Athens, GA, 1974, UGA Streak Week, Part 2

Continuing Streak Week from my last post, passions ran high as culture wars were in full force. Lester Maddox, streaked by several men while speaking, was on campus campaigning for the Democratic nomination in the Georgia gubernatorial election, running against George Busbee. William Shockley, who shared the 1956 Nobel Prize for Physics, was also at UGA to debate his theory that non-White peoples were genetically inferior to Whites. In an early example of what is now called cancelling, he was chased from the auditorium and campus and no debate happened. To be clear, I find any notion of racial superiority abhorrent, but I also believe preventing a disagreeable opinion from being debated is wrong. The only way to defeat an argument is to offer a better argument. The Free Speech clause of the First Amendment must protect even the most vile and offensive speech, or it is an empty promise. Trigger warnings and safe spaces are for children. (Next week’s final post from Streak Week will show setting the record for the largest streak in the country, a record that still stands.)

For more photographs of the middle part of Streak Week, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/gallery/UGA-Streak-Week-Part-2/G0000oS5z0PWZaEo/