Hard Hat Riot: Difference between revisions

{{Short description|1970 riot in New York, New York, United States}}

| title = Hard Hat Riot

| partof = the [[student strike of 1970]]

| image = Hard hats on Nixon cabinet table May 26, 1970.jpg

| caption = Hard hats on cabinet table after Nixon meeting with and supporting construction trades group less than three weeks after the New York City Hard Hat Riot

| location = [[New York City Hall]], [[New York City|New York]], [[New York (state)|New York]], U.S.

| perps = NYC union trade/construction workers

| target =

| date = {{Start date and age|1970|05|08}}

| time = 11:55 a.m.

| timezone = [[Eastern Time Zone]]

| fatalities = 0

| injuries = 100+

}}

The '''Hard Hat Riot''' occurred in [[New York City]] on May 8, 1970, when around 400 [[construction worker]]s and around 800 office workers attacked around 1,000 demonstrators affiliated with the [[student strike of 1970]]. The students were protesting the May 4 [[Kent State shootings]] and the [[Vietnam War]], following the April 30 announcement by [[President of the United States|President]] [[Richard Nixon]] of the [[Cambodian Campaign|U.S. invasion of neutral Cambodia]]. Some construction workers carried U.S. flags and chanted, "USA, All the way" and "America, love it or leave it." Anti-war protesters shouted, “Peace now."

The riot, first breaking out near the intersection of [[Wall Street]] and [[Broad Street (Manhattan)|Broad Street]] in [[Lower Manhattan]], led to a mob scene with more than 20,000 people in the streets, eventually leading to a siege of [[New York City Hall]], an attack on the [[conservatism|conservative]] [[Pace University]] and lasted more than three hours. Around 100 people, including seven policemen, were injured on what became known as '''Bloody Friday'''. Six people were arrested, but only one of them was a construction worker associated with the rioters.<ref name="The Hardhat Riot">{{cite book|title= The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution |author=Kuhn, David Paul|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=141–144, 214, 236 |isbn=978-0190064716}}</ref><ref>[http://chnm.gmu.edu/hardhats/homepage.html Profile of incident], chnm.gmu.edu; accessed April 23, 2016.</ref><ref name="thedailybeast.com">[https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-day-the-democrats-lost-the-white-working-class-in-a-hardhat-riot], The Daily Beast excerpt of The Hardhat Riot; accessed September 11, 2020.</ref><ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/student-protesters-angry-construction-workers-and-a-violent-confrontation/2020/08/12/cd49a86c-a6aa-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html], The Washington Post book review of The Hardhat Riot; accessed September 11, 2020.</ref> Nixon invited the hardhat leaders to [[Washington, D.C.]], and accepted a hardhat from them.

On May 4, 1970, [[Kent State shootings|thirteen students were shot]], four of them fatally, at [[Kent State University]] in [[Ohio]] by [[National Guard (United States)|National Guardsmen]] as they demonstrated against the [[Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War|U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War]] and [[Cambodian Campaign|U.S. incursions into neutral Cambodia]]. One of the dead was Jeffrey Glenn Miller, who was from a [[New York City]] suburb on [[Long Island]], which led to funeral proceedings in [[Manhattan]] and Long Island and in turn helped fuel local activism. In the days before the riot, there were anti-war protests on [[Wall Street]] and smaller clashes between construction workers and anti-war demonstrators. As a show of sympathy for the dead students, [[Mayor of New York City|New York Mayor]] [[John Lindsay]], a [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]], ordered all flags at [[New York City Hall]] to be flown at [[half-staff]] on May 8, the day of the riot.<ref>{{cite book|title= The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution |author=Kuhn, David Paul|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=120–131 |isbn=978-0-19-006471-6}}</ref><ref>Kifner, "4 Kent State Students Killed by Troops", ''New York Times'', May 5, 1970.</ref>

