Claim: The term "Black Friday" originated with the practice of selling off slaves on the day after Thanksgiving.
Verdict: REFUTES

Retrieved passages:
title: Black Friday (shopping)
text: corner the gold market. When President Grant learned of this manipulation, he ordered the Treasury to release a large supply of gold, which halted the run and caused prices to drop by eighteen percent. Fortunes were made and lost in a single day, and the president's own brother-in-law, Abel Corbin, was ruined. The earliest known use of "Black Friday" to refer to the day after Thanksgiving occurs in the journal, "Factory Management and Maintenance", for November 1951, and again in 1952. Here it referred to the practice of workers calling in sick on the day after Thanksgiving, in order to

title: Black Friday (shopping)
text: day or weekend. The earliest evidence of the phrase "Black Friday" applied to the day after Thanksgiving in a shopping context suggests that the term originated in Philadelphia, where it was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic that would occur on the day after Thanksgiving. This usage dates to at least 1961. More than twenty years later, as the phrase became more widespread, a popular explanation became that this day represented the point in the year when retailers begin to turn a profit, thus going from being "in the red" to being "in the black".

title: Black Friday (shopping)
text: Black Friday (shopping) Black Friday is an informal name for the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, which is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. The day after Thanksgiving has been regarded as the beginning of America's Christmas shopping season since 1952, although the term "Black Friday" didn't become widely used until more recent decades. Many stores offer highly promoted sales on Black Friday and open very early, such as at midnight, or may even start their sales at some time on Thanksgiving. Black Friday is not an official holiday, but California and some other states observe

title: Black Friday (shopping)
text: the holiday season, beginning on the day after Thanksgiving. When this was recorded in the financial records, once-common accounting practices would use red ink to show negative amounts and black ink to show positive amounts. Black Friday, under this theory, is the beginning of the period when retailers would no longer be "in the red", instead taking in the year's profits. The earliest known published reference to this explanation occurs in "The Philadelphia Inquirer" for November 28, 1981. In 2013, an internet rumor alleged that the phrase originated in the American south before the Civil War, from the practice of

title: Black Friday (shopping)
text: have a four-day weekend. However, this use does not appear to have caught on. Around the same time, the terms "Black Friday" and "Black Saturday" came to be used by the police in Philadelphia and Rochester to describe the crowds and traffic congestion accompanying the start of the Christmas shopping season. In 1961, the city and merchants of Philadelphia attempted to improve conditions, and a public relations expert recommended rebranding the days, "Big Friday" and "Big Saturday"; but these terms were quickly forgotten. Use of the phrase spread slowly, first appearing in "The New York Times" on November 29, 1975,

title: Black Friday (shopping)
text: advertising before Thanksgiving. For this reason, in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a presidential proclamation proclaiming Thanksgiving to be the fourth Thursday in November rather than the last Thursday, meaning in some years one week earlier, in order to lengthen the Christmas shopping season. Most people adopted the President's change, which was later reinforced by an act of Congress, but many continued to celebrate Thanksgiving Day on the traditional date. Some started referring to the new date as Franksgiving. In 2015, Amazon.com held a "Prime Day" event in July and promised better deals than on Black Friday, with repeat

title: Black Friday (shopping)
text: there have been attempts by retailers with origins in the United States to introduce a retail "Black Friday" to other countries around the world. In several countries, local retailers have attempted to promote the day to remain competitive with US-based online retailers. For centuries, the adjective "black" has been applied to days upon which calamities occurred. Many events have been described as "Black Friday", although the most significant such event in American History was the Panic of 1869, which occurred when financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk took advantage of their connections with the Grant Administration in an attempt to

title: Black Friday (shopping)
text: "The Day After Thanksgiving" as a holiday for state government employees, sometimes in lieu of another federal holiday, such as Columbus Day. Many non-retail employees and schools have both Thanksgiving and the following Friday off, which, along with the following regular weekend, makes it a four-day weekend, thereby increasing the number of potential shoppers. Black Friday has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year in the United States since 2005, although news reports, which at that time were inaccurate, have described it as the busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time. Similar

title: Black Friday (shopping)
text: selling slaves on the day after Thanksgiving. This was debunked by Snopes.com in 2015. The day after Thanksgiving as the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season may be linked together with the idea of Santa Claus parades. Parades celebrating Thanksgiving often include an appearance by Santa at the end of the parade, with the idea that 'Santa has arrived' or 'Santa is just around the corner' because Christmas is always the next major holiday following Thanksgiving. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many Santa or Thanksgiving Day parades were sponsored by department stores. These included the Toronto

title: Black Friday (shopping)
text: extreme price cuts than Canadian retailers, even for the same international retailer. In the United Kingdom, the term "Black Friday" originated within the Police and NHS to refer to the Friday before Christmas. It is the day when emergency services activate contingency plans to cope with the increase in workload due to many people going out drinking on the last Friday before Christmas. Contingencies can include setting up mobile field hospitals near City Centre nightspots. The term has then been adopted outside those services to refer to the evening and night of the Friday immediately before Christmas, and would now

