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A NEW WAY OF LIVING TOGETHER: A HISTORY OF ATLANTA’S HIP COMMUNITY, 1965-1973 by CHRISTOPHER ALLEN HUFF (Under the Direction of Robert A. Pratt) ABSTRACT This dissertation discusses the history of Atlanta’s hip community, a complex grouping of radicals, hippies, antiwar supporters, underground journalists, street people, college activists and progressive social workers that existed from the mid-1960s until the first years of the 1970s. This project explores how a true community developed in the face of the region’s staunch social and political conservatism. While college administrators cautiously tolerated student activists, city officials attempted to rid the city of the hip district, the “Strip,” that developed in Midtown. This opposition, combined with a shared belief that a new nation needed to emerge out of the racism of the Jim Crow South, the destruction of the Vietnam War and the conformity of suburban Cold War America, created a communal identity which manifested itself in student movements, an underground newspaper, a diverse antiwar movement and a belief that parts of Atlanta belonged to hips. Developing slowly in the years after 1965, the hip community experienced its zenith from 1968 to 1970 when thousands of people demonstrated against the Vietnam War, moved into the Strip, and came together in multiple ways to solve their own problems in their own way. The introduction of heroin and other hard drugs along with an increase in the Strip’s population of addicts, vulnerable runaways and bikers threatened the recently achieved successes in Midtown, leading hips, private social service agencies, and local churches to work together at solving these problems. A brief window of cooperation between hips and city leaders closed when the threat of a massive migration of new hips to the Strip in the summer of 1970 led the mayor and police to increase their efforts at controlling the hip community. These problems, along with an increase in violence in the Strip, the de-escalation of the Vietnam War and the acceptance by mainstream society of New Left and countercultural elements led to the slow decline of the hip community over several years and its complete demise by the first months of 1973. INDEX WORDS: Atlanta, Emory University, Georgia State University, Students for a Democratic Society, Southern Student Organizing Committee, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Atlanta Workshop in Nonviolence, Draft Resistance, Antiwar Movement, Radicalism, Affirmation: Vietnam, Vietnam War, Committee on Social Issues, Great Speckled Bird, Underground Press, Peachtree Street, Midtown, Piedmont Park, Sam Massell, Lester Maddox, Heroin, Runaways, Hippies, Herbert Jenkins, Piedmont Park Riot, Police Harassment, Atlanta Police Department, Midtown Alliance A NEW WAY OF LIVING TOGETHER: A HISTORY OF ATLANTA’S HIP COMMUNITY, 1965-1973 by CHRISTOPHER ALLEN HUFF BA, Juniata College, 1990 MA, University of Texas at San Antonio, 2001 MA, University of Georgia, 2005 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2012 © 2012 Christopher Allen Huff All Rights Reserved A NEW WAY OF LIVING TOGETHER: A HISTORY OF ATLANTA’S HIP COMMUNITY, 1965-1973 by CHRISTOPHER ALLEN HUFF Major Professor: Robert A. Pratt Committee: John Inscoe Bethany Moreton Paul Sutter Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2012 DEDICATION To Allison and Marlo, the reasons I finished this dissertation and the best two excuses for why it took so long. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The greatest part of graduate school (besides finishing) was belonging to such a fantastic community of scholars during my tenure at the University of Georgia. Some have become close friends I share life greatest moments with, while with others I share great conversation over a few beers at a conference every year or so. I cherish them all. Surely, I am not the first to have such thoughts but it is certainly my turn to acknowledge this great group of companions, colleagues and mentors. The history faculty at UGA embodies professionalism and displays the greatest enthusiasm for the study of history. I have been lucky to work with so many talented and generous scholars, including James Cobb, David Roberts, Tom Dyer, Karl Friday, Kathleen Clark, Allen Kulikoff, Michael Winship and Peter Hoffer. I am particularly thankful to Paul Sutter, John Inscoe and Bethany Moreton for serving as readers for this dissertation. Robert Pratt has been the consummate advisor. Through both a master’s thesis and a dissertation he has been unwaveringly supportive