The U.S. [[labor movement]] was deeply divided over support for [[President of the United States|President]] [[Richard Nixon]]'s war policy. [[AFL–CIO]] president [[George Meany]] and most U.S. labor leaders were vehemently [[anti-communism|anti-communist]] and thus strongly supported military involvement in [[Southeast Asia]]. [[Peter J. Brennan]], president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, was a strong supporter of Nixon's policy of [[Vietnamization]] and ending U.S. involvement in the war.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution |author=Kuhn, David Paul|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=276 |isbn=978-0-19-006471-6}}</ref> He was also president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of New York, the statewide umbrella group for construction [[labor union|union]]s, and the vice president of the New York City Central Labor Council and the New York State AFL–CIO, umbrella groups for all labor unions in these respective areas.<ref name="Mcfadden">McFadden, [https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/04/nyregion/peter-brennan-78-union-head-and-nixon-s-labor-chief.html "Peter Brennan, 78, Union Head and Nixon's Labor Chief"], nytimes.com, October 4, 1996.</ref><ref>Fink, ''Biographical Dictionary of American Labor'', 1984.<!-- ISSN/ISBN, page(s) needed --></ref> Brennan was a registered [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrat]] who had lobbied strongly for that party through the 1950s and 1960s, but increasingly supported Republican candidates as support for skilled labor unions decreased.<ref name="Mcfadden" />

New York City's building and construction unions were overwhelmingly white, [[Catholicism|Catholic]], [[blue-collar worker|blue-collar]] and male. Although blue-collar whites were not generally more pro-war than upscale whites, the anti-war movement was particularly unpopular among blue collar whites.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution |author=Kuhn, David Paul|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=70, 276 |isbn=978-0-19-006471-6|quote=“[U]pscale whites were slightly more in favor of escalating the war in Cambodia, compared to downscale whites”—and like most Americans in 1970, blue-collar whites also saw the war as a “mistake”, but the “anti-war movement was less popular than the Vietnam War” among all Americans, and particularly blue-collar whites by 1970.}}</ref> In responseto[[flag desecration]] within the anti-war movement and perceived rejectionofreturning veterans, a disproportionate majority of whom were blue-collar, blue-collar whites came to oppose the anti-war demonstrators, who tended to be college-educated, a group which were disproportionately non-veterans.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution |author=Kuhn, David Paul|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=70, 276 |isbn=978-0-19-006471-6}}</ref>

At 7:30&nbsp;a.m. on May 8, several-hundred anti-war protesters, mostly college students, began picketing the [[New York Stock Exchange]], and later helda protest and memorial at [[Federal Hall National Memorial|Federal Hall]] for the four dead students at Kent State. By late morning, after some high school students, teachers and others joined, more than a thousand protesters were gathered in the street in front of Federal Hall and on the steps around [[George Washington]]'s statue. Future [[New York City Council]] member [[Paul O'Dwyer]] was among the speakers.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution |author=Kuhn, David Paul|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=7–9 |isbn=978-0190064716}}</ref><ref name="thedailybeast.com"/> The protesters demanded an end to the war, the release of [[political prisoners in the United States]] such as [[Black Panther Party]] leaders [[Huey Newton]] and [[Bobby Seale]] and an end to military-related research on all university campuses.<ref name="Bigart">Bigart, [https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/09/archives/war-foes-here-attacked-by-construction-workers-city-hall-is-stormed.html "War Foes Here Attacked By Construction Workers"], ''New York Times'', May 9, 1970.</ref><ref name="Freeman">Freeman, "Hardhats: Construction Workers, Manliness, and the 1970 Pro-War Demonstrations", ''Journal of Social History'', Summer 1993.</ref>

Shortly before noon, more than 400 construction workers, many of whom were building the [[World Trade Center (1973–2001)|World Trade Center]], converged on the student protest from four directions. Some construction workers carried U.S. flags and chanted, "USA, All the way" and "America, love it or leave it." Anti-war protesters shouted, "Peace now." More than 800 office workers soon joined the construction workers' ranks. Hundreds more construction workers arrived around noon, as the lunchtime crowd and onlookers in the streets exceeded 20,000.<ref name="The Hardhat Riot"/> A thin and inadequate line of [[New York City Police Department|NYPD]] police officers, who were largely sympathetic to the workers' position, formed to separate them from the protesters. Construction workers then broke through the police lines and began chasing students through the streets. Workers attacked those who looked like hippies and beat them with their hard hats and other weapons, including tools and steel-toe boots. Victims and onlookers reported that the police stood by and did little.<ref>{{cite book|title= The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution |author=Kuhn, David Paul|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=Part Two, key pages: 189, 352 |isbn=978-0190064716}}</ref>

