“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! (Person/thing) has got to go!” (protest chant)
“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! (Person/thing) has got to go!” has become a standard protest chant. In the early 1950s, it was a sports cheer, with the familiar “got to go” replaced by “let’s go.”
Perhaps the first political use of the chant occurred in Alabama in 1956, when Autherine Lucy (a black student) attempted to be admitted to the University of Alabama. Variations of the chant (recorded in February 1956) that were shouted at the student by angry crowds were “Hey, hey, ho. ho. where the hell did the Negro go?’ and “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Autherine must go” and “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Autherine gotta go.”
Wikipedia: Auitherine Lucy
Autherine Juanita Lucy was the first black student to attend the University of Alabama, in 1956.
She was born on October 5, 1929 in Shiloh, Alabama and graduated from the high school of Linden Academy in 1947.
She went on to attend the Selma University in Selma, and the all-black Miles College in Fairfield - where she graduated with a BA in English in 1952.
Later in 1952, at the encouragement of and along with a Miles classmate, Pollie Ann Myers, she decided to attend the University of Alabama as a graduate student but, knowing that admission would be difficult due to the University’s admission policies, she and Myers approached the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for help. Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker Motley, and Arthur Shores were assigned to be their attorneys. While they started preparing her case, she worked as a secretary. Court action began in July 1953.
On June 29, 1955, the NAACP secured a court order preventing the University from rejecting the admission applications of Lucy and her friend based upon their race. Days later, the court amended the order to apply to all other African-American students seeking admission. The Supreme Court upheld this in Lucy v. Adams on October 10, 1955. On the very eve of the day Lucy and her friend (who had married to become Pollie Myers Hudson) were to register, the University Board of Trustees rejected Hudson on the grounds of her “conduct and marital record”, but reluctantly allowed Lucy to register. However, she was barred from all dormitories and dining halls. At least one source has said that the board hoped that without Hudson, the more outgoing and assured of the pair and whose idea it originally was to enroll at Alabama, Lucy’s own acceptance would mean little or nothing to her, and she would voluntarily choose not to attend. But Hudson and others strongly encouraged her on, and on February 3, 1956, Lucy enrolled as a graduate student in library science, becoming the first African American ever admitted to a white public school or university in the state.
On the third day of classes, a hostile mob assembled to prevent Lucy attending classes. The police were called to secure her admission but, that evening, the University suspended Lucy on the grounds that it could not provide a safe environment.
Lucy and her attorneys filed suit against the University to have the suspension overturned. However, this suit was not successful and was used as a justification for her permanent expulsion. University officials claimed that Lucy had slandered the university and they could not have her as a student.
The University of Alabama finally overturned her expulsion in 1980, and in 1992, she earned her Masters degree in Elementary Education from the University that she had applied to decades earlier. In a complete reversal of spirit from when she was first admitted there, the university named an endowed scholarship in her honor and unveiled a portrait of her in the student union overlooking the most trafficked spot on campus. The inscription reads “Her initiative and courage won the right for students of all races to attend the University.”
21 February 1933, Mason City (IA) Globe-Gazette, pg. 4, col. 1 ad:
BIG DANCE
MASON CITY ARMORY
SATURDAY, FEB. 25
Snappy tunes by the Viking orchestra. Hot ‘cha! Hey, Hey! Ho, Ho! Come over and step ‘em off.
2 December 1951, Dallas (TX) Morning News, “Fans Howl As Frogs Gain TItle” by Walter Robertson, pt. 2, pg. 1:
“Hey, hey, ho, ho, TCU to the Cotton Bowl.” The chant spread and then exploded into riotous enthusiasm as the final gun sounded confirmation of the 13-to-2 win.
3 July 1952, Mason City (IA) Globe-Gazette, pg. 7, col. 1:
PAUL NEIGHBORS—the man with the “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho!” and his band will appear at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake Saturday Night.
12 April 1953, Dallas (TX) Morning News, pt. 4, pg. 10 real estate classified ad:
“Hoo-Hoo…Hey-Hey…Ho-Ho.”
6 November 1955, Oakland (CA) Tribune, Parade magazine, pg. 13, col. 1:
“Hey, Hey, HO! HO!
Come on Hoosiers, let’s GO!”
(Indiana football cheer—ed.)
7 February 1956, Chicago (IL) Daily Tribune, “U. of Alabama Trustees Bar Negro Student,” sec. 1, pg. 3:
Many in the crowd waved Confederate flags and shouted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Autherine gotta go.”
Google News Archive
29 February 1956, Milwaukee (WI) Journal, “Miss Lucy’s Lawyer Softens Charges at University Trustees,” pg. 1, cols. 1-2:
Birmingham, Ala.—AP—Autherine Lucy’s attorney retreated Wednesday from charges that the University of Alabama trustees and others had conspired with a mob to keep the Negro girl from the all-white campus.
(...)
Lucy said that she heard a mob chanting. “Hey, hey, ho. ho. where the hell did the Negro go?...Hey, hey, ho, ho, Autherine must go.”
Google Books
Go South to sorrow
By Carl Thomas Rowan
New York, NY: Random House
1957
Pg. 168:
...some drunken fraternity members chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho, where in hell did the nigger go? Hey hey, ho ho, Autherine must go.”
Google Books
Cheerleading
By Newton C. Loken
New York, NY: Ronald Press Co.
1961
Pg. 29:
Hey Hey
Ho Ho
Come on Perry
Let’s go
Let’s go Big Team
Let’s go hey hey
Let’s go Big Team
Let’s go hey hey
Let’s go Big Team LET’S GO!
Penn State (PA) Digital Library
28 April 1967, Daily Collegian, “Wallace May Head Third Party”:
PITTSBURGH (AP)—George Wallce, former governor of Alabama, said yesterday he may become a third party presidential candidate “if the two major parties do not give the people a choice.”
(...)
“Got to Go!”
The marchers carrying signs accusing Wallace of bigotry chanted “Hey hey ho ho!” George Wallace has got to go!”
Google Books
The Ladder
v. 13-14 - 1968
Pg. 11:
Hey! Hey!
Ho! Ho!
All the pigs
Have got to go!
Google Books
The feast of Saint Barnabas
By Jesse Hill Ford
Boston, MA: Little, Brown
1969
Pg. 126:
“Hey-hey! Ho-ho! Felton Watridge got to go!” Maco chants.
30 June 1971, Trenton (NJ) Evening Times, “50 Welfare Pickets Chant Opposition In Court Protest,” pg. 7:
As they marched they chanted slogans such as ‘Welfare is Unfair,” and “Hey, hey, ho, ho, welfare cuts have got to go.”
New York (NY) Times
‘Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Those Old Protest Tactics Have to Go’
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: June 13, 2004
(...)
Some organizers favor something in between, maybe not as confrontational as the anarchists’ approach but an alternative to mass marches in which large groups, typically kept behind metal barricades, hold signs and chant familiar refrains: ‘‘Hey hey, ho ho (insert objectionable entity here) has got to go’’ and the like.
State Budget Solutions
CALIFORNIA, NEW JERSEY
Hey-hey, ho-ho, public-sector unions have got to go
Insatiable and unsustainable
by KELI CARENDER | May 25, 2010