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Bible Belt Gay Activism in the Age of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic:
Johnny Fambro of Macon, Georgia, 1978-1996
DeMarcus Beckham

Johnny Fambro was an openly gay man during a time when it was unpopular. Like many
other minority groups, the gay and transgender communities lived as outcasts in 1960s and 1970s
American society, where they faced differential and unequal treatment and therefore regarded
themselves as objects of collective discrimination. But Fambro understood that there were some
heterosexuals willing to embrace individuals like himself. Fambro took up activism not just
centered on Gay rights, but all individual rights. He could connect with those who were
progressive thinkers to eradicate some of the reviling and hate-filled rhetoric that many from the
Christian right used against homosexuals.1

Fambro became a high-profile figure in the Macon, Georgia gay community in the early
1980s, holding food and clothing drive events at such local gay nightclubs as Pegasus and We
Three, where the daytime computer data analyst would work as a disc jockey at night to benefit
the homeless of Macon. When the HIV and AIDS epidemic began to capture the attention of the
nation in 1982, Fambro felt deep concern for his friends who faced abandonment, homelessness,
and death after contracting the virus. In response, he began taking action which greatly benefited
the local middle Georgia area. At that time, care for HIV/AIDS was often not provided. Fambro
combined the tactics he used to fight homophobia with the knowledge that this virus did not
discriminate. His knowledge regarding health services costs led him to become the intermediary
between the infectious disease specialist at the Medical Center, the local public hospital in
Macon, the varied religious factions, minority ethnic groups; and the gay and transgender

1 Cynthia Burack, Sin, sex, and democracy: antigay rhetoric and the Christian right (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2008), 3-5.

1