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The above video is a 9 minute explanation of Marxian thought.

In 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels got together and wrote The Communist Manifesto, which became the basis for all following attempts at a communist government.

Some ideas presented in it are:

There is a constant struggle between the upper class ("bourgeoisie") and the working class ("proletariat")

The Bourgeoisie exploits the Proletariat by making money off their labor and not paying them a fair wage.

The solution to this problem is the replacement of private property with public ownership, where wealth is distributed based on a person's need.

Marx and Engels argued that a revolution is inevitable-- that the proletariat would always eventually rise up and overthrow the bourgeoisie.

Social classes would be eliminated.

The leaders of the society would be democratically elected, and would not make more or less money than the workers.

In true communist society, everyone is happy and taken care of.

#Marx

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A link to a history.com article detailing the Scottsboro Boys and how the Communist Party of the USA came to their defense.

The Scottsboro boys were 9 African American teenagers who were falsely accused of rape and sentenced to death-- until the Communist Party of America stepped to their legal defense.

“I don’t care whether they are Reds, Greens, or Blues. They are the only ones who put up a fight to save these boys and I am with them to the end.” - Janie Patterson, mother of Haywood Patterson. This quote encapsulates why many African Americans saw appeal in the communist party-- they saw communism as a system that fought for them, as opposed to the injustice legal and political system of the day.

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As the freight train whisked its way over the Alabama rails in 1931, nine boys' lives were changed forever. The details of their skirmish with a group of white men and two women on the train are still unclear. But by the end of the train ride, nine young men-all African American, all teenagers-were headed toward their death by an unjust, vigilante mob and a legal system that didn't value their lives.

They were the Scottsboro Boys, and their trial, death sentences, and dramatic appeals helped expose the injustice of the American legal system during the 1930s. But false testimony and rousing pleas for their release weren't the only drama that surrounded their legal struggle. The Scottsboro case also pitted the NAACP against the Communist Party in a struggle for who would control the boys' legal defense-and claim this rare spotlight on race in America.

The boys' case seemed hopeless. After the fight on the freight train, they were falsely accused of rape by the two white women in the group. They were immediately arrested by a posse, thrown into jail in Gadsden, Alabama, and threatened by a lynch mob. Then, all but one were swiftly convicted by all-white juries and sentenced to death.

At this point, an unlikely ally swooped in to mobilize on their behalf: the American Communist Party. At the time, the party was working to make inroads in the United States. Legal advocacy was a critical part of that strategy, and International Labor Defense, the party's legal defense arm, specialized in offering free legal representation in high-profile cases, like that of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian anarchists who were tried and ultimately executed for murder and robbery in 1927. The group also took on labor disputes and free speech cases.

Civil rights were a cornerstone of the Communist Party's platform in the U.S., and the party actively courted black intellectuals and leaders in an attempt to appeal to African-Americans. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the ILD began to tackle prominent cases related to lynching, the KKK and other racially motivated crimes. These cases helped make the party more palatable to marginalized groups who traditionally lacked the financial and social resources to defend themselves in court.

And when the Scottsboro case emerged, the ILD saw an opportunity not just to fight for racial equality, but to take advantage of the national spotlight and further their cause.

Lynch mobs and vigilante "justice" were common in the Jim Crow South, which regularly punished black men without cause, and many cases of false accusations and unjust convictions occurred without fanfare or coverage. But the Scottsboro cases couldn't have been more different. The ILD organized marches, meetings, speeches and letter writing campaigns on the boys' behalf and launched a full-scale public relations blitz.

However, another influential organization was notably absent from the public defense: the NAACP. This drew a firestorm of criticism from onlookers who wondered why the group-the largest, most well respected and influential African-American advocacy group in the nation-didn't stand up for the Scottsboro Boys.

VIDEO: How the NAACP Fights Racial Discrimination How did the NAACP (the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) get its start? What needs and issues does it address, and what has it accomplished since it was founded in 1909?

Despite its commitment to fighting for equal rights for African-Americans, the NAACP shied away from cases where a black man was accused of raping a white woman. At the time, the group also had financial issues, and historians like James R. Acker believe it hesitated to get involved in an appeal, either because its leadership doubted the innocence of the boys or because of a mistaken assumption that the boys already had high-quality attorneys in the case.

But Walter White, the NAACP's head, worried that the Communists wanted to "make martyrs" of the boys for their own gain, and eventually the group decided to vie with the ILD to defend them.

The NAACP reached out to the parents of the Scottsboro boys and offered Clarence Darrow, the formidable attorney who eloquently defended John Scopes' right to teach evolution in Tennessee schools in the Scopes "Monkey Trial," and Arthur Garfield Hays, the cofounder of the ACLU, to represent them in their appeal.

In public, the ILD said it welcomed Darrow's contribution to the case, but in private they leaned on the Scottsboro parents to let them represent them instead. All of the boys signed on with the ILD, and Darrow and Hays withdrew from the case with bitter words. The perception was that the NAACP had faltered at a time when they should have stood behind the Scottsboro Boys.

"I don't care whether they are Reds, Greens, or Blues," said Janie Patterson, mother of 18-year-old Haywood Patterson. "They are the only ones who put up a fight to save these boys and I am with them to the end."

The ILD won their appeal on behalf of the Scottsboro Boys after fighting it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which threw out their convictions. This success was short-lived, however. The teenagers were soon re-indicted on different charges and tried again in Alabama. This time, the Communists and the NAACP came together with the ACLU and other organizations to form the Scottsboro Defense Committee.

Though this legal supergroup managed to sidestep the death penalty for all nine defendants, they didn't succeed in all nine cases. It would take nearly 20 years before all of the Scottsboro Boys-now men who had undergone multiple trials and served years in the criminal justice system for crimes they did not commit-were released from prison.

The NAACP may have joined with the Communists to help the Scottsboro Boys, but internally they spent years trying to prove that they didn't sympathize with the Communist cause. During the 1950s, they rooted out Communist members and even helped J. Edgar Hoover as he put together his blacklist and pursued suspected Communists during the Red Scare.

In an age of bias and discrimination, NAACP's leaders worried that they'd be destroyed if they associated with Communism. Meanwhile, American Communists turned their eyes toward other struggles. Their rare moment of collaboration proved almost as fleeting as the train ride that changed the lives of the Scottsboro Boys forever.
READ MORE: A Timeline of Black History Milestones

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Why the Communist Party Defended the Scottsboro Boys

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As the freight train whisked its way over the Alabama rails in 1931, nine boys' lives were changed forever. The details of their skirmish with a group of white men and two women on the train are still unclear.

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The Atlantic Slave Trade -- slavevoyages.org

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The Atlantic Slave Trade -- slavevoyages.org

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The above link is a link to an interactive website that helps visualize the Atlantic Slave Trade using real historical data.

Once Europeans had colonized North America, there came an increasing demand for labor to work on plantations in the new world-- the colonizers looked to Africa.

Roughly 15-20% of Africans died on the ships transporting them to the Americas -- known as the "Middle Passage".

Overall, nearly 11 million Africans were captured, enslaved, and transported to the Americas during the 16th to 18th century.

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Drawing on extensive archival records, this digital memorial allows analysis of the ships, traders, and captives in the Atlantic slave trade. The three databases below provide details of 36,000 trans-Atlantic slave voyages, 10,000 intra-American ventures, names and personal information. You can rea…

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Ralph Ellison published Invisible Man in 1952. It is considered a benchmark of literature, providing the perspective of a marginalized African American.

Ellison himself professed Marxist ideology, and a large portion of Invisible Man is dedicated to the protagonist joining “The Brotherhood” — a political group whose ideology is purposefully vague, but definitely close to communism. Invisible Man provides a narrative which perfectly explains why the Communist Party was appealing to African Americans— they felt, and had felt marginalized for centuries, and they wanted to form their own identity and get their voices heard.

