This Week in History, Dec. 1st – 7th.
“As long as I live, I will never be a party to anything as un‐American as a blacklist,”
—Eric Johnston, president of the MPAA, who in 1947 did an about face with his involvement with The Waldorf Statement
This week in 1947 The Waldorf Statement was released.
In October of 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee subpoenaed ten filmmakers to testify about their alleged subversive political beliefs. After these “Hollywood Ten” refused to testify, exercising their First Amendment Privileges, they were cited for contempt of Congress, for which they were ultimately imprisoned and blacklisted – prevented from gainful employment – by the Hollywood studios and broadcast networks. By 1951, as a result of ongoing Congressional hearings, hundreds more were blacklisted, harassed, or driven from their jobs, and in some cases from their homes1
The Waldorf Statement was a two-page press release issued on December 3, 1947, by Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, following a closed-door meeting by forty-eight motion picture company executives at New York City’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The Statement was a response to the contempt of Congress charges against the so-called “Hollywood Ten“.3
The statement was considered the beginning of the Hollywood Blacklist. The blacklist would not end until 1960.
You can find out more by reading, Tender comrades: a backstory of the Hollywood blacklist. (PN1590.B5 M35 1997) which may be checked out from the Clark College General Collection.
“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.”
This week in 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, a demand made of her simply because she wasn’t “white”. While she wasn’t the first person of color to be arrested for not doing so, her arrest started the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a pivotal moment in civil rights history.
Learn more about her life and struggle by checking out, The rebellious life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, which may be found at (M753 P3883 2013)
1 –https://fisher.usc.edu/collections/blacklist/
2 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nine_of_the_Hollywood_10_charged_with_contempt_of_Congress_1947.jpg
3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_Statement
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks#/media/File:Rosaparks.jpg
