Committee to Abolish HUAC Holds First National Convention
The National Committee to Abolish the House Committee on Un-American Activities held its first national convention on this day and outlined a strategy to end HUAC.
The abolition movement was led by Frank Wilkinson, who on May 1, 1961, would go to prison for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC; see July 30, 1958).
Wilkinson and the Committee to Abolish the Committee on Un-American Activities sponsored the famous protest demonstrations against HUAC in San Francisco that began on May 12, 1960. The anti-HUAC protests in San Francisco, which were marked by police brutality against demonstrators, marked a turning point in the history of HUAC as the first major public protests against the committee.
The House of Representatives finally abolished HUAC on January 14, 1975.
Read about Frank Wilkinson, Robert Sherrill, First Amendment Felon: The Story of Frank Wilkinson, His 132,000 Page FBI File and His Epic Fight for Civil Rights and Liberties (2005)
Learn more about HUAC: http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/huac
Read about HUAC’s anti-civil rights efforts: Anne Braden, HUAC: Bulwark of Segregation (1964)
Learn more about the ACLU in the Cold War and other Times of National Crisis: https://www.aclu.org/aclu-history-rooting-out-subversives-paranoia-and-patriotism-mccarthy-era