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Animated Summary of The Communist Manifesto

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Animated Summary of The Communist Manifesto

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The above video is a great 2-minute mini-explanation of the ideas in the Communist Manifesto. Simple and easy to understand.

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The Communist Manifesto Animated Book Summary

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Photo-- The Communist Party of America marching in protest against the conviction of the Scottsboro Boys (1933).

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Photo-- The Communist Party of America marching in protest against the conviction of the Scottsboro Boys (1933).

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The Communist Party stood up for the Scottsboro Boys when no one else, not even the NAACP, would.

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TED-ed Explanation of McCarthyism (6 min)

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What is McCarthyism? And how did it happen? - Ellen Schrecker

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Communism is a detailed ideology with many different facets and subgroups-- presented here are the basic bedrock elements of any communist ideology.

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Communism is a detailed ideology with many different facets and subgroups-- presented here are the basic bedrock elements of any communist ideology.

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1894 Political Cartoon: "The Condition of the Laboring Man at Pullman"

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Communism is the antithesis to capitalism-- most, if not all communists view capitalism as a broken structure. But why?

From a communist's POV, Capitalism is built off of the exploitation of workers. The owner becomes rich off of the labor of the employee, yet the employee's wages represent just a small fraction of the total profit made from their work. The desire for a more communal society, without "owners" and "employees", is the central desire behind communism.

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Elon Musk (left) and Jeff Bezos (right), two of the three richest people in the world.

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Redistribution of Wealth / Elimination of Social Classes

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Redistribution of Wealth / Elimination of Social Classes

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Communists believe that, for society to become more equal, wealth must be distributed equally across all members of the society.

This would eliminate all social classes.

The wealth would be allocated to people based on their needs.

In regards to today's America, a communist would argue:

There is currently enough money around in the United States for every inhabitant to have a house, a car, and food to eat. So, why don't they?

It makes little sense that the US government spent $816.7 Billion on the military in 2023, yet there are currently roughly 653,000 homeless people in America today. This shows that there is enough money, it just is not going to the people that need it.

#wealthinequality

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The 42 Richest People in the world have more wealth than the poorest half of the world’s population.

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The 42 Richest People in the world have more wealth than the poorest half of the world’s population.

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#wealthinequality

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Private Property = The Means of Production (farms/factories/stores/ranches/mines/etc.)

In order for wealth to be redistributed, all private property must be made public-- meaning owned by the state.

This would prevent a few members of the population (business owners) from controlling the production of goods and making loads of money off of it.

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A key aspect to communism is democratic elections. Since the goal of communism is to put the power in the hands of the people, the people should be able to directly choose who their leaders are -- and if they want leaders at all.

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Angela Davis, a 20th Century Civil Rights icon, explains why she agrees with the communist ideology.

"There must be something good about [communism], otherwise the man wouldn't be coming down on [Davis] so hard."

This quote verbalizes how a general mistrust of the US government played a part in the appeal of communism-- since the US mistrusted communism, and African Americans mistrusted the US, it's clear to see why communism became popular among African Americans.

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Angela Davis on Why She is a Communist (1972 Interview)

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Vladimir Lenin speaking to a crowd (1919).

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The ideas of communism took hold in Russia, whose people were unhappy with the Russian monarchy and desired a more equal society.

In 1917, the political party known as the Bolsheviks (led by Vladimir Lenin) overthrew the Russian czar and seized power, promising a society based on Marx's ideals.

Lenin, who only gained full control after the Russian Civil War ended in 1922, died in 1924-- meaning he never really got to build his envisioned society.

#Revolution

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After Lenin died, Joseph Stalin became the leader of the USSR.

Stalin's goal was to make the Soviet Union a world power by any means necessary.

Stalin's infamous 5-year plans raised industrial production by over 200% -- an astonishing jump that established the Soviet Union as a world power.

Stalin's reign was characterized by political repression and totalitarianism-- far from the society that Marx envisioned.

Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was victorious in WW2, but tensions grew between them and their ally, the United States.

Stalin died in 1953, having made the Soviet Union a global superpower through industrialization and totalitarianism.

#nottrueMarx

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The Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949 after their victory in the Chinese Civil War.

The new leader of China was Chairman Mao Zedong.

Mao promised his army of Chinese peasants a socialist utopia-- however, Chinese society under Mao was far from true communism.

Mao gave control of the industry to the bourgeoisie due to how underdeveloped it was. This goes directly against Marxist thought.

China under Mao was, similar to the Soviet Union under Stalin, defined by political and cultural repression, a far cry from Marx and Engels's ideas.

#Revolution

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The toll of Stalin and Mao’s regimes prove that their leadership style were very different from Marx’s ideal system.

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The toll of Stalin and Mao’s regimes prove that their leadership style were very different from Marx’s ideal system.

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The above video is a compilation of two interviews that Fidel Castro gave with American Journalists-- he discusses freedom of the press, as well as American elections.

Other attempts at communism:

1948: The Kim Dynasty takes control of North Korea and establishes a so-called communist state-- however, most outsiders agree that North Korea is not truly communist, but highly authoritarian and totalitarian.

1959: Fidel Castro and Che Guevara established a one party communist state in Cuba (which still remains today)

1979: The Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua saw the Communist FSLN overthrow the US-backed dictator and take control. Communism still exists in Nicaragua today.

Many African nations such as Ethiopia, the Congo, and Angola attempted their own forms of communism-- however, these attempts were largely unsuccessful due to the existing economic hardships in Africa.

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A short TedEd biography of Che Guevara and his role in the Cuban Revolution.

The video presents two different perspectives on Guevara: was he a heroic revolutionary or a murderous villain?

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TED-ed video on the Atlantic Slave trade-- explains causes and effects well, included numerous shocking statistics.

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The Atlantic slave trade: What too few textbooks told you - Anthony Hazard

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A History Channel video describing the horrors of the Middle Passage.

Roughly 2 million Africans did not survive their journey to the Americas.

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The American Civil War was fought over the question of slavery-- however, for many, that question was the role of slavery economically, not necessarily over the actual morality of slavery itself.

Either way, the Civil War and the following Reconstruction Era saw many major changes for African Americans.

The 13th Amendment freed slaves permanently, however many southern states were purposefully slow to enforce this legislation.

The system of sharecropping emerged in the south post-emancipation, which was an unfair labor agreement between a white landowner and a usually black laborer. Sharecropping was essentially slavery under a different name.

While the civil war was over and slavery was technically abolished-- African Americans were still far from equality.

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Civil War Recruitment Poster for African Americans

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Civil War Recruitment Poster for African Americans

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This recruitment poster shows how Black Americans were promised freedom and protection in exchange for fighting on the union side. This promise, however, was left largely unfulfilled.

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CBS Sunday Morning -- Reconstruction Era

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CBS Sunday Morning -- Reconstruction Era

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CBS Sunday Morning piece on Reconstruction and its legacy (start watching from about 5:30).

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The link above is to the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris University. The page contains many different historical sources, as well as examples of the rules and regulations that African Americans had to follow under Jim Crow.

The 20th Century saw the enactment of discriminatory Jim Crow laws in the south that segregated public places.

Places like bathrooms, water fountains, and restaurants were separated into "Whites only" and "Blacks Only".

The rise of the KKK, an anti-black hate group, further ignited racial tensions.

