'Black Friday,' birth of U.S. protest movement (50 years ago today)

[Kadie]

'Black Friday,' birth of U.S. protest movement
Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, May 13, 2010


A couple of dozen graying men and women will gather at noon today in the ornate rotunda of San Francisco's City Hall to remember the day the police turned fire hoses on them, clubbed them and drove them down the building's grand marble staircase.

It is the 50th anniversary of "Black Friday," May 13, 1960, when a demonstration against the House Subcommittee on Un-American Activities turned into a so-called riot.

The protesters are senior citizens now, but in 1960 most of them were college students; 64 of them were arrested and one was tried for hitting a police officer with his own club. But nobody was convicted of anything, and the "riot" may well have changed history.

"It was the first major mass student demonstration in decades. It led directly to the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley in 1964," said Irving Hall, who was a 24-year-old UC Berkeley teaching assistant who had come across the bay for the protest. "It made possible the 1960s in all its variations."


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/13/MNM61DDGP0.DTL#ixzz0npcR73sC

Two police officers drag a protester out of City Hall in San Francisco, one of 64 people hauled off to jail on "Black Friday," 50 years ago today.

Photo: Archives, 1960 / The Chronicle



Water from a fire hose pours over a barricade onto protesters in the street.

Photo: Bob Campbell, 1960 / The Chronicle

[EFerrari]

1. Great pictures.

:kick:

[Soylent Brice]

2. K&R