Forgotten History: 1947 Massachusettes Protest Proves Power of Non-Violence

Feb 21, 1947, in a precursor to the Civil Rights Activism of the late 50s and the 60s students at Williams College in Massachusetts protested a barber in Williamstown who had tried to charge an African-American customer, Wayman Caliman, Jr., $3.00 for a haircut rather than the $1.00 he charged white customers.

Forty-five students picketed Mederic Bleau’s shop with the support of the student body at Williams. Caliman Jr. and the editor for the student paper, The Williams Record, Norman Redlich stopped into the shop late in the afternoon and Bleau told Caliman Jr. the cost would be $3.00 as opposed to the regular $1.00. So the two students left the store, and Redlich announced in The Record the plans to picket the shop.

Bleau told the Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, MA that he had cut the hair of students for 32 years and in that time cut the hair of Spaniards and Mexicans and of many nations but asked if he had cut any other Negro’s hair he refused to answer.

Bleau also told the paper that the fact was it wasn’t the student’s skin color but size of head and thickness of his hair. “I didn’t refuse him service,” said Bleau. “I had a hard day and his head looked huge to me in the mirror so I told him my price and he and the other boy left.”

The Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts took up the case and took Bleau to court using an 1865 law that no business could discriminate on the basis of skin color. Bleau was fined $50.

While the 5-day protest was a preview of protests to come it didn’t seem to hurt the shop in the long term. Mr. Bleau told the Eagle in 1953 he thought in 37 years with the scissors he had cut over 100,000 students hair. He retired in 1959 and died in 1969 at the age of 87.

Although he was a member of the NAACP for the rest of his life the protest wasn’t the start of an activist life for Wayman Caliman, Jr. He graduated from Williams with his BA then in 1949 with his MBA from Columbia University. In 1950 he joined the U.S. Navy and served for 28 years. Mr. Caliman died in 1986 at the age of 57.

Sources:

https://www.newspapers.com/image/532120593/?terms=%22Wayman%20Caliman%2C%20Jr%22

https://www.newspapers.com/image/155343377/?terms=%22Wayman%20Caliman%2C%20Jr%22&match=1