Communist Party USA and African Americans facts for kids

The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) was a political group that wanted to bring about a socialist revolution in the United States. During the 1930s and 1940s, when it was most influential, the party played a big part in defending the civil rights of Black people.

At that time, most Black Americans lived in the Southern states. They faced Jim Crow laws, which enforced segregation and discrimination. Many Black people in the South were also prevented from voting.

By 1940, about 1.5 million Black Americans had moved from the South to cities in the North and Midwest. They found jobs and homes, but often faced discrimination there too. This was especially true from white working-class people who competed for the same jobs and housing. Many labor unions also discriminated against Black people. After World War II, another 5 million Black Americans moved out of the South. Many went to West Coast cities, where new defense industries offered many jobs.

History of the CPUSA and Black Civil Rights

Early Years: 1919–1928

When the Communist Party USA started, it had very few Black members. Most early members were European immigrants. They often didn't speak English well and had little contact with Black Americans. Sometimes, they even competed for jobs and homes.

The Socialist Party of America also didn't have many Black members before the CPUSA was formed. While some Socialist leaders were against racial segregation, many in the party didn't focus much on racism. They saw discrimination against Black workers as just another form of worker exploitation. Also, the Socialist Party worked with unions that discriminated against minority workers. This made them less likely to directly fight racism.

Some Black Americans who were unhappy with the Socialist Party joined the Communist Party. Others joined the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), a socialist group with many leaders from Jamaica. This group had ideas similar to Marxism.

The Communist Party first shared the Socialist Party's economic views. But it also wanted to bring about a world revolution. It supported movements around the world that fought against colonialism and for "national liberation." The party saw the struggle for Black workers' rights and civil rights as part of this larger fight against colonialism. From its early days, the party tried to recruit Black Americans, but with mixed results.

The party's first big step to get Black support was reaching out to Cyril Briggs. He founded the ABB and a magazine called The Crusader. The party started promoting The Crusader in 1921. At a big meeting in 1922, Claude McKay, a Jamaican poet, and Otto Huiswoud, from Suriname, convinced the international Communist group (the Comintern) to create a "Negro Commission." This group aimed to unite all Black movements fighting colonialism.

The Comintern meeting also passed "Theses on the Negro Question." These rules guided the party's views on race. They said that the African-American struggle for civil rights was part of a global fight against colonialism. They stressed that Black civil rights should be linked to the fight against capitalism.

In 1924, the Comintern told the American party to work harder to organize Black Americans. The party first focused on Chicago, where it was based. They supported a strike by Black female garment workers. They also formed the Negro Tenants Protective League to organize rent strikes against unfair landlords.

The party then created the American Negro Labor Congress (ANLC) in 1925. This group didn't do well. The Black press liked it, but most labor unions ignored it. The ANLC also became separated from other Black organizations. It criticized the NAACP and similar groups, calling them "middle-class."

The ANLC and the Party had a more complex relationship with Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). The party liked Garvey's focus on "race consciousness" but strongly disagreed with his idea of a separate Black nation. When the party tried to recruit UNIA members, Garvey expelled them.

New Policies and Southern Organizing: 1928–1935

In 1928, the Comintern changed the party's policy. It said that Black people in the United States were a separate national group. It also claimed that Black farmers in the South were a revolutionary force because they were oppressed. Even though this idea divided the American party, the Comintern told the party to demand a separate nation for Black people in parts of the South where they were the majority.

Other groups made fun of this policy, and most Black Americans didn't support it. They had more urgent problems. While the party continued to talk about national self-determination for Black people in its writings, it mostly ignored this demand in its actual work.

The party sent organizers to the Deep South for the first time in the late 1920s. They focused on practical issues: organizing miners, steelworkers, and tenant farmers. They also dealt with problems like utility shutoffs, evictions, jobs, and unemployment benefits. They tried to raise awareness about and prevent lynchings and challenged Jim Crow laws. They hoped to attract both white and Black workers, starting in Birmingham, Alabama. Black workers were interested, but white workers stayed away.

The party also worked in rural areas to organize sharecroppers and tenant farmers, who faced a very unfair system. In Camp Hill, Alabama in 1931, white groups attacked Black farmers who tried to fight back. One leader was killed, and local authorities charged Black farmers with murder. Lawyers from the International Labor Defense (ILD) helped get the charges dropped. The Share Croppers' Union, formed after these events, continued to organize. After leading a strike in 1934 that won better prices for cotton pickers, its membership grew to nearly 8,000.

The CPUSA's influence went beyond its Black members, who were only a few hundred. In Alabama and other areas, the International Labor Defense, which focused on civil rights, had up to 2,000 members. The Sharecroppers' Union had up to 12,000 members in Alabama. Through these groups, the CPUSA "touched the lives easily of 20,000 people."