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Image Gallery
Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s. Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-black laws. It was a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status of second class citizens. Jim Crow represented the legitimization of anti-black racism. Many Christian ministers and theologians taught that white people were the Chosen people, black people were cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation. Craniologists, eugenicists, phrenologists, and Social Darwinists, at every educational level, buttressed the belief that black people were innately intellectually and culturally inferior to white people. Pro-segregation politicians gave eloquent speeches on the great danger of integration: the mongrelization of the white race. Newspaper and magazine writers routinely referred to black people as niggers, coons, and darkies; and worse, their articles reinforced anti-black stereotypes. Even children's games portrayed black people as inferior beings (see "From Hostility to Reverence: 100 Years of African-American Imagery in Games"). All major societal institutions reflected and supported the oppression of black people.

The Jim Crow system was undergirded by the following beliefs or rationalizations: white people were superior to black people in all important ways, including but not limited to intelligence, morality, and civilized behavior; sexual relations between black people and white people would produce a mongrel race which would destroy America; treating black people as equals would encourage interracial sexual unions; any activity which suggested social equality encouraged interracial sexual relations; if necessary, violence must be used to keep black people at the bottom of the racial hierarchy. The following Jim Crow etiquette norms show how inclusive and pervasive these norms were:

A black male could not offer his hand (to shake hands) with a white male because it implied being socially equal. Obviously, a black male could not offer his hand or any other part of his body to a white woman, because he risked being accused of rape.

Black and white people were not supposed to eat together. If they did eat together, white people were to be served first, and some sort of partition was to be placed between them.

Under no circumstance was a black male to offer to light the cigarette of a white female -- that gesture implied intimacy.

Black people were not allowed to show public affection toward one another in public, especially kissing, because it offended white people.

Jim Crow etiquette prescribed that black people were introduced to white people, never white people to black people. For example: "Mr. Peters (the white person), this is Charlie (the black person), that I spoke to you about."

White people did not use courtesy titles of respect when referring to black people, for example, Mr., Mrs., Miss., Sir, or Ma'am. Instead, black people were called by their first names. Black people had to use courtesy titles when referring to white people, and were not allowed to call them by their first names.

If a black person rode in a car driven by a white person, the black person sat in the back seat, or the back of a truck.

White motorists had the right-of-way at all intersections.

Stetson Kennedy, the author of Jim Crow Guide (1990), offered these simple rules that black people were supposed to observe in conversing with white people:

1. Never assert or even intimate that a white person is lying.

2. Never impute dishonorable intentions to a white person.

3. Never suggest that a white person is from an inferior class.

4. Never lay claim to, or overly demonstrate, superior knowledge or intelligence.

5. Never curse a white person.

6. Never laugh derisively at a white person.

7. Never comment upon the appearance of a white female.

Jim Crow etiquette operated in conjunction with Jim Crow laws (black codes). When most people think of Jim Crow they think of laws (not the Jim Crow etiquette) which excluded black people from public transport and facilities, juries, jobs, and neighborhoods. The passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution had granted black people the same legal protections as white people. However, after 1877, and the election of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, southern and border states began restricting the liberties of black people. Unfortunately for black people, the Supreme Court helped undermine the Constitutional protections of black people with the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) case, which legitimized Jim Crow laws and the Jim Crow way of life.

In 1890, Louisiana passed the "Separate Car Law," which purported to aid passenger comfort by creating "equal but separate" cars for black and white people. This was a ruse. No public accommodations, including railway travel, provided black people with equal facilities. The Louisiana law made it illegal for black people to sit in coach seats reserved for white people, and white people could not sit in seats reserved for black people. In 1891, a group of black people decided to test the Jim Crow law. They had Homer A. Plessy, who was seven-eighths white and one-eighth black (therefore, black), sit in the white-only railroad coach. He was arrested. Plessy's lawyer argued that Louisiana did not have the right to label one citizen as white and another black for the purposes of restricting their rights and privileges. In Plessy, the Supreme Court stated that so long as state governments provided legal process and legal freedoms for black people, equal to those of white people, they could maintain separate institutions to facilitate these rights. The Court, by a 7-2 vote, upheld the Louisiana law, declaring that racial separation did not necessarily mean an abrogation of equality. In practice, Plessy represented the legitimization of two societies: one white, and advantaged; the other, black, disadvantaged and despised.

Black people were denied the right to vote by poll taxes (fees charged to poor black people), white primaries (only Democrats could vote, only white people could be Democrats), and literacy tests ("Name all the Vice Presidents and Supreme Court Justices throughout America's history"). Plessy sent this message to southern and border states: Discrimination against black people is acceptable.

Jim Crow states passed statutes severely regulating social interactions between the races. Jim Crow signs were placed above water fountains, door entrances and exits, and in front of public facilities. There were separate hospitals for black people and white people, separate prisons, separate public and private schools, separate churches, separate cemeteries, separate public restrooms, and separate public accommodations. In most instances, the black facilities were grossly inferior -- generally, older, less-well-kept. In other cases, there were no black facilities -- no Colored public restroom, no public beach, no place to sit or eat. Plessy gave Jim Crow states a legal way to ignore their constitutional obligations to their black citizens.

Jim Crow laws touched every aspect of everyday life. For example, in 1935, Oklahoma prohibited black and white people from boating together. Boating implied social equality. In 1905, Georgia established separate parks for black people and white people. In 1930, Birmingham, Alabama, made it illegal for black people and white people to play checkers or dominoes together. Here are some of the typical Jim Crow laws, as compiled by the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site Interpretive Staff:

Barbers. No colored barber shall serve as a barber (to) white girls or women (Georgia).

Blind Wards. The board of trustees shall...maintain a separate building...on separate ground for the admission, care, instruction, and support of all blind persons of the colored or black race (Louisiana).

Burial. The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons (Georgia).

Buses.All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races (Alabama).

Child Custody. It shall be unlawful for any parent, relative, or other white person in this State, having the control or custody of any white child, by right of guardianship, natural or acquired, or otherwise, to dispose of, give or surrender such white child permanently into the custody, control, maintenance, or support, of a negro (South Carolina).

Education.The schools for white children and the schools for negro children shall be conducted separately (Florida).

Libraries. The state librarian is directed to fit up and maintain a separate place for the use of the colored people who may come to the library for the purpose of reading books or periodicals (North Carolina).

Mental Hospitals. The Board of Control shall see that proper and distinct apartments are arranged for said patients, so that in no case shall Negroes and white persons be together (Georgia).

Militia. The white and colored militia shall be separately enrolled, and shall never be compelled to serve in the same organization. No organization of colored troops shall be permitted where white troops are available and where whites are permitted to be organized, colored troops shall be under the command of white officers (North Carolina).

Nurses. No person or corporation shall require any White female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed (Alabama).

Prisons. The warden shall see that the white convicts shall have separate apartments for both eating and sleeping from the negro convicts (Mississippi).

Reform Schools. The children of white and colored races committed to the houses of reform shall be kept entirely separate from each other (Kentucky).

Teaching. Any instructor who shall teach in any school, college or institution where members of the white and colored race are received and enrolled as pupils for instruction shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined... (Oklahoma).

Wine and Beer. All persons licensed to conduct the business of selling beer or wine...shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room at any time (Georgia).¹

The Jim Crow laws and system of etiquette were undergirded by violence, real and threatened. Black people who violated Jim Crow norms, for example, drinking from the white water fountain or trying to vote, risked their homes, their jobs, even their lives. White people could physically beat black people with impunity. Black people had little legal recourse against these assaults because the Jim Crow criminal justice system was all-white: police, prosecutors, judges, juries, and prison officials. Violence was instrumental for Jim Crow. It was a method of social control. The most extreme forms of Jim Crow violence were lynchings.

