Backstreet was a dance club off Peachtree. It was a gay club but welcomed those exploring all freedoms. Remember oral sex in Georgia, even between a married couple, could land you in jail before 2003! Backstreet and later The Limelight both served as battlefields against Georgia’s antiquated laws on sex.
Backstreet was where the music and dancing literally never stopped. No windows or clocks. People sometimes went in and came out a day later.
Lester was a racist buffoon, but remember Atlanta also had seriously evil and dangerous racists like J. B. Stoner, who ran for governor as the White People’s Party candidate and defended King’s assassin. Hard to laugh at such hatred, but drag queens suckcede on their 70s TV show.
Atlanta Journal 4/6/67 Lester’s Vigilantes GOV. LESTER Maddox has announced the formation of a Committee of One Thousand, made up of people all over the state. Its object is to tell him what is going on. Through history more innocent people have ” been hung, burned, pressed to death, stoned, exiled, stretched on racks and calumnied by this means than by any other. The spirit of the committee is the spirit of the old Klan. In the good old days here in Georgia people were lynched, tarred and feathered, fired from their jobs and driven from the county by means of just this sort of friendly information. The idea is as old as injustice. as built-in as human spite, and has been the favorite device of dictators in all times and places. THE IDEA is mistake and ought to be dropped before the reputation of the first innocent citizen has been damaged. But to give the governor credit, there is a shadow of justification for this committee. He says its object is to keep a watchful eye on the functions of state government. A watchful eye indeed is needed. The law is supposed to provide it. Is the governor’s suggestion a measure of the failure of our legal syslem? If so the remedy is reform of the system, and not vigilantes. And what about the independent watchdog agency, proposed in and so handily defeated by Gov. Maddox’s Senate?
The Great Speckled Bird Vol3#8pg.4
Showdown on 11th
People are putting the paper to bed Tuesday night when that old familiar call comes: “Pigs are busting people on 11th Street.” So our crack riot-trained team of reporters and photogs converge on the scene, to find: a big red fire truck, brandishing its fire hoses at a still (slightly) smoldering can of garbage; a Journal/Constitution, paper-box (Right On!) blocking the Peachtree entrance onto 11th; a small scattering of freaks (“Community People” we call them) hustling and bustling about in customary gaiety, exclaiming on the near riot; and the familiar voice of Harky (The Rev. Klinefelter)’first far away, then nearing and finally turning the corner of Peachtree onto llth.
The entire scene converges to a spot about a third of the way down the street, and the rap continues, Harky’s words about what you do when you get busted and who you should call and write all this down on the back of your hands so you won’t lose it but nobody has a pen, words punctuated by an occasional pop bottle thrown at random into the street, and Harky talks paranoid about “outsiders” throwing things to provoke the cops, maybe even paid outsiders, to give them the chance to bust heads (but they weren’t).
So, all things being normal, I begin asking individuals what happened prior to this happy time, and quickly piece together the basics: three plainclothesmen slipped into 127 11th Street and busted two people, presumably for grass though no one knew for sure. Curious folk gathered across the street to see what was going on, and the bluecoats started coming, hassling people to move on, to clear the streets before they got busted. No one seemed to know what started the arrests, but suddenly people were being grabbed and hustled into a waiting paddy wagon—thirteen in all, held on $100-200 bond for Stopping the Flow of Pedestrian Traffic, one of those bullshit charges trotted out once in a while to Take Care of Contingencies.
But meanwhile I am eyeballing about a dozen pigs snorting up on their three-wheelers (Whoopee!) and four black paddy wagons congregating with an equal number of cars kittycorner across Peachtree and everybody getting out and stretching their legs and flexing their arms and hitching up pants and things like that. So I walk down to where Harky is holding forth about how important it is to get badge numbers, because we can’t indict the Whole Force, we gotta get the bad eggs in the basket and I interrupt and say that this dark spot ain’t no good for a riot, how about folks going up on Peachtree, give the Cadillacs and curious Oldsmobiles a chance at a piece of the action in case there was to be some.
But the action is apparently over for the night, and instead we are treated to a display of the latest hippie-cooling-off tactics: congregate in a massive show of force, station a paddy wagon at every corner, then start patrolling the area in groups of five—two white cops in motorcycle helmets brandishing nightsticks and three black Task Force cops in soft headgear, just playing it cool, responding with a smile at any taunts. Five down this way, five down that way, five over there and the rest of you guys wait here.
