The Georgia Historical Society will dedicate a historical marker for the Second Atlanta International Pop Festival, a 1970 Woodstock-like gathering that featured Jimi Hendrix and the Allman Brothers Band among other top acts, at 3 p.m. Sept. 15 at the Middle Georgia Raceway in Byron.
“Outdoor music festivals in the late ’60s, early ’70s were pivotal moments in American popular culture,” GHS senior historian Stan Deaton said in a statement. “They personified the social revolutions of the 1960s — the Civil Rights movement, the youth movement that we equate with rock ‘n’ roll, and the anti-war and drug counterculture.”
One of the largest public gatherings in state history, the pop festival was organized by renowned Atlanta concert promoter Alex Cooley and drew several hundred thousand people to Byron, south of Macon, over a three-day July 1970 weekend.
The marker is a collaboration of the GHS, the Byron Area Historical Society, the Georgia Allman Brothers Band Association, the Allman Brothers Band Museum at the Big House and Hittin’ the Note magazine.
The historical society has administered Georgia’s statewide marker program since 1998, erecting more 180 historical markers across the state on a wide variety of subjects.
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