A lot of folks didn’t know what to do with the new “rock and roll”
music in the mid-1950s.
Some folks in Santa Cruz, California, thought they darn sure did know
what to do about it.
On June 3, 1956, city officials decreed a complete ban on “rock-and-roll
and other forms of frenzied music” at all public gatherings, and justified it
because the music was “detrimental to both the health and morals of our youth
and community.”
Seems that a couple hundred teens in the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium
had been swingin’ and swayin’ to the music of Chuck Higgins and His Orchestra.
Santa Cruz police arrived about midnight to check things out, and Lt. Richard
Overton reported the crowd was “engaged in suggestive, stimulating and
tantalizing motions induced by the provocative rhythms of an all-negro band.” Of
course, the cops shut the gig down and sent everyone home.
What starts out here as a great reason to get snarky—about the older
generation that just didn’t get it—quickly turns into an ugly example of
completely transparent racism.
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| Mr.Kesey |
The cops and the city fathers must have been choking on their Cheerios
10 years later when Santa Cruz was a high-profile nexus of the West Coast
counterculture scene. For goodness sakes, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters
hung out there.
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| The Merry Pranksters |
And I guess a few more all-negro bands showed up, too.
Like, drug-infused hootenanny, y’know?
I’m guessing that Lt. Overton figured out that change is hard.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015 All rights reserved.
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