Lynchings were public, often sadistic, murders carried out by mobs. Between 1882, when the first reliable data were collected, and 1968, when lynchings had become rare, there were 4,730 known lynchings, including 3,440 black men and women. Most of the victims of Lynch Law were hanged or shot, but some were burned at the stake, castrated, beaten with clubs, or dismembered. In the mid-1800s, white people constituted the majority of victims (and perpetrators); however, by the period of Radical Reconstruction, black people became the most frequent lynching victims. This is an early indication that lynching was used as an intimidation tool to keep black people, in this case the newly freed people, "in their places." The great majority of lynchings occurred in southern and border states, where the resentment against black people ran deepest. According to the social economist Gunnar Myrdal (1944): "The southern states account for nine-tenths of the lynchings. More than two thirds of the remaining one-tenth occurred in the six states which immediately border the South" (pp. 560-561).

Many white people claimed that although lynchings were distasteful, they were necessary supplements to the criminal justice system because black people were prone to violent crimes, especially the rapes of white women. Arthur Raper investigated nearly a century of lynchings and concluded that approximately one-third of all the victims were falsely accused (Myrdal, 1944, p. 561).

Under Jim Crow any and all sexual interactions between black men and white women was illegal, illicit, socially repugnant, and within the Jim Crow definition of rape. Although only 19.2 percent of the lynching victims between 1882 to 1951 were even accused of rape, lynch law was often supported on the popular belief that lynchings were necessary to protect white women from black rapists. Myrdal (1944) refutes this belief in this way: "There is much reason to believe that this figure (19.2) has been inflated by the fact that a mob which makes the accusation of rape is secure from any further investigation; by the broad Southern definition of rape to include all sexual relations between Negro men and white women; and by the psychopathic fears of white women in their contacts with Negro men" (pp. 561-562). Most black people were lynched for demanding civil rights, violating Jim Crow etiquette or laws, or in the aftermath of race riots.

Lynchings were most common in small and middle-sized towns where black people often were economic competitors to the local white people. These white people resented any economic and political gains made by black people. Lynchers were seldomly arrested, and if arrested, rarely convicted. Raper (1933) estimated that "at least one-half of the lynchings are carried out with police officers participating, and that in nine-tenths of the others the officers either condone or wink at the mob action" (pp. 13-14). Lynching served many purposes: it was cheap entertainment; it served as a rallying, uniting point for white people; it functioned as an ego-massage for low-income, low-status white people; it was a method of defending white domination and helped stop or retard the fledgling social equality movement.

Lynch mobs directed their hatred against one (sometimes several) victims. The victim was an example of what happened to a black man who tried to vote, or who looked at a white woman, or who tried to get a white man's job. Unfortunately for black people, sometimes the mob was not satisfied to murder a single or several victims. Instead, in the spirit of pogroms, the mobs went into black communities and destroyed additional lives and property. Their immediate goal was to drive out -- through death or expulsion -- all black people; the larger goal was to maintain, at all costs, white supremacy. These pogrom-like actions are often referred to as riots; however, Gunnar Myrdal (1944) was right when he described these "riots" as "a terrorization or massacre...a mass lynching" (p. 566). Interestingly, these mass lynchings were primarily urban phenomena, whereas the lynching of single victims was primarily a rural phenomena.

James Weldon Johnson, the famous black writer, labeled 1919 as "The Red Summer." It was red from racial tension; it was red from bloodletting. During the summer of 1919, there were race riots in Chicago, Illinois; Knoxville and Nashville, Tennessee; Charleston, South Carolina; Omaha, Nebraska; and two dozen other cities. W.E.B. DuBois (1986), the black social scientist and civil rights activist, wrote: "During that year seventy-seven Negroes were lynched, of whom one was a woman and eleven were soldiers; of these, fourteen were publicly burned, eleven of them being burned alive. That year there were race riots large and small in twenty-six American cities including thirty-eight killed in a Chicago riot of August; from twenty-five to fifty in Phillips County, Arkansas; and six killed in Washington" (p. 747).

The riots of 1919 were not the first or last "mass lynchings" of black people, as evidenced by the race riots in Wilmington, North Carolina (1898); Atlanta, Georgia (1906); Springfield, Illinois (1908); East St. Louis, Illinois (1917); Tulsa, Oklahoma (1921); and Detroit, Michigan (1943). Joseph Boskin, author of Urban Racial Violence (1976), claimed that the riots of the 1900s had the following traits:

1. In each of the race riots, with few exceptions, it was white people that sparked the incident by attacking black people.

2. In the majority of the riots, some extraordinary social condition prevailed at the time of the riot: prewar social changes, wartime mobility, post-war adjustment, or economic depression.

3. The majority of the riots occurred during the hot summer months.

4. Rumor played an extremely important role in causing many riots. Rumors of some criminal activity by blacks against whites perpetuated the actions of the white mobs.

5. The police force, more than any other institution, was invariably involved as a precipitating cause or perpetuating factor in the riots. In almost every one of the riots, the police sided with the attackers, either by actually participating in, or by failing to quell the attack.

6. In almost every instance, the fighting occurred within the black community. (pp. 14-15)

Boskin omitted the following: the mass media, especially newspapers often published inflammatory articles about "black criminals" immediately before the riots; black people were not only killed, but their homes and businesses were looted, and many who did not flee were left homeless; and, the goal of the white rioters, as was true of white lynchers of single victims, was to instill fear and terror into black people, thereby buttressing white domination. The Jim Crow hierarchy could not work without violence being used against those on the bottom rung. George Fredrickson (1971), a historian, stated it this way: "Lynching represented...a way of using fear and terror to check 'dangerous' tendencies in a black community considered to be ineffectively regimented or supervised. As such it constituted a confession that the regular institutions of a segregated society provided an inadequate measure of day-to-day control" (p. 272).

Many black people resisted the indignities of Jim Crow, and, far too often, they paid for their bravery with their lives.

© Dr. David Pilgrim
Professor of Sociology
Ferris State University
Sept., 2000
Edited 2012

Note

1 This list was derived from a larger list composed by the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site Interpretive Staff. Last Updated January 5, 1998. The web address is: http//www.nps.gov/malu/documents/jim crowlaws.htm.

References

Boskin, J. (1976). Urban racial violence in the twentieth century (2nd ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Glencoe Press.

Dubois, W. E. B. (1986). Writings. N. Huggins, (Ed.). New York NY: Literary Classics of the United States.

Kennedy, S. (1959/1990). Jim Crow guide: The way it was. Boca Raton, FL: Florida Atlantic University Press.

Myrdal, G. (1944). An American dilemma: the Negro problem and modern democracy. New York, NY: Harper.

Raper, A. F. (1933). The tragedy of lynching. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

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Image Gallery Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s. Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-black laws. It was a way of life.

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Vox video (9 min) on the events of the Tulsa Race Massacre -- and the following cover-up.

1921: White inhabitants of Tulsa, Oklahoma, spend two days burning and destroying 35 blocks of black neighborhoods, an event that came to be known as the Tulsa Race Massacre.

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The massacre of Tulsa's "Black Wall Street"

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A link to actor Paul Robeson's testimony before HUAC in 1956 regarding the removal of his passport due to suspected communist ties.

This testimony is a perfect example of how "communist ties" was just an excuse to target and persecute prominent African Americans.

#PaulRobeson

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"You Are the Un-Americans, and You Ought to be Ashamed of Yourselves": Paul Robeson Appears Before HUAC

Many African-American witnesses subpoenaed to testify at the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) hearings in the 1950s were asked to denounce Paul Robeson (1888-1976) in order to obtain future employment. Robeson, an All-American football player and recipient of a Phi Beta Kappa key at Rutgers, received a law degree at Columbia. He became an internationally acclaimed concert performer and actor as well as a persuasive political speaker. In 1949, Robeson was the subject of controversy after newspapers reports of public statements that African Americans would not fight in "an imperialist war." In 1950, his passport was revoked. Several years later, Robeson refused to sign an affidavit stating that he was not a Communist and initiated an unsuccessful lawsuit. In the following testimony to a HUAC hearing, ostensibly convened to gain information regarding his passport suit, Robeson refused to answer questions concerning his political activities and lectured bigoted Committee members Gordon H. Scherer and Chairman Francis E.Walter about African-American history and civil rights. In 1958, the Supreme Court ruled that a citizen's right to travel could not be taken away without due process and Robeson' passport was returned.

