Vidal Santiago Díaz

Santiago Díaz never fully recovered from his head wound and moved with his wife to Santa Juanita, Bayamón. He ceased his political activities in the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and became a member, and eventually a deacon, of the Disciples of Christ Church. Although he had some fingers missing and his head wound was very noticeable and impressive, he did work for many years as a barber in the barber shop of the "Hotel Capitol" in Miramar, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Santiago Díaz died in March 1982 at his home in Bayamón.

On October 14, 1952, Santiago Díaz was granted a pardon of all charges related to the cases concluded or pending against him by Puerto Rican Governor Luis Muñoz Marín. The governor specified that Santiago Díaz's activities on behalf of Puerto Rican independence were not to be curtailed, unless they advocated the use of anti-democratic methods, force, or violence. The pardon was conditional, under the supervision and control of the Insular Parole Board. Upon receiving this pardon, Santiago Díaz was immediately freed.

The police disrupted this timetable and the Nationalist revolution was accelerated by two years. On October 26, 1950, Albizu Campos was holding a meeting in Fajardo when he received word that his house in San Juan was surrounded by police waiting to arrest him. He also was told that the police had already arrested other Nationalist leaders. He escaped from Fajardo and ordered the uprising to start.

Upon learning that the police wanted to arrest Albizu Campos, Santiago Díaz, who then was the president of the Santurce Municipal Board of Officers of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, sent a telegram to the Attorney General of Puerto Rico in the early hours of October 31, 1950, offering his services as an intermediary. He then opened his barbershop to await an answer which never arrived. Instead, unbeknown to Santiago Díaz, fifteen police officers and twenty-five National Guardsmen were sent that very afternoon to lay siege to his barbershop.

After the police assault at the Salón Boricua, Santiago Díaz recovered from most of his wounds but not from the gunshot to his head. Upon release from the hospital he was arrested and taken before a federal judge to face charges of "intent to commit murder" and other events related to the Nationalist uprisings of October 1950. Although he did not participate in the uprisings, he was convicted and sentenced to serve seventeen years and six months in prison at the Insular Penitentiary in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico.

From 1949 to 1950, the Nationalists on the island began to plan and prepare an armed revolt, hoping that the United Nations would take notice and intervene on their behalf. The revolution was to occur in 1952, on the day the United States Congress was to approve the creation of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Estado Libre Asociado of Puerto Rico in Spanish; this translates into English as the Free Associated State of Puerto Rico). The reason behind Albizu Campos' call for an armed revolt was that he considered the "new" status a colonial farce.

On May 21, 1948, a bill was introduced before the Puerto Rican Senate which would restrain the rights of the Independence and Nationalist movements on the archipelago. The Senate, which at the time was controlled by the Partido Popular Democrático (PPD) and presided by Luis Muñoz Marín, approved the bill. This bill, which resembled the anti-communist Smith Act passed in the United States in 1940, became known as the Ley de la Mordaza (Gag Law, technically "Law 53 of 1948") when the U.S.-appointed governor of Puerto Rico, Jesús T. Piñero, signed it into law on June 10, 1948.

On June 21, 1948, Albizu Campos gave a speech in the town of Manatí, where Nationalists from all over the island had gathered in case the police attempted to arrest him. Later that month Albizu Campos visited Blanca Canales and her cousins Elio and Griselio Torresola, the nationalist leaders of the town of Jayuya. Griselio soon moved to New York City where he met and befriended Oscar Collazo.

On Palm Sunday, March 21, 1937, the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party held a peaceful march in the city of Ponce. 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.

In his book War Against All Puerto Ricans, Denis states that Santiago Díaz purchased the barbershop in 1932 from José Maldonado Román, who was ailing from throat cancer, thus becoming the sole owner of the business. This has been disputed by several sources.

Vidal Santiago Díaz (January 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.

Under this new law it became a crime to print, publish, sell, or exhibit any material intended to paralyze or destroy the insular government; or to organize any society, group or assembly of people with a similar destructive intent. It made it illegal to sing a patriotic song, and reinforced the 1898 law that had made it illegal to display the Flag of Puerto Rico, with anyone found guilty of disobeying the law in any way being subject to a sentence of up to ten years imprisonment, a fine of up to US$10,000 (equivalent to $113,000 in 2021), or both. According to Dr. Leopoldo Figueroa, a member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, the law was repressive and was in violation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution which guarantees freedom of speech. He pointed out that the law as such was a violation of the civil rights of the people of Puerto Rico.