Hundreds of construction workers and counter-protesters moved up [[Broadway (Manhattan)|Broadway]], making their way to City Hall. They pushed their way to the top of the front steps as some chanted "Hey, hey, whattya say? We support the USA", while others held American flags. The workers attempted to gain entrance, demanding the flag above City Hall be raised to whole staff. Police on duty at City Hall, and reinforcements, were able to stop them from getting inside. A few workers were asked to enter the building to calm tensions. One postal worker, who was already inside, went to the roof and raised the U.S. flag there to full mast. When one mayoral aide lowered the flag back down to half-mast, hundreds of construction workers stormed the area around City Hall, leading toa melee similar to the one on Wall Street the hour prior. Deputy Mayor Richard Aurelio, fearing the building would be overrun by the mob, ordered city workers to raise the flag back to full mast.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution |author=Kuhn, David Paul|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=Part Two of the book; notable pages 176, 197 |isbn=978-0190064716}}</ref>

Rioting construction workers, many of them Catholic "white ethnics", also attacked buildings near City Hall. Several workmen ripped the [[International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement|Red Cross]] flag down at nearby [[Trinity Church, New York|Trinity Church]], because the flag was associated with the anti-war protestors, though it was planted to signal a [[first aid]] haven. Several groups of construction workers stormed the newly-built main building at [[Pace University]], smashing lobby windows and beating up students and professors, including with tools. Ironically, Pace was a [[conservatism|conservative]], business-oriented school where the most popular major was [[accounting]]—hardly a hotbed of activism. More than 100 people were injured, including seven policemen. Most of the injured required hospital treatment. The most common victim was a "22-year-old white male collegian" and the worst injuries were to the "half-dozen young men beaten unconscious," but about one in four of the injured were women. Six people were arrested, but only one construction worker was arrested by police.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution |author=Kuhn, David Paul|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=141–144, 214, 236 |isbn=978-0190064716}}</ref>

During a press conference that evening, President Nixon tried to defuse the situation before tens of thousands of students arrived in [[Washington, D.C.]] for a scheduled protest rally the next day. [[Richard Nixon's visit to the Lincoln Memorial|Before dawn, the next morning]], Nixon told some protesters that, "I understand just how you feel" and defended the recent troop movements into Cambodia as aiding their goal of peace.<ref>{{cite book|title= The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution |author=Kuhn, David Paul|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=224–225 |isbn=978-0190064716}}</ref><ref name="Foner">Foner, ''U.S. Labor and the Vietnam War'', 1989.</ref><ref name="Freeman"/><ref>Frankel, [https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/09/archives/nixon-defends-cambodia-drive-as-aiding-students-peace-aim-says.html "NIXON DEFENDS CAMBODIA DRIVE AS AIDING STUDENTS' PEACE AIM; says pullout will begin soon], nytimes.com, May 9, 1970.</ref>

Mayor Lindsay severely criticized the NYPD for their lack of action.<ref>Maurice Carroll, [https://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F10A15FB3D5417768FDDA90994DD405B808BF1D3 "Police Assailed by Mayor On Laxity at Peace Rally"], nytimes.com, May 10, 1970, p. 1</ref> NYPD leaders later accused Lindsay of "undermining the confidence of the public in its police department" by his statements,<ref>David Burnham, [https://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FB0C17FD395910728DDDAB0994DD405B808BF1D3 5 Police Groups Rebut Critical Mayor], nytimes.com, May 12, 1970, p. 18</ref> and blamed their inaction on inadequate preparations and "inconsistent directives" in the past from the mayor's office.<ref>Michael T. Kaufman. [https://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F10F12FF3F5D137B93C3A8178ED85F448785F9 "P.B.A BLAMES CITY IN REPLY TO MAYOR ON LAXITY CHARGE; City Hall Directive Called 'Inconsistent' as Guide in Attack by Workers"], ''The New York Times'', May 11, 1970, p. 1</ref>

