1951 - 1990
Criminal Justice: 1955
California Supreme Court rules in People v. Cahan that illegally obtained evidence is inadmissible in California courts.
LGBT Rights: 1955
Phyllis Lyon, Del Martin and other lesbians form the Daughters of Bilitis as a social group for San Francisco lesbians. The group grows into a national lesbian organization.
State legislature passes a law requiring the revocation of a liquor license if a bar is a "resort for sexual perverts."
Immigrants' Rights: 1956
Dissent: 1956
LGBT Rights: 1956
First issue of The LadderDaughters of Bilitis begins publishing “The Ladder,” a magazine by and for lesbians that eventually is circulated internationally.
San Mateo County sheriff raids Hazel’s Inn, a Pacifica bar, and arrests 87 men for being “lewd and dissolute.”
Immigrants' Rights: 1957
Censorship: 1957
Lawrence FerlinghettiSan Francisco police officers arrest City Lights bookstore owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti and bookseller Shigeyoshi Murao on obscenity charges for selling copies of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and other Poems. The ACLU of Northern California defends them, and rallies the literary community in support. Judge Clayton Horn finds Ferlinghetti not guilty.
Hear Allen Ginsberg read part of “Howl:"
Censorship, LGBT Rights: 1958
In ONE Inc. v. Olsen, the first case before the U.S. Supreme Court dealing with homosexuality, the high court rules that homosexual content does not automatically make a publication “obscene.”
Dissent: 1958
Frank Wilkinson refuses to testify before HUAC after being subpoenaed to an Atlanta hearing. The House of Representatives cites him in contempt of Congress. In 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds his conviction, and he is sent to federal prison.
U.S. Supreme Court, in Speiser v. Randall and the companion case First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. County of Los Angeles, reverses the California Supreme Court and invalidates California’s mandatory oaths for veterans and churches to qualify for property tax exemptions.
Race: 1959
State legislature passes the Civil Rights Act (also known as the Unruh Act for its author Assembly Member Jesse Unruh) outlawing discrimination in business establishments on the basis of race, color, religion, ancestry, or national origin. The legislature also passes the Hawkins Act (named for African American legislator Augustus Hawkins) banning racial discrimination in publicly-assisted housing.
