← Back to the front page

Historic Groups that Started Innocent then Took an Evil Turn

Khalid Elhassan November 8, 2020 32 min

Harley-Davidson - Harley-Davidson WLA — Harley-Davidson WLAs. Motorcyclist

31. The Motorcycle Rally Riot That Established the Biker-as-Outlaw Image

Early Hells Angels, circa 1954. Underwood Archives

Two months after the Hollister Gypsy Tour, the same biker clubs descended upon Riverside, CA, for the Labor Day weekend. It was another AMA-sanctioned event, and it ended in the same chaos that had engulfed Hollister. Riverside’s sheriff blamed punk kids, saying “They’re rebels, they’re outlaws“, establishing the imagery of outlaw bikers. The Hollister Riot in particular inspired 1953’s The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando, the original outlaw biker movie, and the first to examine American motorcycle gangs.

Hells Angels on the road in 1964, when they were still the epitome of cool rebels. Design You Trust

A few months later, in March, 1948, some of those clubs came together in Fontana, CA, and agreed to merge. They chose a name suggested by a veteran who had served in China with the Flying Tigers’ Hell’s Angels Squadron, which got the name from the 1930 Howard Hughes movie, Hell’s Angels. When questioned about the missing apostrophe, Hells Angels often retort “it is you who miss it. We don’t“.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.