The following week, Brennan claimed that "the unions had nothing to do with" the riot and that workers were allegedly "fed up" with violence and [[flag desecration]] by anti-war demonstrators. He also denied that anything except fists had been used against the demonstrators, though police records showed tools and some iron pipes were used.<ref>{{cite book|title= The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution |author=Kuhn, David Paul|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=Part Three, key pages: 231, 241 |isbn=978-0190064716}}</ref> Brennan claimed telephone calls and letters to the unions were 20 to 1 in favor of the workers.<!-- RELEVANCE?? --><ref name="Perlmutter">Perlmutter, [https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/12/archives/head-of-building-trades-unions-here-says-response-favors-fridays.html "Head of Building Trades Unions Here Says Response Favors Friday's Action; 20-1 Endorsement Cited In Phone Calls and Mail"], nytimes.com, May 12, 1970.</ref> One man, Edward Shufro, of the brokerage firm Rose and Ehrman, saw two men wearing grey suits directing the workers.<ref>"Edward Shufro, of the brokerage firm Rose and Ehrman, watched through binoculars two men in grey suits who, he said, seemed to be directing the workers". See Bigart, "War Foes Here Attacked By Construction Workers", nytimes.com, May 9, 1970.</ref> The NYPD "buried most records of police malfeasance", according to Kuhn's ''The Hardhat Riot'', and in August 1970 the NYPD published a report that largely acquitted itself of any collusion with the construction workers though its own records were decades later shown to undercut that report.<ref>{{cite book|title= The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution |author=Kuhn, David Paul|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=238–239|isbn=978-0190064716}}</ref> The construction workers and police were both mostly "white ethnics", lived in the same neighborhoods, and socialized in similar establishments; many were also veterans of [[World War II]] and [[Korean War|Korea]], and both were also disproportionately likely to have family and friends in Vietnam.<ref>[https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hardhat-riots-review-what-the-riots-foretold-11593180161], The Wall Street Journal book review of The Hardhat Riot; accessed September 11, 2020.</ref>

On Sunday, May 10, [[White House Chief of Staff]] [[H. R. Haldeman]] wrote in his diary, "The college demonstrators have overplayed their hands, evidence is the blue-collar group rising up against them, and [the] president can mobilize them".<ref>{{cite book|title= The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution |author=Kuhn, David Paul|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=277 |isbn=978-0190064716}}</ref>

Several thousand construction workers, [[longshoremen]] and [[white-collar worker]]s protested against Lindsay on May 11, holding signs reading, "Impeach the Red Mayor"<ref name="tsun">{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=cS9mAAAAIBAJ&pg=1137,1676616|title=150,000 New York workers join in pro-Nixon parade|work=The Vancouver Sun|date=May 20, 1970|page=3|location=New York|agency=Associated Press}}</ref> and chanting, "Lindsay is a bum."<ref name="BIGART2">HOMER BIGART [https://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F40C16FD395910728DDDAB0994DD405B808BF1D3 "Thousands Assail Lindsay In 2d Protest by Workers"], nytimes.com, May 12, 1970, p. 1</ref> They held another rally May 16, carrying signs calling Lindsay a "rat", "commie rat" and "traitor".<ref>Homer Bigart, [https://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F20911FD3F5D137B93C4A8178ED85F448785F9 "Thousands in City March To Assail Lindsay on War"], nytimes.com, May 16, 1970, p. 11</ref> Mayor Lindsay described the mood of the city as "taut".<ref name="BIGART2"/> The rallies culminated in a large rally on May 20 in which an estimated 150,000 construction workers, longshoremen and others rallied outside City Hall. When the workers later marched down Broadway, many office workers in surrounding buildings showed their support by [[ticker tape parade|showering the marchers with ticker tape]]. One magazine coined the day, "Workers' [[Woodstock Festival|Woodstock]]".<ref>{{cite book|title= The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution |author=Kuhn, David Paul|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=Chapter 23|isbn=978-0190064716}}</ref>