Soon it is again Christmas calm on Peaehtree, and the Task Force captain is walking down the street, doling out popcorn from a blue box, and a narc in a blue suit and yellow tie is arguing with kids that, no he ain’t never been to Haight Street ’cause he don’t like California and no, he ain’t about to go to the East Village ’cause there’s too much snow in New York, and I am being offered purchase of various and sundry chemicals much like any other Tuesday night. Folks at the Community Center are receiving calls from the jail, taking down names and charges, arranging with lawyers and Detective Pate comes in and tries to buy some stamps and a girl bleeding from the mouth and crying stumbles through the door and say’s “Cass and Marty beat me up” and J. tells Pate about a friend of his who was busted for 100 pounds of grass and his buddies had to quick unload the other 200 pounds to get him out of jail.
All in all I analyze it as virtually a dry run for the summer. Better get it together, my friends.
-t.c.
Once you liberate your mind, your heart and body want to follow. Civil Rights, Gay Rights, Women’s Rights, Men’s Rights to be free from societal stereotypes, Citizens Rights and more movements were spawned by these insights.
First Gay Rights gathering in Piedmont Park 1970. Nearly 400 attend; compare to 2007
The Great Speckled Bird March 30, 1970 Vol 3 #13 pg 14
War on Rock
Santana and the Allman Brothers Band flew right into a hornet’s nest last week when they showed up to play at the Municipal Auditorium: there was a picket line of striking city employees there to prevent scabs from filling their jobs.
The word from California is that Santana is a pretty hip Rock group and not the kind to cross a picket line in support of a city administration that had fired the strikers and alerted that National Guard to deal with them. And this year, unlike the 1968 garbage strike when longhairs scabbed in the workers’ jobs, it was becoming clear at the time of the scheduled concert that the hip community was lining up in complete support of the strikers against the city. The Mid-Town Alliance had voted unanimously to support the strikers. The Bird was behind them, and people from The Laundromat, Women’s Liberation and other groups were planning to be on the picket line, not inside the concert. The Allman Brothers dig Atlanta and the music audience here—they didn’t want to cross the picket line either, although their management obviously didn’t give a shit about any black workers’ struggle. The Insect Trust, also on the program, are a fairly “political” group from Memphis (via Hoboken, New Jersey, recently), and they stated early in the day that they wouldn’t play as long as the picket line was up.
In order to deal with this political/cultural dilemma the fairest way possible, Santana met directly with representatives of the strikers. The city workers didn’t want to keep the concert from taking place, and they wanted the support of the hip community; at the same time, Santana didn’t want to run roughshod over the very real efforts of the strikers to maintain a solid front against the city. So Santana offered to make a financial contribution to the workers’ cause and give some time at the concert for a union speaker; in return, the strikers would remove their picket line during the time of the concert. Everything was delivered, but the city didn’t dig what went down—not at all.
Atlanta has an 11:30 “curfew” and Municipal Auditorium concerts have to take that absurdity into account. The Santana concert started on time, but the sound system, supposedly a special “Festival Group” system promised “especially for this performance,” was responsible for an incredible number of hassles.
The sound was terrible for The Insect Trust, and something terrible seems to have happened to the group itself, too. We got a chance to hear them last summer at the Memphis Blues Festival, and they were fantastic, one of the best things we had heard. They got it all in—folk, rock, jazz, blues, some of the new things black musicians are doing, and somehow it all hung together in an exciting way. Nancy Jeffries, the vocalist, we dug a lot, but Thursday night she was lousy. None of it came off, but again. it sounded as if at least a large part of the trouble was in the mikes and amps-or maybe that’s what happens to a good group when they are “discovered” by Bill Graham.
The Allman Brothers Band were great though—it’s hard to describe what happens between Atlanta and the Allman Brothers, but their music brought the house down. It’s terrific to have them back here. but it did seem strange hearing them in the setting of the Municipal Auditorium for up to six bucks instead of for free in Piedmont Park- seems like “success” should work the other way around. We hope to see them back in the park this summer.
A lot of shit was coming down backstage while freaks were tossing a frisbee from balcony to balcony in the intermission before Santana. Roy Eirod, the auditorium manager, didn’t take too kindly to the idea of a striker going on stage, and so pitched a fit. Santana said they wouldn’t play if the agreement weren’t lived up to, and Aftermath Productions had decided that they would support Santana’s position. Finally, Ed Shane came out and announced the speaker who was accompanied, with good reason, by four bodyguards.Most of us dug what he was saying, but a few freaks with warped priorities just had to stick in some booing. The speaker, John Releford, wasn’t fazed at all: “Now, you folks can agitate all you want,” he said, “but I’m gonna stay up here for just a while longer and rap some more!” This got him an ovation, and after a couple of short remarks about freaks not scabbing and freaks and strikers supporting each other, he turned the stage over to Santana.