title: Black Friday (shopping)
text: in which it still refers specifically to "the busiest shopping and traffic day of the year" in Philadelphia. Although it soon became more widespread, "The Philadelphia Inquirer" reported in 1985 that retailers in Cincinnati and Los Angeles were still unaware of the term. As the phrase gained national attention in the early 1980s, merchants objecting to the use of a derisive term to refer to one of the most important shopping days of the year suggested an alternative derivation: that retailers traditionally operated at a financial loss for most of the year (January through November) and made their profit during

title: Black Friday (shopping)
text: also ""Black Furadei"", which comes from the slang word ""furada"", meaning a "jam" or tough situation, usually involving money. It is also common to hear Brazilian people say that prices on Brazilian Black Friday are "half of the double". However, currently, the term "Black Friday" has become so popular in the country that stores have been under closer scrutiny from consumers and cases of known scams have been reduced greatly. Despite frequent attempts to control the crowds of shoppers, minor injuries are common among the crowds, usually as a result of being pushed or thrown to the ground in small

title: Black Friday (1921)
text: Black Friday (1921) Black Friday, in British labour history, refers to 15 April 1921, when the leaders of transport and rail unions announced a decision not to call for strike action in support of the miners. The epithet 'black' derives from a widespread feeling amongst labour radicals that the decision amounted to a breach of solidarity and a betrayal of the miners. In the 1890s and the first two decades of the 20th century, increasing efforts were made to bring about amalgamations of small, local trade unions and to forge links between different organisations, with a view to securing united

title: Black Friday (shopping)
text: of their week in order to avoid the workers and students to make a "larger" weekend (for example, not attending in a Friday after a Thursday holiday, thus making a 4-day weekend). On this weekend, major retailers extend their store hours and offer special promotions, including extended credit terms and price promotions. The concept was imported in Romania by and Flanco in 2011 and became bigger each year. The two reported the biggest Black Friday sales in 2014. eMAG sold products worth some 37 million euros while Flanco's sales totaled 22 million euros. Hundreds of retailers announced their participation in

title: Black Friday (shopping)
text: "Black Thursday". In subsequent years, other stores have followed this trend, opening earlier and earlier on Thanksgiving Day, or remaining open all day, beginning in the early morning hours. Some retail and media sources have used the terms "Gray Thursday" or "Brown Thursday" instead. The 2014 "Black Thursday" sales were, in general, a failure, as overall sales for the holiday weekend fell 11% compared to the previous year despite heavy traffic at the stores on Thanksgiving night. In response, a number of retailers decided to go back to closing on Thanksgiving for 2015, and Walmart, although it is holding firm

title: Black Friday (1921)
text: part. Williams was expelled from the Communist Party following this. In 1925, when the government agreed to grant a temporary subsidy to the mining industry so as to avoid wage reductions, the day on which the decision was announced became known as "Red Friday", in imitation of Black Friday. Black Friday (1921) Black Friday, in British labour history, refers to 15 April 1921, when the leaders of transport and rail unions announced a decision not to call for strike action in support of the miners. The epithet 'black' derives from a widespread feeling amongst labour radicals that the decision amounted

title: Black Friday (shopping)
text: XXL" (XXL day) instead of Black Friday. An alternative was brought up by some online businesses in 2018, called "French Days", which goal is to replicate Black Friday during spring season (starting around the first day of May). In Germany, "Black Friday" retailer advertisements refer to "Black Week" and "Black Shopping" in English language, with sales lasting an entire week (excluding Sundays when most retail stores are closed). During this sale time, stores keep their normal working hours; and though goods are offered at reduced prices, the prices are no more significantly slashed than normal weekly price reductions. Apple was

title: Black Friday (partying)
text: Nightlife Initiatives launched a "StaySafe" campaign to encourage responsible behaviour via social media. Black Friday takes place every year on the last Friday before Christmas Day. Black Friday (partying) Mad Friday, Frantic Friday or Black Eye Friday is a nickname for the last Friday before Christmas in the United Kingdom. It is the most popular night for office and factories Christmas parties, which consequently makes it one of the busiest nights in the year for ambulances and the police. The term Black Friday originates as "jargon" used by NHS and Police, and has entered the popular lexicon. From 2013, the

title: Black Friday (partying)
text: Black Friday (partying) Mad Friday, Frantic Friday or Black Eye Friday is a nickname for the last Friday before Christmas in the United Kingdom. It is the most popular night for office and factories Christmas parties, which consequently makes it one of the busiest nights in the year for ambulances and the police. The term Black Friday originates as "jargon" used by NHS and Police, and has entered the popular lexicon. From 2013, the press began to use the term Mad Friday to avoid confusion with the American Black Friday in November, which was growing increasingly popular in the UK

title: Black Friday (shopping)
text: difficult. Cross-border shopping solutions exist to mitigate the problem through estimation of the various cost involved. The term "Cyber Monday", a neologism invented in 2005 by the National Retail Federation's division Shop.org, refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday based on a trend that retailers began to recognize in 2003 and 2004. Retailers noticed that many consumers, who were too busy to shop over the Thanksgiving weekend or did not find what they were looking for, shopped for bargains online that Monday from home or work. In 2010, Hitwise reported that: Thanksgiving weekend offered a strong start, especially as