking in front of the bronze statue of Tom Watson that once stood on the lawn of the Georgia State Capitol, Atlanta Black Panther member Tim Haynes (top left) denounces the “pig power structure” during an anti-Vietnam war rally in May 1970.

In April 1971, Piedmont Park played host to the People’s Fair, a three-day event that featured rock music, arts and crafts, and speeches from civil rights figures and other political figures deemed radical for their stance against the Vietnam War, poverty, and racial discrimination.

An aspiring sixteen-year old disc jockey named Wayne Williams poses with acquaintances in the basement of his father’s house in Dixie Hills in 1971. Williams’ father, Homer, persuaded Lewis to write a story for the Atlanta Voice about his son, who hoped to become a force in the music business. Eight years later, a series of unsolved murders involving 28 African American children, teenagers, and adults began. These lasted through 1981 after Williams was detained by police suspicious of his activity. Shortly thereafter, Williams was arrested, tried, and convicted for the murder of two victims, although evidence was uncovered linking him to others. Williams is serving a life sentence.

Dr. King’s political legacy took firm root in Atlanta in the 1970s as leaders of the Civil Rights Movement found their way into elected office. On November 7, 1972, Andrew Young Jr., an aide to Dr. King, became the first African American elected to Congress from the Deep South since Reconstruction. Young served Georgia’s 5th Congressional District from 1973 to 1978. An ordained minister, Young was appointed Ambassador to the United Nations by President Jimmy Carter, where his outspokenness on human rights issues eventually cost him his position. Young was elected mayor of Atlanta in 1981 and served two terms, delicately managing tensions between African American political leaders and white business leaders.

These rare images of Atlanta’s first “official” Gay Pride march were captured by Lewis, but never published in the Atlanta Inquirer. The fact reflects how little media attention the event drew in its early years. The 1972 Pride march was the first granted a permit by the city of Atlanta and, according to one estimate, drew an estimated 300 people. Photo: Boyd Lewis

In recent decades, Piedmont Park has been the preferred venue for outdoor festivals and gatherings that cater to Atlanta’s urban professionals, many of which reside in Midtown’s upscale and gentrified neighborhoods. By contrast, in the early 1970s the park was often the locale for hippies and would-be revolutionaries. Impromptu rock concerts, open use of illicit drugs, and clashes with police were frequent.

Midtown was the epicenter for the growing Gay Liberation movement, which led to a proliferation of Queer businesses, especially Gay bars, such as Bulldogs and the Armory; dance clubs, including Backstreet; and restaurants and lounges, such as the Prince George Inn. Drag queens in the audience of Sweet Gum Head cabaret on Cheshire Bridge await the appearance of Atlanta’s legendary performer Diamond Lil in 1971.

The 1972 Pride demonstration in Atlanta was organized by the Gay Liberation Front, an organization centered at Georgia State University. Pride celebrations have grown from an annual march to a celebratory weekend festival with thousands of attendees.

The presence of hippies in Piedmont Park was viewed as an affront by an older generation of Atlantans; members of the nearby Piedmont Driving Club and Daughters of the American Revolution chapter, who for decades claimed the park for their strata. To them, the inhabitants of Atlanta’s “Tight Squeeze” area of Midtown along Peachtree Street seemed to be claiming the park as their own. Adding to the milieu was the appearance of members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, an Eastern-based religion known popularly as the Hare Krishna. Their chanting was often heard in the park and on the sidewalks along Peachtree Street. As the decade progressed the Krishnas were frequently seen in the Atlanta airport passing out literature and proselytizing to travelers.

Described as a “force of nature” by Lewis and identified as a constant source for stories during his journalism career, former state representative Julian Bond was a dynamic national figure and a persistent advocate for liberal causes. A former communications director of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Bond was an active participant in the Voter Education Project’s voter mobilization projects in the early 1970s. An opponent of the Vietnam War, Bond was denied his elected seat in the Georgia General Assembly in 1966 because of his public stance against the war. He was eventually seated after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor. Read more about the work of Boyd Lewis and the new exhibition of his work here.

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A fan holds a sign critical of Major League Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn for his interference in Hank Aaron’s drive to eclipse Babe Ruth’s home run record in Atlanta. When the Atlanta Braves opened the 1974 season at Cincinnati, Aaron was two home runs shy of the mark and hoped to sit the bench to better position himself to break the record in Atlanta, but the commissioner refused. Read more about the work of Boyd Lewis and the new exhibition of his work here.

By Bo Emerson

May 25, 2016

Atlanta in the 1970s was way stranger than we remember.

The Old South pushed up against a New Age; hippies gathered in Piedmont Park and gay pride marchers ventured to Peachtree Street. A political revolution brought African Americans into power while an economic sea change brought money to the whole region.

Boyd Lewis, once described as the “white boy with the black press,” stayed busy documenting the upstart town, as a reporter and photographer with the Atlanta Voice and the Atlanta Inquirer and as an editor, reporter, anchor and producer with public radio station WABE.

Lewis recently donated 15,000 images to the Atlanta History Center, adding to a gift he made in 1985, bringing the total to 25,000 images, plus some audio tapes and other items. The fascinating exhibit, "Flashback: Atlanta in the 70s, The Photography of Boyd Lewis," currently showing at the Margaret Mitchell House in Midtown, is drawn from this archive.

The show includes 60 images and three videos and will be on display until next January. You can see a more extensive gallery of the photos here.

Among the classic images that Lewis captured:

•A marcelled Maynard Jackson at his elaborate inaugural, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra performing behind him.

•Krishna Consciousness devotees, clad in dhotis and high-top Converse sneakers, joyfully banging their two-headed drums in Piedmont Park.

•A fabulous gay pride cohort, awash in feathers and parasols, waving from the windows, roof, bed and hood of a blue pickup truck.

In 1997 Boyd moved to Los Angeles to teach high school and middle school. Now retired, Lewis said he found teaching as rewarding as journalism. “You’d get the fulfillment and feedback every day you walked into the classroom.”

Atlanta magazine: Q&A with Boyd Lewis about Atlanta in the 1970s

Lewis’ curiosity was tireless, and the result of his watchfulness is this colorful record. “There were better photographers than I, more evocative audio artists and God knows, more story-telling writers,” Lewis said recently. “But I can’t think of anyone else who did it all.”

Atlanta in the 1970s

Atlanta photos from Peachtree Center, the first days of MARTA rail, the Strip in Midtown

Atlanta people in the 1970s

Atlanta politics in the 1970s: Gov. Jimmy Carter, Mayor Mayard Jackson, more

The photography of journalist Boyd Lewis

“Flashback: Atlanta in the 70s, The Photography of Boyd Lewis,” at the Margaret Mitchell House, through Jan. 16, 2017; 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays, noon-5:30 p.m. Sundays; $13 adults, $10 seniors and students; $8.50 children; free for Atlanta History Center members and children under 4; 979 Crescent Ave., MargaretMitchellHouse.com.

About the Author

Bo Emerson

Bo Emerson is an Atlanta native and a long-time AJC feature and news writer.

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