It would be hard to imagine anyone who doesn’t dig Santana. They did some great stuff Thursday night— like the Allman Bros., mostly from their record—but after only a half hour of music, the mikes and amps suddenly cut off. Eirod, backstage, had flipped because of the union speaker and envoked the curfew bullshit. Shane was out front trying to cool everybody off, but in the wings there was some pretty unpleasant hassling centered around the power switch. The Santana people were furious at the city.
Finally, Shane, who had been playing mostly a “mealy mouth role (he had wised up considerably by the time of the scheduled Spirit concert on Sunday) finally turned to the drummers and said, “What happens now is up to Santana!” Like an explosion, the drummers began to play without mikes and amplification, and a freaked out audience burst into shouts and applause and streamed past the befuddled cops to rush the stage (several kids had been busted during the evening for such offenses as “blocking the aisles,” etc., and at one point, the cops even confiscated the frisbee). You can bet your sweet life the city personnel were quaking in their shoes about what to do—imagine a lot of city cops against the combined forces of freaks, musicians and striking workers. A lot of hands got near the power switch, but miraculously, the electricity came back on for one more ferocious, driving number.
When it was all over, Shane came back to the mike to smooth things over but Santana organist Greg Rollie grabbed the mike and shouted, “We’re sorry about all the trouble—next time we play for you, we’re gonna play for two hours, and we won’t care what the rules say: Right on!
The next day, the city of Atlanta pulled another of its tricks in what Steve Cole of Discovery, Inc. has called a “war on Rock & Roll” waged by Atlanta for a long, long time: it cancelled four concerts already scheduled in the Municipal Auditorium by Aftermath Productions (including Judy Collins and Jethro Tull), and threatened never to contract with that agency again.
A lot of people are angry now. At the same time that the hip community is coming together with the strikers, people who want Atlanta to have Rock & Roll Music are getting together to make sure all decisions about music— who when, where and for how long—are answered not by the city administration of Atlanta but by the people who dig those sounds. Power to the People!!!
————miller francis, jr.
Could members of the Governor [Lester Maddox]’s committee be the reason firebombings of troublesome Civil Rights and Counter Culture buildings around Atlanta never seemed to get solved or sometimes even investigated? makes you go, “hmm?”
What concerned the various sectors of the United States ruling elites in regard to SNCC’s position against the draft and the war in Viet Nam was that the organization was actively challenging the notion that Africans in America should fight in unjust wars overseas. In January of 1966, SNCC issued a detailed statement opposing the war in Viet Nam. In August of the same year there were picket lines set up outside a selective service induction center in Atlanta, Georgia by members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The demonstrations resulted in the arrest of numerous activists and drew the attention of the FBI.
In a confidential FBI report issued on September 7, 1966 entitled: “Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Stokely Carmichael”, the Bureau sought to provide a summary of recent activities of SNCC and its chairperson. Under the beginning section of the report entitled: “Picketing Activities Atlanta, Georgia,” it states that: “Since August 17, 1966, a small group of Negroes, the majority of whom are members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, have been picketing the Twelfth Corps Headquarters, Northeast, Atlanta, Georgia, protesting United States action in Vietnam and United States Negroes fighting in Vietnam. A number of these individuals have been arrested by the Atlanta Police Department and charged with various offenses ranging from disorderly conduct to assault and battery. The activities of these individuals in connection with their picketing of the Twelfth Corps Headquarters are also under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation relative to destruction of Government property and possible violations of the Selective Service Act of 1948.”
The confidential report of the FBI continues by making reference to a speech made by Carmichael on September 3, 1966 and a rebellion which erupted on September 6 in Atlanta. According to the FBI report: “A confidential source advised that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee sponsored a rally in a predominantly Negro neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 3, 1966. Stokely Carmichael made a short speech at the rally. He attacked the Atlanta Police Department on police brutality matters. According to the source, Carmichael stated Negroes should form vigilante groups to observe police and should any acts of police brutality be observed, a committee should be formed among the Negro element to follow such matters.”
After the arrest of the pickets at the Twelfth Corps Headquarters, a delegation of SNCC members including Carmichael went to the Atlanta City Hall to demand a meeting with Mayor Ivan Allen. The SNCC members asked that the Mayor release the people arrested at the induction center. The Mayor replied that it was a federal matter and was beyond the control of the city of Atlanta. Carmichael was reported to have insisted that the city do something to affect the release of the demonstrators. Nonetheless, the Mayor abruptly ended the meeting by suggesting that the delegation become registered voters in the city. SNCC later held a street rally that same day, September 6, in emergency response to the police shooting of an African-American youth who was supposedly a suspect in a car theft.
