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N0KFQ > TODAY 03.06.16 16:43l 49 Lines 2364 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 95552_N0KFQ
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Jun 3
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<F1OYP<ON0AR<GB7CIP<GB7YEW<N9LYA<N0KFQ
Sent: 160603/1423Z 95552@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.65
1956
Rock and roll is banned in Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz, California, a favorite early haunt of author Ken
Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, was an established capital of the
West Coast counterculture scene by the mid-1960s. Yet just 10
years earlier, the balance of power in this crunchy beach town 70
miles south of San Francisco tilted heavily toward the older side
of the generation gap. In the early months of the rock-and-roll
revolution, in fact, at a time when adult authorities around the
country were struggling to come to terms with a booming
population of teenagers with vastly different musical tastes and
attitudes, Santa Cruz captured national attention for its
response to the crisis. On June 3, 1956, city authorities
announced a total ban on rock and roll at public gatherings,
calling the music "Detrimental to both the health and morals of
our youth and community."
It was a dance party the previous evening that led to this
reaction on the part of Santa Cruz authorities. Some 200
teenagers had packed the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium on a
Saturday night to dance to the music of Chuck Higgins and his
Orchestra, a Los Angeles group with a regional hit record called
"Pachuko Hop." Santa Cruz police entered the auditorium just past
midnight to check on the event, and what they found, according to
Lieutenant Richard Overton, was a crowd "engaged in suggestive,
stimulating and tantalizing motions induced by the provocative
rhythms of an all-negro band." But what might sound like a pretty
great dance party to some did not to Lt. Overton, who immediately
shut the dance down and sent the disappointed teenagers home
early
It may seem obvious now that Santa Cruz's ban on "Rock-and-roll
and other forms of frenzied music" was doomed to fail, but it was
hardly the only such attempt. Just two weeks later in its June
18, 1956 issue, Time magazine reported on similar bans recently
enacted in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and in San Antonio, Texas,
where the city council's fear of "undesirable elements" echoed
the not-so-thinly-veiled concerns of Santa Cruz authorities over
the racially integrated nature of the event that prompted the
rock-and-roll ban issued on this day in 1956
73 - K.O., n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-Mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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