Testimony of Paul Robeson before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, June 12, 1956

THE CHAIRMAN: The Committee will be in order. This morning the Committee resumes its series of hearings on the vital issue of the use of American passports as travel documents in furtherance of the objectives of the Communist conspiracy. . . .

Mr. ARENS: Now, during the course of the process in which you were applying for this passport, in July of 1954, were you requested to submit a non-Communist affidavit?

Mr. ROBESON: We had a long discussion-with my counsel, who is in the room, Mr. [Leonard B.] Boudin-with the State Department, about just such an affidavit and I was very precise not only in the application but with the State Department, headed by Mr. Henderson and Mr. McLeod, that under no conditions would I think of signing any such affidavit, that it is a complete contradiction of the rights of American citizens.

Mr. ARENS: Did you comply with the requests?

Mr. ROBESON: I certainly did not and I will not.

Mr. ARENS: Are you now a member of the Communist Party?

Mr. ROBESON: Oh please, please, please.

Mr. SCHERER: Please answer, will you, Mr. Robeson?

Mr. ROBESON: What is the Communist Party? What do you mean by that?

Mr. SCHERER: I ask that you direct the witness to answer the question.

Mr. ROBESON: What do you mean by the Communist Party? As far as I know it is a legal party like the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Do you mean a party of people who have sacrificed for my people, and for all Americans and workers, that they can live in dignity? Do you mean that party?

Mr. ARENS: Are you now a member of the Communist Party?

Mr. ROBESON: Would you like to come to the ballot box when I vote and take out the ballot and see?

Mr. ARENS: Mr. Chairman, I respectfully suggest that the witness be ordered and directed to answer that question.

THE CHAIRMAN: You are directed to answer the question.

( The witness consulted with his counsel.)

Mr. ROBESON: I stand upon the Fifth Amendment of the American Constitution.

Mr. ARENS: Do you mean you invoke the Fifth Amendment?

Mr. ROBESON: I invoke the Fifth Amendment.

Mr. ARENS: Do you honestly apprehend that if you told this Committee truthfully-

Mr. ROBESON: I have no desire to consider anything. I invoke the Fifth Amendment, and it is none of your business what I would like to do, and I invoke the Fifth Amendment. And forget it.

THE CHAIRMAN: You are directed to answer that question.

MR, ROBESON: I invoke the Fifth Amendment, and so I am answering it, am I not?

Mr. ARENS: I respectfully suggest the witness be ordered and directed to answer the question as to whether or not he honestly apprehends, that if he gave us a truthful answer to this last principal question, he would be supplying information which might be used against him in a criminal proceeding.

( The witness consulted with his counsel.)

THE CHAIRMAN: You are directed to answer that question, Mr. Robeson.

Mr. ROBESON: Gentlemen, in the first place, wherever I have been in the world, Scandinavia, England, and many places, the first to die in the struggle against Fascism were the Communists and I laid many wreaths upon graves of Communists. It is not criminal, and the Fifth Amendment has nothing to do with criminality. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Warren, has been very clear on that in many speeches, that the Fifth Amendment does not have anything to do with the inference of criminality. I invoke the Fifth Amendment.

Mr. ARENS: Have you ever been known under the name of "John Thomas"?

Mr. ROBESON: Oh, please, does somebody here want-are you suggesting-do you want me to be put up for perjury some place? "John Thomas"! My name is Paul Robeson, and anything I have to say, or stand for, I have said in public all over the world, and that is why I am here today.

Mr. SCHERER: I ask that you direct the witness to answer the question. He is making a speech.

Mr. FRIEDMAN: Excuse me, Mr. Arens, may we have the photographers take their pictures, and then desist, because it is rather nerve-racking for them to be there.

THE CHAIRMAN: They will take the pictures.

Mr. ROBESON: I am used to it and I have been in moving pictures. Do you want me to pose for it good? Do you want me to smile? I cannot smile when I am talking to him.

Mr. ARENS: I put it to you as a fact, and ask you to affirm or deny the fact, that your Communist Party name was "John Thomas."

Mr. ROBESON: I invoke the Fifth Amendment. This is really ridiculous.

Mr. ARENS: Now, tell this Committee whether or not you know Nathan Gregory Silvermaster.

Mr. SCHERER: Mr. Chairman, this is not a laughing matter.

Mr. ROBESON: It is a laughing matter to me, this is really complete nonsense.

Mr. ARENS: Have you ever known Nathan Gregory Silvermaster?

( The witness consulted with his counsel.)

Mr. ROBESON: I invoke the Fifth Amendment.

Mr. ARENS: Do you honestly apprehend that if you told whether you know Nathan Gregory Silvermaster you would be supplying information that could be used against you in a criminal proceeding?

Mr. ROBESON: I have not the slightest idea what you are talking about. I invoke the Fifth-

Mr. ARENS: I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the witness be directed to answer that question.

THE CHAIRMAN: You are directed to answer the question.

Mr. ROBESON: I invoke the Fifth.

Mr. SCHERER: The witness talks very loud when he makes a speech, but when he invokes the Fifth Amendment I cannot hear him.

Mr. ROBESON: I invoked the Fifth Amendment very loudly. You know I am an actor, and I have medals for diction.

. . . .

Mr. ROBESON: Oh, gentlemen, I thought I was here about some passports.

Mr. ARENS: We will get into that in just a few moments.

Mr. ROBESON: This is complete nonsense.

. . . .

THE CHAIRMAN: This is legal. This is not only legal but usual. By a unanimous vote, this Committee has been instructed to perform this very distasteful task.

Mr. ROBESON: To whom am I talking?

THE CHAIRMAN: You are speaking to the Chairman of this Committee.

Mr. ROBESON: Mr. Walter?

THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.

Mr. ROBESON: The Pennsylvania Walter?

THE CHAIRMAN: That is right.

Mr. ROBESON: Representative of the steelworkers?

THE CHAIRMAN: That is right.

Mr. ROBESON: Of the coal-mining workers and not United States Steel, by any chance? A great patriot.

THE CHAIRMAN: That is right.

Mr. ROBESON: You are the author of all of the bills that are going to keep all kinds of decent people out of the country.

THE CHAIRMAN: No, only your kind.

Mr. ROBESON: Colored people like myself, from the West Indies and all kinds. And just the Teutonic Anglo-Saxon stock that you would let come in.

THE CHAIRMAN: We are trying to make it easier to get rid of your kind, too.

Mr. ROBESON: You do not want any colored people to come in?

THE CHAIRMAN: Proceed. . . .

Mr. ROBESON: Could I say that the reason that I am here today, you know, from the mouth of the State Department itself, is: I should not be allowed to travel because I have struggled for years for the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa. For many years I have so labored and I can say modestly that my name is very much honored all over Africa, in my struggles for their independence. That is the kind of independence like Sukarno got in Indonesia. Unless we are double-talking, then these efforts in the interest of Africa would be in the same context. The other reason that I am here today, again from the State Department and from the court record of the court of appeals, is that when I am abroad I speak out against the injustices against the Negro people of this land. I sent a message to the Bandung Conference and so forth. That is why I am here. This is the basis, and I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting for the rights of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America. My mother was born in your state, Mr. Walter, and my mother was a Quaker, and my ancestors in the time of Washington baked bread for George Washington's troops when they crossed the Delaware, and my own father was a slave. I stand here struggling for the rights of my people to be full citizens in this country. And they are not. They are not in Mississippi. And they are not in Montgomery, Alabama. And they are not in Washington. They are nowhere, and that is why I am here today. You want to shut up every Negro who has the courage to stand up and fight for the rights of his people, for the rights of workers, and I have been on many a picket line for the steelworkers too. And that is why I am here today. . . .

