Today is Monday, October 5, 2020.

On this day in 1945, police clashed with striking workers outside of the Warner Brothers studio.

The incident, known as Hollywood's Black Friday, forever changed labor relations in the

motion picture industry.

Welcome to today in True Crime, a parcast original.

Today we're delving into Hollywood's Black Friday.

At the end of a grueling seven-month strike,

a number of film set workers came to blows with police.

Let's go back to Burbank, California on October 5, 1945,

around 4 in the

conference of the morning.

It was still dark out when the striking members of CSU, the conference of studio unions, arrived.

Carpenters, set painters, craftsmen, and artists, all gathered by the west side of the

Warner Brothers lot to set up their pickets.

By 5 a.m. there were 40 protesters with more trickling in by the minute.

Among them was CSU President and former set painter Herb Sorrell, who had organized the assembly.

The picketers were ready for resistance, many wearing white painted helmets which made the growing crowd visible even in the pre-dawn

gloom. By 6 a.m. there were 300 picketing union members vastly outnumbering the 54 Burbank policemen who had

come to control the situation. The tipping point came soon afterward as a

Warner Brothers security worker arrived for his

morning shift and attempted to drive past the protesters. The crowd surged

into the vehicle and turned it over.

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