"Black Friday" is a name used to describe police reaction against student protesters at regional hearings of the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) on Friday, May 13, 1960 at San Francisco City Hall. The HUAC hearings were known for using patriotic rhetoric to drum up opposition against left wing or progressive activities, in the guise of investigation of communist infiltration into government, the entertainment industry and academia in the United States during the post-World War II years.
Through the threat and actual creation of "blacklists" the Committee used its influence and power to pressure against various forms of leftist speech and actions. By 1960 HUAC had been staging hearings outside of Washington D.C. at regional locations where they suspected communist or "red" infliuence might be found. At "Black Friday", about 200 students from the University of California, Berkeley, San Francisco State College and other colleges gathered to protest and give vocal opposition to investigations obviously meant to intimidate local professors and college staff who had run afoul of the Committee.
The students were generally denied admission to the hearing room, however they did gather in the rotunda of City Hall to air their opposition to the hearings. San Francisco Police responded by "roughing up" students who attempted to enter the hearing until the students were somehow able to show white cards which had been distributed to invited attendees. When the actions of other students and demonstrators—which included reciting slogans and singing, demanding entry, and then sitting on the floor of the rotunda—became too much for the police, they responded in a stark and violent manner: by turning on City Hall fire hoses within the rotunda and using them to literally wash the protesters out of the building and down the large concrete stairway leading up to it. Terence Hallinan, who served as San Francisco District Attorney from 1996 to 2004, described the atmosphere surrounding the protest, in which he participated, as follows on the website foundsf.org:
When Eisenhower was elected president, and with a Republican majority in both houses of Congress, they actually began to pass laws outlawing being a progressive. They had the attorney general compile a list after hearing by the Senate Internal Security Committee that McCarthy was one of the most famous spokespeople of, but there were numerous others before him, and they would come into a town like Chicago or San Francisco or Seattle and they would issue subpoenas to all the progressives in the town, especially the trade union leadership people, many of whom were communists, or had been communists, or had friends who were communists. They would bring them up in front of these committees and they would ask them if they were communist, and they would ask them leading questions. The only defense out there was, was to take the Fifth Amendment, and the consequence at that time of taking the Fifth was that you would usually lose your job, if you were in government service you would lose your job for sure. You would also be affected in your home. Your name would be plastered all over the papers, your kids would be mistreated in school, and it was hard times. So a lot of people would refuse to take the Fifth, and they would take the First. What would happen then, is they would ask them, “OK are you a communist?” They'd say “I refuse to answer under the 1st Amendment.” They'd say “Who are all your friends who are communists?” and they'd say “I refuse to answer.” If you ever said “I'm a communist,” the next question was “OK, who else is communist? Who are your enemies? Who are your neighbors? Who are your friends?” So it was a no-win situation. If you took the 1st Amendment like the Hollywood [Ten] people did, then you got held in contempt of court and you went to prison for various terms. Then they passed another act, the Smith Act, making it a crime to be a communist and they went around actively putting people in prison for that. It really was a frightening period.
This House Un-American Activities Committee became a kind of circus, where they would go in to a town, you would know they were coming, they would first hit with agents who would serve subpoenas on all the progressive people in town. I remember my father (Vincent Hallinan) hiding out in the mountains on a camping trip for a month to avoid them. Then they would come in and they would ask “Are you a communist?” and if you answered “Yes” then they'd ask who you knew that was a communist, if you said “No,” you'd have to take the 5th Amendment, the consequences of that were known. Finally it wasn't until HUAC came here to San Francisco in 1960 and people just went “NO WAY.” We went down to City Hall and they had these little passes they'd pass out so only their friends would get in, so people started trying to get in without passes. We all gathered outside where people get married and started pounding on the door...
HUAC supporters later produced the film Operation Abolition as a documentary meant to discredit the protest and label the students as "red dupes" of sophisticated "high profile communist agents". Reaction to the violent police response and the film was highly negative and inspired many people to denounce the activities of the police and committee. The hearing in San Francisco was the last held outside Washington by the Committee, which continued to exist albeit with lessening power and influence until it was abolished in 1975.
References:
'Black Friday', birth of U.S. protest movement, San Francisco Chronicle, May 13, 2010
HUAC, May 1960: The Events, The Aftermath (House Un-American Activities Committee), Free Speech Movement Archive
The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) Hearing and Riot of 1960, foundsf.org
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