Mr. ARENS: Did you make a trip to Europe in 1949 and to the Soviet Union?

Mr. ROBESON: Yes, I made a trip. To England. And I sang.

Mr. ARENS: Where did you go?

Mr. ROBESON: I went first to England, where I was with the Philadelphia Orchestra, one of two American groups which was invited to England. I did a long concert tour in England and Denmark and Sweden, and I also sang for the Soviet people, one of the finest musical audiences in the world. Will you read what the Porgy and Bess people said? They never heard such applause in their lives. One of the most musical peoples in the world, and the great composers and great musicians, very cultured people, and Tolstoy, and-

THE CHAIRMAN: We know all of that.

Mr. ROBESON: They have helped our culture and we can learn a lot.

Mr. ARENS: Did you go to Paris on that trip?

Mr. ROBESON: I went to Paris.

Mr. ARENS: And while you were in Paris, did you tell an audience there that the American Negro would never go to war against the Soviet government?

Mr. ROBESON: May I say that is slightly out of context? May I explain to you what I did say? I remember the speech very well, and the night before, in London, and do not take the newspaper, take me: I made the speech, gentlemen, Mr. So-and-So. It happened that the night before, in London, before I went to Paris . . . and will you please listen?

Mr. ARENS: We are listening.

Mr. ROBESON: Two thousand students from various parts of the colonial world, students who since then have become very important in their governments, in places like Indonesia and India, and in many parts of Africa, two thousand students asked me and Mr. [Dr. Y. M.] Dadoo, a leader of the Indian people in South Africa, when we addressed this conference, and remember I was speaking to a peace conference, they asked me and Mr. Dadoo to say there that they were struggling for peace, that they did not want war against anybody. Two thousand students who came from populations that would range to six or seven hundred million people.

Mr. KEARNEY: Do you know anybody who wants war?

Mr. ROBESON: They asked me to say in their name that they did not want war. That is what I said. No part of my speech made in Paris says fifteen million American Negroes would do anything. I said it was my feeling that the American people would struggle for peace, and that has since been underscored by the President of these United States. Now, in passing, I said-

Mr. KEARNEY: Do you know of any people who want war?

Mr. ROBESON: Listen to me. I said it was unthinkable to me that any people would take up arms, in the name of an Eastland, to go against anybody. Gentlemen, I still say that. This United States Government should go down to Mississippi and protect my people. That is what should happen.

THE CHAIRMAN: Did you say what was attributed to you?

Mr. ROBESON: I did not say it in that context.

Mr. ARENS: I lay before you a document containing an article, "I Am Looking for Full Freedom," by Paul Robeson, in a publication called the Worker, dated July 3, 1949.

At the Paris Conference I said it was unthinkable that the Negro people of America or elsewhere in the world could be drawn into war with the Soviet Union.

Mr. ROBESON: Is that saying the Negro people would do anything? I said it is unthinkable. I did not say that there [in Paris]: I said that in the Worker.

Mr. ARENS:

I repeat it with hundredfold emphasis: they will not.

Did you say that?

Mr. ROBESON: I did not say that in Paris, I said that in America. And, gentlemen, they have not yet done so, and it is quite clear that no Americans, no people in the world probably, are going to war with the Soviet Union. So I was rather prophetic, was I not?

Mr. ARENS: On that trip to Europe, did you go to Stockholm?

Mr. ROBESON: I certainly did, and I understand that some people in the American Embassy tried to break up my concert. They were not successful.

Mr. ARENS: While you were in Stockholm, did you make a little speech?

Mr. ROBESON: I made all kinds of speeches, yes.

Mr. ARENS: Let me read you a quotation.

Mr. ROBESON: Let me listen.

Mr. ARENS: Do so, please.

Mr. ROBESON: I am a lawyer.

Mr. KEARNEY: It would be a revelation if you would listen to counsel.

Mr. ROBESON: In good company, I usually listen, but you know people wander around in such fancy places. Would you please let me read my statement at some point?

THE CHAIRMAN: We will consider your statement.

Mr. ARENS:

I do not hesitate one second to state clearly and unmistakably: I belong to the American resistance movement which fights against American imperialism, just as the resistance movement fought against Hitler.

Mr. ROBESON: Just like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman were underground railroaders, and fighting for our freedom, you bet your life.

THE CHAIRMAN: I am going to have to insist that you listen to these questions.

MR, ROBESON: I am listening.

Mr. ARENS:

If the American warmongers fancy that they could win America's millions of Negroes for a war against those countries (i.e., the Soviet Union and the peoples' democracies) then they ought to understand that this will never be the case. Why should the Negroes ever fight against the only nations of the world where racial discrimination is prohibited, and where the people can live freely? Never! I can assure you, they will never fight against either the Soviet Union or the peoples' democracies.

Did you make that statement?

Mr. ROBESON: I do not remember that. But what is perfectly clear today is that nine hundred million other colored people have told you that they will not. Four hundred million in India, and millions everywhere, have told you, precisely, that the colored people are not going to die for anybody: they are going to die for their independence. We are dealing not with fifteen million colored people, we are dealing with hundreds of millions.

Mr. KEARNEY: The witness has answered the question and he does not have to make a speech. . . .

Mr. ROBESON: In Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi, no color prejudice like in Washington. It was the first time I felt like a human being. Where I did not feel the pressure of color as I feel [it] in this Committee today.

Mr. SCHERER: Why do you not stay in Russia?

Mr. ROBESON: Because my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here, and have a part of it just like you. And no Fascist-minded people will drive me from it. Is that clear? I am for peace with the Soviet Union, and I am for peace with China, and I am not for peace or friendship with the Fascist Franco, and I am not for peace with Fascist Nazi Germans. I am for peace with decent people.

Mr. SCHERER: You are here because you are promoting the Communist cause.

Mr. ROBESON: I am here because I am opposing the neo-Fascist cause which I see arising in these committees. You are like the Alien [and] Sedition Act, and Jefferson could be sitting here, and Frederick Douglass could be sitting here, and Eugene Debs could be here.

. . . .

THE CHAIRMAN: Now, what prejudice are you talking about? You were graduated from Rutgers and you were graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. I remember seeing you play football at Lehigh.

Mr. ROBESON: We beat Lehigh.

THE CHAIRMAN: And we had a lot of trouble with you.

Mr. ROBESON: That is right. DeWysocki was playing in my team.

THE CHAIRMAN: There was no prejudice against you. Why did you not send your son to Rutgers?

Mr. ROBESON: Just a moment. This is something that I challenge very deeply, and very sincerely: that the success of a few Negroes, including myself or Jackie Robinson can make up-and here is a study from Columbia University-for seven hundred dollars a year for thousands of Negro families in the South. My father was a slave, and I have cousins who are sharecroppers, and I do not see my success in terms of myself. That is the reason my own success has not meant what it should mean: I have sacrificed literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars for what I believe in.

Mr. ARENS: While you were in Moscow, did you make a speech lauding Stalin?

Mr. ROBESON: I do not know.

Mr. ARENS: Did you say, in effect, that Stalin was a great man, and Stalin had done much for the Russian people, for all of the nations of the world, for all working people of the earth? Did you say something to that effect about Stalin when you were in Moscow?