Mayor Ivan Allen, who went to the scene of the rally in an attempt to calm the growing angry crowd, was pelted with rocks and bottles while standing on top of a police car. When the crowd began to rock the police vehicle the Mayor fell off after the roof buckled under pressure. The crowd grew rapidly and began to fight police in the surrounding neighborhood of Summerhill. The Mayor sent in a thousand police officers utilizing teargas and other forms of force to quell the rebellion in Atlanta. Allen immediately blamed SNCC for the unrest in Atlanta’s Summerhill District. Carmichael had issued an appeal over radio station WAOK asking that people come to the sight of the shooting of the youth by the police. The first two people arrested on the scene were SNCC members Bill Ware and Robert Walton for inviting people to broadcast their eyewitness accounts of the shooting by the Atlanta police over a loudspeaker.
Two days later Carmichael was arrested and charged with incitement to riot. On that same day another disturbance erupted in the Boulevard Section of the city after a black youth was shot to death on his porch by a white parolee, who was later sentenced to life in prison the following year. Hosea Williams of SCLC then attempted to organize a demonstration in the city after the arrest of numerous SNCC members, however, he was detained himself for leading a peaceful procession in the area where the youth was gunned down on his porch. The disturbances in Atlanta gained nationwide coverage with the scene of Mayor Allen being pushed off the hood of a police car repeatedly shown over national television. Atlanta, a southern city that attempted to cultivate an image of being moderate and business-oriented, was exposed as a bastion of racism and police brutality as well as intolerance to peaceful protest and other forms of dissent.
In the same confidential FBI report mentioned above that was issued on September 7, 1966, the bureau provides its own interpretation of the events on September 6 in Atlanta. The report states that: “The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee scheduled a rally at Capital and Ordman Streets, Atlanta, Georgia, on the afternoon of September 6, 1966, in protest of the arrest and shooting of a Negro male for auto theft earlier in the day. During the rally several unidentified Negroes talked to the group in a haranguing manner. Members of the group started throwing rocks and bottles at police officers and white spectators. Ivan Allen, Jr., Mayor of Atlanta, was unsuccessful in quelling the disturbance. Several acts of violence occurred resulting in the arrest of seventy-two people by the Atlanta Police Department; however, specific charges are not known.”
Pressures mounted against SNCC throughout 1966 resulting from its positions on black power, the draft, self-defense, urban rebellion and the escalating war in Viet Nam. With the release of selected FBI documents of Stokely Carmichael since his death in 1998, the unclassified records of American intelligence and the White House have provided clearer insights into the role of not only the FBI’s Counter-intelligence Program COINTELPRO, but the direct involvement of the Johnson administration and the United States Military in efforts aimed at the destruction of the civil rights and black power movements that were in strong evidence during 1966.
Editor’s Note: The FBI documents utilized in this article can be found on the Bureau’s web site: http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/carmichael_stokely.htm The files have been divided into five parts and are published without comment or interpretation. These documents by no means represent the totality of FBI and other government agencies’ surveillance activities directed at Stokely Carmichael and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating (SNCC). However, the examination of these records illuminate the thinking of the Johnson administration, the Department of Justice, the Secret Service, local police agencies and municipal and county governments in regard their efforts designed to stifle and eliminate the civil rights and black power movements of the time period.
http://panafricannews.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_archive.html
Why is the word Phooey associated with segregationist governor Lester Maddox?
Phooey was Maddox’s all purpose cuss word. Remember Lester Maddox had been elected Governor because he was a segregationist. He was nationally known for having used axe handles, ‘Pickrick Toothpicks’, to threaten any “colored” people who would come to his restaurant. His other talent was riding a bicycle backwards in parades. Really. Those ‘talents’ got him elected Georgia governor.
Lester made Georgia a national joke, so
Then Lester moved from the Ansley Park Governor’s Mansion into the new Governor’s palace just finished in Buckhead.
“The guest list of 400 includes140 negroes”.!! Actually the chicken came from Pascals which fed the Civil Rights leaders, not Maddox’s Pickrick.
Hippies were seeking individual and group liberation of humans from the constrictions of 1950 Eisenhower rigid social norms. It even worried everyone’s grandfather Ike enough to warn of the coming Military-Industrial Complex that threatened American’s democracy and free way of life.
The fate we sought to escape is summed in a song from just before the era, later used as a theme to the show Weeds, ‘Little Boxes’.
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky. And they all look just the same’, was not true for hip folks. Only squares easily fit in those little boxes!
All about social rights
All about civil rights
