[icyfenix]

"For those unfamiliar with American customs, Black Friday in the US refers to the day after Thanksgiving Day, which is traditionally considered the first day of the holiday shopping season. It's generally the busiest shopping day of the year, resulting in huge profits for retailers – thus, putting them 'in the black.'"

This is not why it's called Black Friday. It's called Black Friday originally by the retail workers who had to man the stores that day. "Black" meaning bad or dark, in this case, like "this is a black day", rather than any reference to finance (or racism). Those who worked their way into the corporate structure of many retailers, or graduated college and moved on in their careers retained their floor-worker slang, and the term spread.

[mahmud]

Never heard of this theory. Black refers to ink color. Line items in red are loses, black are break-even or profit. Black-friday is when retailer make so much profit they get back in black.

Business type-writters had red and black ribbons.

[jeffcoat]

Wikipedia presents both origin stories, but the accounting version (black ink) does appear to be a 1980s back-formation trying to put a nicer spin on the name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(shopping)#Origin_...

[oijaf888]

Source?