The Scottsboro Boys and Legal Defense

The party's most famous work in the South was defending the "Scottsboro Boys." These were nine Black men arrested in 1931 in Scottsboro, Alabama. They were accused of attacking two white women on a train and were sentenced to death. None of the men had been in the same train car as the women.

The International Labor Defense (ILD) was the first to offer help. William L. Patterson, a Black lawyer who joined the Communist Party, led the ILD. After disagreements with the NAACP, the ILD took control of the appeals for the Scottsboro Boys. The ILD brought national attention to the case and showed the unfairness of racial injustice in the South.

The ILD successfully appealed the men's convictions to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court ruled that the State's failure to provide lawyers for the defendants in a case where they could be sentenced to death violated their rights. The ILD continued to fight for the men in retrials. The ILD was the most active defender of Black civil rights in the South during the early and mid-1930s. It was also the most popular party organization among Black Americans.

The League of Struggle for Negro Rights, created in 1930, was very active in supporting the Scottsboro defendants. It also campaigned for a separate Black nation in the South, against police brutality, and against Jim Crow laws.

Organizing in Northern Cities

The party also campaigned on issues affecting Black Americans outside the South. The CPUSA actively fought against racial segregation in unions it organized and in other unions. The party also worked hard to remove all forms of racism from its own members.

The CPUSA organized Black Americans in the North around local issues. For example, it was one of the first groups to campaign against evictions, for unemployment benefits, and against police brutality. In Chicago, they formed neighborhood "Unemployed Councils." These groups were leaders against evictions. Sometimes, when a mother got an eviction notice, she would tell her children, "Run quick and find the Reds!"

The party's relationships with other Black community groups were difficult during this time. The strict rules from the Comintern meant the party had to criticize other, more moderate groups that also opposed racial discrimination.

The Popular Front Era: 1935–1939

In 1935, the Comintern changed its approach. It decided to unite socialist and non-socialist groups against fascism. This new policy was called the "Popular Front." The party improved its relationships with groups like the NAACP and started working with church groups, especially in the North. The party also began to support the New Deal programs of the Roosevelt administration, which helped with economic problems.

As part of this new approach, the CPUSA closed the League of Struggle for Negro Rights. It joined with other non-communist groups to create the National Negro Congress (NNC). A. Philip Randolph, a longtime Socialist Party member, led the NNC. The NNC brought together Black fraternal, church, and civic groups. It supported the efforts of the CIO to organize workers in industries like steel, automobiles, and meatpacking.

The CPUSA stopped supporting the idea of a separate Black state in the United States. As part of its new slogan, "Communism is twentieth century Americanism," it campaigned for an end to racial discrimination. When Black residents of Harlem rioted in 1935 after false reports that a young person had been killed by police, Communist Party activists joined with Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and NAACP leader Walter Francis White to try to stop more violence.

The party continued to focus on issues for Black workers. It also spoke out against lynching and other violence against Black people. Communists joined with labor and civil rights groups to form the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, which worked for civil rights. A teacher and party member in New York City, Abel Meeropol, wrote the song "Strange Fruit" to show the horrors of lynching in the South.

The party also connected its fight against fascism to the Black community. For example, it opposed Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. Black members went to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War. The Lincoln Brigade was the first American military group to have Black and white soldiers serving together equally, with Black officers leading white troops.

Organizing Black Workers

From the early 1920s, the Communist Party consistently fought against racism in the labor movement and Jim Crow outside it. The party worked to organize Black miners in strikes in Pennsylvania in 1928. They also led strikes of mostly white textile workers in the Carolinas and Georgia in 1929, and coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky in 1931.

The party made more progress organizing Black workers during the New Deal era. This was especially true through unions connected to the party, like the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union, which organized Black miners in Alabama. The Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee created mixed-race groups in meatpacking plants in Chicago and other places. The Food and Tobacco Workers formed integrated unions with Black and white leaders in North Carolina and Kentucky. These unions became very strong among Black workers in those industries.

In the United Auto Workers union, the CPUSA and its opponents both campaigned for the demands of Black workers. They also fought against "hate strikes" and race riots led by white workers who didn't want to work with Black Americans.

Party activists also helped organize Black workers in other unions, like the Steel Workers Organizing Committee. However, the party didn't consistently gain many Black members through its union organizing.

In other industries where Black people were excluded or were a small part of the workforce, CPUSA-led unions had mixed results. The Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) fought against segregation. In the early 1940s, it worked with Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the NAACP, and the Negro National Congress. They aimed to end job segregation and set goals for affirmative action in New York City public transit. The TWU also fought against job discrimination in public transit in Philadelphia in 1944.

On the other hand, some other left-leaning unions were not as successful. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union removed formal barriers to Black employment, but some informal segregation returned. The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) ignored party orders to confront discrimination in its industry. They thought that challenging seniority rules to help Black workers would make white workers very unhappy.

