Vidal Santiago Díaz

External audio

You can hear a live radio broadcast of the assault on Salón Boricua on YouTube, via Radio WKAQ

Vidal Santiago Díaz (February 1, 1910 – March 1982) was a member of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and served as president of the Santurce Municipal Board of officers of the party. He was also the personal barber of Nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos. Though not involved in the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Revolts of the 1950s, Santiago Díaz's barbershop was attacked by forty armed police officers and U.S. National Guardsmen. The attack was historic in Puerto Rico—the first time an event of that magnitude had ever been transmitted live via radio and heard all over the island.

Santiago Díaz was born and raised in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico where he received his formal education. He later moved to Santurce, a mostly working-class section of San Juan, where he became a professional barber. Santiago Díaz was greatly troubled by the inhumanity and violence of the Ponce Massacre. After reflecting on this police slaughter, and its moral implications, Santiago Díaz joined the Nationalist Party and became a follower of its president, Pedro Albizu Campos.

On Palm Sunday on March 21, 1937, the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party held a peaceful march in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico. This march was meant to commemorate the ending of slavery in Puerto Rico by the governing Spanish National Assembly in 1873. It also protested the imprisonment by the U.S. government of Nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos on charges of sedition.

The innocent Palm Sunday March turned into a police slaughter. Both march participants and innocent bystanders were fired upon by the Insular Police, resulting in the death of eighteen unarmed civilians and one policeman—every one from police fire as none of the civilians carried any firearms. In addition, some 235 civilians were wounded, including women and children. Journalists and photojournalists were present. The news was reported throughout the island the following day. Furthermore, a photo appeared in the newspaper El Imparcial, which was circulated to members of the U.S. Congress.