in innumerable ways. I can not adequately express my appreciation for his efforts, patience and guidance. I have never faltered in my appreciation for the supportive and nurturing crew of graduate students who have come through the UGA history program. I enjoyed all of their company but wish to mention a few who were especially important to me during my time in (or at least near) Athens. Grad school would not have been nearly as fun, fruitful, or rewarding without Robby Luckett, John Hayes, Bert Way, Ivy Holliman-Way, Lesley-Anne Reed, Christopher Lawton, Chris Manganiello, Bruce Stewart, Justin Nystrom, Christina Davis, Barton Myers, Ed Hatfield, v Ichiro Miyata, Darren Grem, Mao Lin, Ken Shefsiek, Tore Olssen, Keri Leigh Merritt, Kiera Williams, LaShonda Mims, and Frank Forts. The history department and especially the graduate program would grind to a halt without Laurie Kane. I cannot offer enough thanks for her nine years of help in negotiating the complexities of university bureaucracy. While writing a dissertation is a lonely affair, researching one is a collaborative effort. I offer my most sincere gratitude and thanks to the staffs at the University of Georgia Library, the Hargrett Library, the Richard B. Russell Library, the Manuscript and Rare Book Library at Emory University, the Special Collections and Archives Department at Georgia State University, the Atlanta History Center, the Georgia Archives, the UGA Map Library, the Auburn Avenue Library and the Georgia Gwinnett College Library. They endured my repeated visits and seemingly endless questions and requests with an incredible depth of knowledge and boundless enthusiasm. My thanks to the veterans of Atlanta’s hip community who I have had the fortune to come into contact with and who graciously agreed to be interviewed, including David Simpson, Barbara Joye, Bruce Donnelly, Steve Wise, Henry Bass and Dwain Wilder. A special thanks goes to Alex Williams who opened up his home and private collection of material from Atlanta’s hip community. This project benefitted immensely from his generosity. Graduate school, and writing a dissertation, tests your sanity. Sometimes the only remedy is to take both feet out of the academic world and place them somewhere else. I am incredibly thankful for the people who have supported me and provided me with respites from my efforts when I needed them most. Almost all the following people began this journey with me and are probably as thankful as I am that it is now over. My thanks to Chris and Teri vi Anulewicz, Mary and John Firth, Kristen and Nathan Garroway, Nicole Morgan, the gentlemen of Los Hombres Calientes, James Simpson, the Damn Millionaires, the ladies of the Atlanta Symphony Chorus, Eric and Kendall Peterson, Tom and Sarah Hains, and Shana and Chris Johansson. And thanks to Tina Fey and John Nettles for providing the right amount of comedic and dramatic relief whenever I needed it. And because my wife dared me to thank them. Special recognition is due to Pamela Ribon, Vince Chao, Anna Beth Chao, and Jason Upton. I simply would not be in this place right now without them. At the moments when it mattered most they reminded me why I started down this road and always believed I would find the end of it, even when I had my doubts. I am incredibly thankful to my family. They did not always quite understand what I was doing and why I would throw away a budding career in college financial aid, but they weathered the past nine years with love, patience and support. My mother-in-law has been incredibly helpful and supportive. Spouses are the great unrecognized victims of graduate programs. My wife Allison has been unbelievably supportive during the past nine years. She has taken in stride dozens of weekends alone as I lingered in archives across Atlanta, wrote endless drafts and graded countless student papers and exams. I wish she could get some kind of degree as well. We also adopted our daughter, Marlo, during my time in grad school. Somehow having less time to work actually led to this dissertation getting done quicker. I’m still not quite sure how that happened. I’ve said if before and I’ll say it again, all of this is quite meaningless when placed next to the both of them. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................v LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: YOU CAN DROP ME OFF AT PEACHTREE ............................1 2 PROTESTS IN THE SUBURBS: THE STUDENT MOVEMENT AT EMORY UNIVERSITY..............................................................................................................31 Historical Background