11/14/2025
A little under a month ago, a delusional fantasy of mine became a reality.
Barbara McKenzie was a Photojournalism teacher at UGA in the 1960s and 70’s, but she was so much more. She was one of a number of collegiate faculty who not just intermingled freely with her open-minded students, but she took her camera with her everywhere. It’s with this camera that she documented ground zero activity in both Athens and Atlanta amidst the escalating scenes in both towns. She shot Cabbagetown extensively in the 1960s and is noted for writing and photographing “Flannery O’Connor’s Georgia” which is still in print and figures large into her body of work.
However, when The B-52’s kicked things off in Athens ‘round 1977, Barbara was already a fixture. Camera in hand. Lurking around the rim of darkly lit parties with her camera. She took the earliest known photos of so many legendary bands: Pylon, R.E.M., Limbo District, Oh-OK, Tone Tones, and on and on. You can see a glimpse of those photos in our first postcard set for Barbara: Music Forays.
It was because of the thriving Atlanta night life that Barbara perpetually hung out at so many of the vibrant venues that catered to the burgeoning q***r, drag and punk scenes that were blending together in both town. Most notably, Ru Paul and His U-Hauls along with Wee Wee Pole were flamboyant early adopters to the wild downtown nightlife that was destined to foment his meteoric rise to superstardom.
Amidst that scene of goofballs, drag queens, tweakers, burnouts and flat-out weirdos was Benjamin. Born Robert Dickerson, Benjamin was a notable after-hours server at the iHOP where bands like The Now Explosion soaked up their booze woozies after raging at clubs across the largely abandoned downtown. This was where Opal Foxx was born.
Part chanteuse, part provocateur, all Benji, Opal Foxx rapidly became a fixture at local shows with like minded outsiders across the city. His most notable musical endeavor in those earliest of times was Easturn Stars, but there were eyewitness accounts of one-off performances that’d tear the roof off the joint. (Continued in comments)
