Rock music is banned in Santa Cruz, California - June 3rd, 1956

On this day in 1956, the town of Santa Cruz, California, issued a blanket ban on rock and roll at public gatherings.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class as a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that gives a quick look. It's something that
happened a long time ago. Today I'm Gabelusier, and today
we're looking at the time when the fear of interracial

(00:21):
socializing led one California town to outlaw the most popular
music in the country. The day was June three, fifty six.
The town of Santa Cruz, California, issued a blanket band
on the performance of rock and roll at public gatherings.

(00:45):
The decision was made by police Chief Al Huntsman at
the suggestion of one of his officers, Lieutenant Richard Overton.
According to Overton, rock music and the dancing it inspired
was quote detrimental to both the health and morals of
our youth and community. In the days that followed, though,

(01:06):
it became clear that the true target of the city's
band was in rock and roll so much as the
black musicians who played it. The city's band was prompted
by a concert held on the evening of June two.
That Saturday night, about two teenagers packed the hall at
the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium to see an l A

(01:27):
rock group called Chuck Higgins and the Mellow Tones. The
band had scored a regional hit with their song Pachuco Hop,
and kids from all over the area had turned out
to see it live. We're a little late to make
the dance ourselves, but here's a clip from the band's
Nino recording. The All African American band performed that evening

(02:17):
for a racially integrated crowd of white, black, and Hispanic teens,
many of whom had come to Santa Cruz from nearby Watsonville.
The concert was scheduled to end at one a m.
But about twenty minutes after midnight, Lieutenant Richard Overton arrived
at the venue and quickly decided he had heard and
seen enough. With the help of some other officers, Overton

(02:40):
shut down the concert half an hour early and cleared
the hall. In his official report, Overton was clear about
the source of his displeasure. There had been no sign
of alcohol or drug use, no rough housing, no fighting.
The problem, according to him, was that the music had
quote excited the c out to passion, leading some young

(03:02):
couples to make highly suggestive, stimulating and tantalizing motions. Apparently,
the teen's dancing was so fiercely erotic that Overton quote
feared the crowd might become uncontrollable. The police chief backed
up Overton's decision, and the next day Rock and Roll

(03:23):
was declared off limits for future dances. Not long after,
wire services across the country picked up on the outrageous
news about the California town that outlawed Rock and Roll. Suddenly,
the police department was flooded with calls from out of
town reporters dying to know more about the band. Meanwhile,

(03:45):
a backlash was brewing inside the town as well. Many
teenagers picked up on their racial overtones of the city's response.
Some high schoolers were so outraged by the band that
they organized a protest at the district attorney office, while
others wrote letters pushing back against the accepted narrative. One

(04:05):
sixteen year old concert goer named Arlene fred Us penned
a letter to the Santa Cruz Sentinel in which she
picked apart the paper's coverage of the concert. In an
article on June four, the Sentinel had attributed the teen's
dancing to quote the provocative rhythms of an all negro band.
Fred Us fired back at the article writer saying quote

(04:29):
that prejudice statement was uncalled for and untrue. Dancing of
this sort occurred at the Halloween Dance last year, where
a white band played, but much less was made of that.
I disagree with you about the destruction of the health
and morals of our youth. If anything, it helps by
eliminating prejudice between the two races. One last thing, did

(04:52):
the writer of the article use rubber inc Because he
sure did stretch the truth. Sadly, sidy A thor cities
didn't take much notice of the teenagers protests were the
accusations of racism in their minds. The negative national coverage
of the band was a much larger concern. Santa Cruz

(05:12):
was mocked for its prudish stance on rock music, and
officials began to worry that bad publicity might affect the
city's bottom line. Located on Monterey Bay, just seventy or
so miles south of San Francisco, Santa Cruz was and
still is, largely dependent on tourism. It was an ideal
weekend getaway for teens and families, but with some newspapers

(05:36):
now referring to the city as the lair of the Square.
That might not have stayed the case for long, and so,
with the city's reputation and economy on the line, officials
started back pedaling on the band. Just three days after
it was announced. On June six, City Manager Robert Klein
clarified that there was no city ban on harmless rock

(06:00):
and roll dancing. Police Chief Huntsman echoed the idea, saying quote,
we have nothing against rock and roll music. It's just
what some people do while listening to it. This loosening
of restrictions helped push the story off the national stage
and out of the public's mind, but it did nothing
to ease the racial tension that surrounded rock and roll

(06:22):
music at the time. In fact, just the opposite. Ray Judah,
the manager of Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, actually banned Chuck
Higgins from ever playing the venue again. He also canceled
a performance by Fats Domino the following month, claiming that
the black musician drew quote a certain type of crowd

(06:43):
that would not be compatible to this particular community. Later
that summer, city council members double down on Judah's discriminatory practices.
They passed a resolution that gave him the power to
refuse any proposed event that he felt was unexp sceptible,
including quote dances of immoral and suggestive character. The council's

(07:06):
resolution didn't specify what made a dance immoral, but since
they trusted Judah to make that judgment, we can probably
guess what they had in mind. Santa Cruz's soft band
on rock and roll didn't last long, and even then,
Ray Judah could only control who played at the Civic Auditorium.
But the city wasn't alone in its opposition to rock

(07:30):
music or the lengths it went to to try and
suppress it. Just two weeks after the band in Santa Cruz,
city councils in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and San Antonio,
Texas both enacted similar bands and the hopes of rooting
out so called undesirable elements. It's true that rock and

(07:51):
roll will never die, but apparently thinly veiled racism won't either.
I'm gay, Bluesier, and hopefully you now know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. You can
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(08:13):
and Instagram at T D I HC Show and if
you have any comments or suggestions, you can always send
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dot Com special thanks to guest producers Joey pat and
Casey Pegram, and thanks to you for listening. I'll see
you back here again soon for another day in History

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class