Mr. ROBESON: I cannot remember.

Mr. ARENS: Do you have a recollection of praising Stalin?

Mr. ROBESON: I said a lot about Soviet people, fighting for the peoples of the earth.

Mr. ARENS: Did you praise Stalin?

Mr. ROBESON: I do not remember.

Mr. ARENS: Have you recently changed your mind about Stalin?

Mr. ROBESON: Whatever has happened to Stalin, gentlemen, is a question for the Soviet Union, and I would not argue with a representative of the people who, in building America, wasted sixty to a hundred million lives of my people, black people drawn from Africa on the plantations. You are responsible, and your forebears, for sixty million to one hundred million black people dying in the slave ships and on the plantations, and don't ask me about anybody, please.

Mr. ARENS: I am glad you called our attention to that slave problem. While you were in Soviet Russia, did you ask them there to show you the slave labor camps?

THE CHAIRMAN: You have been so greatly interested in slaves, I should think that you would want to see that.

Mr. ROBESON: The slaves I see are still in a kind of semiserfdom. I am interested in the place I am, and in the country that can do something about it. As far as I know, about the slave camps, they were Fascist prisoners who had murdered millions of the Jewish people, and who would have wiped out millions of the Negro people, could they have gotten a hold of them. That is all I know about that.

Mr. ARENS: Tell us whether or not you have changed your opinion in the recent past about Stalin.

Mr. ROBESON: I have told you, mister, that I would not discuss anything with the people who have murdered sixty million of my people, and I will not discuss Stalin with you.

Mr. ARENS: You would not, of course, discuss with us the slave labor camps in Soviet Russia.

Mr. ROBESON: I will discuss Stalin when I may be among the Russian people some day, singing for them, I will discuss it there. It is their problem.

. . . .

Mr. ARENS: Now I would invite your attention, if you please, to the Daily Worker of June 29, 1949, with reference to a get-together with you and Ben Davis. Do you know Ben Davis?

Mr. ROBESON: One of my dearest friends, one of the finest Americans you can imagine, born of a fine family, who went to Amherst and was a great man.

THE CHAIRMAN: The answer is yes?

Mr. ROBESON: Nothing could make me prouder than to know him.

THE CHAIRMAN: That answers the question.

Mr. ARENS: Did I understand you to laud his patriotism?

Mr. ROBESON: I say that he is as patriotic an American as there can be, and you gentlemen belong with the Alien and Sedition Acts, and you are the nonpatriots, and you are the un-Americans, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

THE CHAIRMAN: Just a minute, the hearing is now adjourned.

Mr. ROBESON: I should think it would be.

THE CHAIRMAN: I have endured all of this that I can.

Mr. ROBESON: Can I read my statement?

THE CHAIRMAN: No, you cannot read it. The meeting is adjourned.

Mr. ROBESON: I think it should be, and you should adjourn this forever, that is what I would say. . . .

Source: Congress, House, Committee on Un-American Activities, Investigation of the Unauthorized Use of U.S. Passports, 84th Congress, Part 3, June 12, 1956; in Thirty Years of Treason: Excerpts from Hearings Before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1938-1968, Eric Bentley, ed. (New York: Viking Press, 1971), 770.

See Also:"They Want to Muzzle Public Opinion": John Howard Lawson's Warning to the American Public
"The World Was at Stake": Three "Friendly" HUAC Hollywood Witnesses Assess Pro-Soviet Wartime Films
"A Damaging Impression of Hollywood Has Spread": Movie "Czar" Eric Johnston Testifies before HUAC
"Have You No Sense of Decency": The Army-McCarthy Hearings
"Communists are second to none in our devotion to our people and to our country": Prosecution and Defense Statements, 1949 Trial of American Communist Party Leaders
"Damage": Collier's Assesses the Army-McCarthy Hearings
"Not Only Ridiculous, but Dangerous": Collier's Objects to Joseph McCarthy's Attacks on the Press
"I Cannot and Will Not Cut My Conscience to Fit This Year's Fashions": Lillian Hellman Refuses to Name Names
"Enemies from Within": Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's Accusations of Disloyalty
"I Have Sung in Hobo Jungles, and I Have Sung for the Rockefellers": Pete Seeger Refuses to "Sing" for HUAC
"We Must Keep the Labor Unions Clean": "Friendly" HUAC Witnesses Ronald Reagan and Walt Disney Blame Hollywood Labor Conflicts on Communist Infiltration
"National Suicide": Margaret Chase Smith and Six Republican Senators Speak Out Against Joseph McCarthy's Attack on "Individual Freedom"

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Many African-American witnesses subpoenaed to testify at the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) hearings in the 1950s were asked to denounce Paul Robeson (1888-1976) in order to obtain future employment. Robeson, an All-American football player and recipient of a Phi Beta Kappa key at Rutgers, received a law degree at Columbia.

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The video above examines the rise of Chinese president Xi Jinping, and compares his rule to that of Mao Zedong. It is long (21 minutes) but informational.

Communism up until the present:

After Stalin's death, the Soviet Union gradually moved further and further away from communism until its collapse in 1991.

The Chinese Communist Party is still in control of China today-- however, most agree that China's current political system is closer to authoritarianism and even capitalism than it is to true communism.

The only countries claiming to be communist in 2024 are China, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, and North Korea.

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What is Communism? Website-- Stanford University

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What is Communism? Website-- Stanford University

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A website, published by Stanford, detailing the history and aspects of communism. Simple layout and easy to navigate.

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Foundation, Goals, and Priorities Implementation
Communism was an economic-political philosophy founded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the second half of the 19th century. Marx and Engels met in 1844, and discovered that they had similar principles. In 1848 they wrote and published "The Communist Manifesto." They desired to end capitalism feeling that it was the social class system that led to the exploitation of workers. The workers that were exploited would develop class consciousness. Then there would be a fundamental process of class conflict that would be resolved through revolutionary struggle. In this conflict, the proletariat will rise up against the bourgeoisie and establish a communist society. Marx and Engels thought of the proletariat as the individuals with labor power, and the bourgeoisie as those who own the means of production in a capitalist society. The state would pass through a phase, often thought of as a socialism, and eventually settle finally on a pure communist society. In a communist society, all private ownership would be abolished, and the means of production would belong to the entire community. In the communist movement, a popular slogan stated that everyone gave according to their abilities and received according to their needs. Thus, the needs of a society would be put above and beyond the specific needs of an individual.

It became the dominant political philosophy of many countries across Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and South America. In the late 19th century, communist philosophy began to develop in Russia. In 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power through the October Revolution. This was the first time any group with a decidedly Marxist viewpoint managed to seize power. They changed their name to the Communist Party, and sent their ideals to all European socialist parties. They then nationalized all public property as well as putting factories and railroads under government control. Stalin continued leading by the communist philosophies, and extended the growth of the the USSR. This example of Communism has been followed in many countries since then, including China.

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Foundation , Goals, and Priorities Implementation Communism was an economic-political philosophy founded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the second half of the 19th century. Marx and Engels met in 1844, and discovered that they had similar principles. In 1848 they wrote and published "The Communist Manifesto."

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In the McCarthy Era, to Be Black Was to Be Red - JSTOR Daily

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JSTOR -- African Americans under McCarthyism

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JSTOR -- African Americans under McCarthyism

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A short article about how the FBI targeted African American figures in their crusade against communism.

"You can kiss the feet of Stalin, have a sickle and hammer engraved on your teeth… and you will only be a “suspected Communist.” But if you dared reveal that you hate Jim Crow… you immediately become a d*** Red.” - Baltimore African American columnist

#PaulRobeson

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Society adored them, but the U.S. government thought they were dangerous: black radical leaders Paul Robeson, Alice Childress, and Lorraine Hansberry transformed the cultural sphere in the U.S and beyond. They were playwrights, singers, and performers, but they were also rabble-rousers, dissidents, and even enemies of the state.