On May 26, Brennan led a delegation of 22 union leaders, who represented more than 300,000 tradesmen, to meet with Nixon at the [[White House]] and presented him with several ceremonial hardhats and a flag pin. Nixon said he sought to honor those “labor leaders and people from Middle America who still have character and guts and a bit of patriotism.” Nixon's [[general counsel]], [[Charles Colson]], who organized the meeting and was later in charge of developing a strategy to win union support for Nixon in the [[1972 United States presidential election|1972 presidential election]], identified Brennan as a friendly labor leader due to his role in organizing the counter-protests in the weeks after the riot.<ref>{{cite book|title= The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution |author=Kuhn, David Paul|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=252–253|isbn=978-0190064716}}</ref>

Brennan later organized significant union political support for Nixon in the 1972 election. Nixon appointed Brennan as his [[United States Secretary of Labor|labor secretary]] afterward as a reward for his support and he was retained by President [[Gerald Ford]] into 1975, following Nixon's resignation.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/04/nyregion/peter-brennan-78-union-head-and-nixon-s-labor-chief.html Peter Brennan obituary], nytimes.com, October 4, 1996.</ref><ref>Stetson, [https://www.nytimes.com/1972/09/09/archives/brennan-reports-labor-leaders-favoring-nixon-are-organizing.html "Brennan Reports Labor Leaders Favoring Nixon Are Organizing"], nytimes.com, September 9, 1972; Stetson, [https://www.nytimes.com/1972/09/28/archives/200-labor-chiefs-in-city-form-nixon-committee.html "200 Labor Chiefs in City Form Nixon Committee"], nytimes.com, September 28, 1972; Naughton, [https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0615FC35591A7493C2AA178AD95F468785F9 "Construction Union Chief in New York Is Chosen to Succeed Hodgson"], nytimes.com, November 30, 1972; Shabecoff, [https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0E16FF3859107B93C3A91789D95F468785F9 "Brennan Choice Called Political Move"], nytimes.com, December 1, 1972.</ref> The book ''The Hardhat Riot'' wrote of the riot that it was the day when the Old Left attacked the [[New Left]], because "two [[liberalism]]s collided that day, presaging the long Democratic civil war ahead", and that the riot and demonstrations after captured the "era when [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt|FDR]]’s everyman first turned against the liberalism that once had championed him" and Nixon "moved the Republican Party from blue bloods to blue collars". In their reviews of ''The Hardhat Riot'', the ''[[New York Daily News]]'' wrote that the riot "changed American politics, perhaps forever" and, in ''[[The New York Times]]'', [[Clyde Haberman]] characterized the riot as "a blue-collar rampage whose effects still ripple, not the least of them being [[Donald Trump]]’s improbable ascension to the presidency".<ref>{{cite news|last1=Haberman|first1=Clyde|title= The Day the White Working Class Turned Republican. |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/books/review/the-hardhat-riot-david-paul-kuhn.html |website= The New York Times |date=July 1, 2020}}</ref><ref>[https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-hardhat-riots-book-20200619-iv3ood4wyffm5pzjkz5garnwuq-story.html], The New York Daily News review of The Hardhat Riot; accessed September 11, 2020.</ref><ref>{{cite book|title= The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution |author=Kuhn, David Paul|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=3 |isbn=978-0190064716}}</ref>

{{Portal|New York City|New York (state)|United States}}

* [[List of incidents of civil unrest in New York City]]

* Fink, Gary M., ed. ''Biographical Dictionary of American Labor'', Westport, Ct.: [[Greenwood Press]], 1984; {{ISBN|0-313-22865-5}}

* Kuhn, David Paul. ''The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution'', New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. {{ISBN|978-0190064716}}

[[Category:Right-wing populism in the United States]]

[[Category:1970 in New York City]]

[[Category:1970s crimes in New York City]]

[[Category:Labor disputes in New York City]]

[[Category:20th-century political riots]]

[[Category:1970s political events]]