Published July 15, 2020
The mob fervor extended to the state governments and the private sector, too. States enacted “loyalty oaths” requiring people employed by the government, including tenured university faculty members, to disavow “radical beliefs” or lose their jobs. Many refused and were fired. Hollywood notoriously rooted out real and suspected communists, creating the infamous “blacklist” of people who were informally barred from any work with Hollywood studios. The “red scare” even nearly toppled America’s favorite television star, Lucille Ball, who had registered to vote as a communist in the 1930s.
Henry Olsen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.