Paul Robeson was a giant, both in the struggle for civil rights, but more importantly as an actor, playwright and singer. He shared the world peace prize with Picasso and Pablo Neruda. He could count among his friends Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, and Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India. The famed anarchist Emma Goldman, no friend to statesmen, also considered him a dear friend.

Alice Childress received the Tony award for the role she played in the 1944 Broadway classic Anna Lucasia. With Gold in the Tress (1952), she would become the first black woman to professionally produce a play in the United States, and, years later, the only African American woman to have been a playwright for four decades. (She wasn't the first black woman to produce on Broadway, however. That mantle belonged to Lorraine Hansberry, with A Raisin in the Sun, who was also the first black female dramatist to win the New York Drama Critics Circle award.)

In the 1950s, the general public learned about these figures by flicking through art magazines and the New York Times, reading reviews about the groundbreaking advancements they made for the black arts. The more politically inclined might find articles written in Robeson's Freedom newspaper, where Childress would write a fictional column on the travails of the black domestic worker, and Hansberry would report from Kenya, Korea, and Brazil, on the struggles of women to emancipate their people.

Because they were open about being Marxists, the U.S. government led a concerted effort to banish them from the public eye.

From the perspective of the FBI, however, their names were known for another reason: an infamous watchlist, which set its sights on perceived "traitors" to the nation. Because of their association with black theatre projects like the Committee for the Negro of the Arts, or, for Robeson and Hansberry, because they were open about being Marxists, the U.S. government led a concerted effort to banish them from the public eye. After the House Un-American Activities Committee began targeting artists, Childress too appeared on the FBI's watchlist for her activism and her open association with communists.

From one perspective, perhaps this kind of targeting was inevitable for black artists, especially those who were politically active. As a columnist for the Baltimore African American put it at the time:

You can kiss the feet of Stalin, have a sickle and hammer engraved on your teeth... and you will only be a "suspected Communist." But if you dared reveal that you hate Jim Crow... you immediately become a Damn Red."

When the names of Robeson, Hansberry, and Childress appeared on the FBI list of suspected communists, they were accompanied by the name of Harry Belafonte, the man who would become one of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s most trusted confidants. During the era of McCarthyism, to be black was to be red.

But from another angle, these public figures' Marxist sympathies were shared by a huge proportion of the Afro-American intelligentsia. Claude McKay and Langston Hughes, to provide two examples, are often attributed, alongside Alain Locke, as being the architects of the Harlem Renaissance. They both openly praised the Soviet Union. Indeed, both spent extensive amounts of time there.

As a student, Hansberry was a member of the Communist Party of the USA, and she went to work for Robeson's newspaper immediately after graduating. Childress's apartment became a hub for Herbert Aptheker and other underground Marxist academics. It was no secret that, like many in the arts at the time, they were socialists.

From the 1920s onwards, the black arts were intertwined with the cultural institutions of the U.S. radical left. Where would Childress and Hansberry be without the footway that was paved by black women before them? These included women like Louise Thompson, who found theatrical opportunity in a land that was opportunistically trying to position itself as the protector of African Americans and the colonized: the USSR. After returning from sold out shows and holiday resort to a country of segregation and Jim Crow, they became committed to fighting for a new social order.

Thompson, a key writer of the Harlem renaissance, is most famous for her thesis that black women were "triply oppressed," as blacks, women, and workers (a precursor to the modern notion of intersectionality). It was Thompson who let Langston Hughes know, via telegram, that the USSR planned to shoot a new film called "Black and White." She led a group of more than twenty African Americans on a trip to the USSR, where travel expenses were reimbursed by the Soviets and luxury hotels awaited them. (The film project fell apart, but members of the cast became the first black American women to perform on the Russian stage.)

It's almost certain that Robeson, Childress, and Hansberry would have been just as talented with or without their socialist worldview. What is less certain is whether or not black theatre would have flourished in the early twentieth century in the absence of the social and cultural institutions of the U.S. radical left. For indeed it is the case that few Americans would have provided them with the stage, save for the detested communists of the era.

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In the McCarthy Era, to Be Black Was to Be Red - JSTOR Daily

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The Marxist sympathies of Black radical leaders like Paul Robeson, Alice Childress, and Lorraine Hansberry made them targets for the FBI.

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"What is our mission? It's simple-- we are working for a better world for all people. It's that simple. Too many have been dispossessed of their heritage, and we have banded together in a brotherhood so as to do something about it" (Ellison 304).

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"What is our mission? It's simple-- we are working for a better world for all people. It's that simple. Too many have been dispossessed of their heritage, and we have banded together in a brotherhood so as to do something about it" (Ellison 304).

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This excerpt showcases the end goal of The Brotherhood, and of Communism -- to create a fairer society with no inequality.

#nosocialclasses

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"Destruction lies ahead unless things are changed. And things must be changed. And changed by the people. Because, brother, the enemies of man are dispossessing the world!" (Ellison 307).

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"Destruction lies ahead unless things are changed. And things must be changed. And changed by the people. Because, brother, the enemies of man are dispossessing the world!" (Ellison 307).

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This quote demonstrates the communist belief in the inevitable failure of capitalist society, and the need for a communist revolution led by the people.

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"You mustn't waste your emotions on individuals. They don't count" (Ellison 297).

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"You mustn't waste your emotions on individuals. They don't count" (Ellison 297).

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This quote represents the communist belief in a collectivist society as opposed to a highly individualist society typical of capitalism. Communists believe that capitalism creates selfish individualism and thereby inequality-- the solution is a communal society (hence, "communism").

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"You must realize immediately that much of [The Brotherhood's] work is opposed. Our discipline demands therefore that we talk to no one and that we avoid situations in which information might be given away unwittingly" (Ellison 309).

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"You must realize immediately that much of [The Brotherhood's] work is opposed. Our discipline demands therefore that we talk to no one and that we avoid situations in which information might be given away unwittingly" (Ellison 309).

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Ellison wrote Invisible Man in the 1950s when McCarthyism was just starting to emerge -- therefore it's clear that this excerpt was referring to the harsh environment that the US government created towards communist ideology and communist sympathizers.

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"They call us dumb and they treat us dumb [...] They've got a slogan and a policy [...] It's dispossess him! Evict him! [...] It's break him! Deprive him of his wages! It's use his protest as a sounding brass to frighten him into silence, it's beat his ideas and his hopes and homely aspirations into a tinkling cymbal!" (Ellison 342).

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"They call us dumb and they treat us dumb [...] They've got a slogan and a policy [...] It's dispossess him! Evict him! [...] It's break him! Deprive him of his wages! It's use his protest as a sounding brass to frighten him into silence, it's beat his ideas and his hopes and homely aspirations into a tinkling cymbal!" (Ellison 342).

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This quote perfectly encapsulates the general feeling that African Americans had towards the US Government-- that it was repressing them, their identities, and their beliefs. As African Americans viewed it, communism was an ideology that would give them the voice in their government that they so desperately desired.

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Civil Rights and the 1950s: Crash Course US History #39

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The Civil Rights Movement -- Crash Course

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The Civil Rights Movement -- Crash Course

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Crash Course video on the Civil Rights movement. Touches on most landmark moments of the movement (Rosa Parks, Little Rock Nine, Montgomery Bus Boycott, etc.)

The Civil Rights movement was a vital step forward for African Americans which led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which banned segregation in public places) and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (which eliminated many voting restrictions that prevented African Americans from voting).

#equalrights

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Civil Rights and the 1950s: Crash Course US History #39