Communists and Black Culture

During the Popular Front era, the party gained support from many famous Black writers, including Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison. Some of them joined the party but later left. Paul Robeson, a strong supporter of the Soviet Union, never officially joined the party but was loyal to some of its members.

The Communist Party also took up other important issues. Its newspaper, The Daily Worker, started pushing for the integration of Major League Baseball in the mid-1930s. The party also made sure its dances and social events were integrated. It continued to remove members who were accused of "white chauvinism" (a term for white racism).

World War II and After: 1939–1959

The signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (a non-aggression agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union) hurt the party's standing in the Black community. A. Philip Randolph left the Negro National Congress in protest. Black newspapers across the North criticized the party for its sudden change in stance. The CPUSA then criticized its opponents as wanting war.

When Adolf Hitler's forces invaded the Soviet Union, the party fully supported the war effort. It criticized Randolph's planned March on Washington against job discrimination in war industries, saying it might hurt production. But the CPUSA still demanded that defense companies integrate their workforces. It also worked to fight "hate strikes" and white-led race riots in Detroit.

In 1946, the NNC and the ILD combined to form the Civil Rights Congress (CRC). The CRC continued its work even as the Communist Party faced strong attacks after the war. It spoke out against discrimination in the justice system, segregated housing, and other forms of discrimination faced by Black people in both the North and South.

The party hoped to remain a part of mainstream American politics after the war. Benjamin J. Davis Jr. ran for and won a seat on the City Council in New York City in 1945. He openly advertised his Communist Party membership and gained support from both Black and white voters. However, this period didn't last. New York City changed its election rules, and Davis lost his next race in 1949. He was also accused of trying to overthrow the U.S. government, which hurt his campaign.

The CRC became more and more isolated as former allies refused to work with it. In 1949, the CRC, represented by William Patterson and Paul Robeson, tried to submit a petition called "We Charge Genocide" to the United Nations. This petition criticized how Black citizens were treated in the United States. A year later, Patterson was found guilty of breaking a law called the Smith Act. In 1954, the U.S. Attorney General declared the CRC a dangerous organization. The CRC faced strong opposition from state authorities in the South and was often raided or banned. The CRC broke up in 1956, just as the civil rights movement in the South was growing into a large movement.

At the same time, internal problems caused by the Cold War and legal actions led to fights within the party. The party expelled members accused of "white chauvinism." In the difficult years of 1949 and 1950, many CPUSA leaders began to see their work among white working-class people as a failure. They started to view the Black working class as the "vanguard of the revolution" (the leading group for change).

The party told unions led by CPUSA members to oppose the continued use of seniority systems. These systems made it harder for Black workers to move out of segregated job categories. The party supported "superseniority" for Black workers. This was an early version of what would later be called "affirmative action" twenty years later. However, many left-led unions, like the UE, simply ignored the party's orders.

Later Years: 1960s–1970s

The Communist Party continued into the 1960s, even after many members left. It tried to rebuild its presence among students through the W. E. B. Du Bois Clubs. These clubs were named after one of the founders of the NAACP, who joined the CPUSA in 1961.

The party's fortunes seemed to improve for a short time in the late 1960s. Party members like Angela Davis became linked with the more radical part of the Black Power movement. However, the party didn't gain any long-term benefits from this. It didn't form lasting relationships with the Black Panther Party, and it didn't recruit many new members from these groups.

The party kept some standing in the Black community through its former allies. These included Coleman Young of Detroit and Gus Newport in Berkeley, California, who were elected to office in the 1970s.

Images for kids

• Cyril Briggs.jpg

  Cyril Briggs, founder of the African Blood Brotherhood.

• Claude McKay.jpg

  Claude McKay, a Jamaican poet who influenced the Comintern's views on race.

• Otto Huiswoud.jpg

  Otto Huiswoud, born in Suriname, helped shape the Comintern's "Theses on the Negro Question."

• Harry Haywood.jpg

  Harry Haywood, an American communist who played a leading role in the Comintern's discussions on race.

• William L. Patterson.jpg

  William L. Patterson, a Black attorney who led the International Labor Defense.

• 

  Langston Hughes, a famous Black writer who supported the Communist Party during the Popular Front era.

• Richard Wright (author).jpg

  Richard Wright, another notable Black author associated with the party.

• Ralph Ellison.jpg

  Ralph Ellison, an influential writer who had ties to the Communist Party.

• Chester Himes.jpg

  Chester Himes, a crime novelist who was part of the Black cultural figures drawn to the party.

• Paul Robeson.jpg

  Paul Robeson, a singer and activist who was a vocal defender of the Soviet Union.

• Benjamin J. Davis Jr.jpg

  Benjamin J. Davis Jr., a Communist Party member who served on the New York City Council.

• Angela Davis.jpg

  Angela Davis, a prominent activist associated with the Black Power movement.