A critical review of Young Workers League activity among Black youth in the Communist Party’s District Three, the Philadelphia-D.C.-Balitmore area.

‘Our Work Among Negro Youth’ by Sam Reed from Young Worker. Vol. 8 No. 22. November 7, 1930.

District Three (Philadelphia) is a typical example of this isolated position of our League from the large masses of young workers, particularly the Negro youth. Up to last July (the time when the Shock Plan was first introduced into our League), the Y.C.L. here had in its ranks less than a half dozen Negro young workers. This does not mean that we had six active Negro League members. No, not at all. There were no active Negro Y.C.L. members in the whole district. This, in spite of the fact that in Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia the Negro population constitutes from 30% to 45% of the total. In each of the above named cities there are hundreds of Negro social, sports, cultural, student clubs, religious and other youth organizations. You find them everywhere, in every neighborhood, in every Negro section of the city. There are Negro Community Centers, Negro playgrounds, Negro Y.M.C.A’s and Y.W.C.A.’s, etc., etc. Was our League connected with any of these youth organizations? Not at all. We knew very little (if anything) about them, and bothered to a still lesser degree to find out some facts about them, their functions, aims, composition and their role in the life of the Negro youth.

Shock Plan Shows Way.

One of the provisions of the Shock Plan called for anti-lynching youth conferences in a number of districts as a means of involving our League in the struggles of the Negro youth. New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit and the Philadelphia districts were instructed to call such conferences. Today, we are in a position to draw some lessons from our work, analyze our weaknesses and shortcomings, and draw up a more extensive program for our work in this field.

Two Experiences.

In Philadelphia the Anti- Lynching Youth Conference was held on Sunday, Sept. 7th. In preparation for this conference a call was sent out to some 75 youth clubs, 70 of which were Negro clubs. These included sport clubs, social clubs, religious, trade union and other organizations. Several thousand leaflets were issued in the name of the Youth Committee of the ANLC. Comrades were assigned to visit the meetings of the various youth clubs. Five open air meetings were held under the auspices of the ANLC Youth Committee; some literature was sold and a large number of names of young Negro workers were gotten. The result of our pre-conference work were as follows: 11 non-Party organizations elected 36 delegates to the conference. Of these seven were Negro youth clubs, three white youth clubs and one industrial union. At the conference proper there were about 50 present, 25 of whom were Negroes. Of those present only 22 represented organizations: the others were visitors. The conference itself was very enthusiastic and constructive. A program of action was adopted and a Provisional Committee of 11 was elected to continue the work of the conference and to call another broad conference in the near future.

The Baltimore Anti-Lynching Youth Conference held on Sept. 15 was also preceded by a campaign among the Negro workers. Over 20 clubs and trade unions were visited for the conference. A number of open air anti-lynching rallies were held, which proved very successful, and were attended by hundreds of Negro workers. Here too, leaflets were distributed and the local Negro press was utilized to popularize the conference. The result was that 46 delegates representing 11 organizations (all non-Party) were elected to the conference. Here again, a number of the delegates elected by the various clubs failed to ap- pear at the conference. However, the conference itself was a success. There were 40 present there, of whom 75%% were Negro workers and young workers. The discussion that took place there proved the readiness of the Negro workers for struggle and the need for real concentrated work among them.

Weaknesses.

Some outstanding weaknesses of our campaign must be pointed out here.

1) It took us about four weeks to get started in our work. (It took us almost three weeks to get out the call for the conference, or to issue any leaflets dealing with the Anti-Lynching issue.)

2) We failed to understand the importance of utilizing the pre-conference period for a wide campaign of struggle against lynchings and race discrimination. We did not understand the proper way of connecting up the anti-lynching issue with local cases of race discrimination and jim-crowism.

3) We did not succeed in drawing in the ANLC, the Party, not even the entire League membership into the campaign. The work was carried on by a comparatively small section of the membership.

4) There was too much of a tendency to look upon this campaign as merely a campaign to hold a conference, rather than to look upon the conference as a beginning of a broader campaign among the Negro youth. As a result of our narrow outlook, we neglected the work of colonizing our Negro comrades within the Negro youth clubs, nor did we make any serious attempts to draw the best members of these organizations into our ranks.

5) Very little attention was devoted to the concentration on shops and factories where Negro young workers are employed, and where the race discrimination issue is a living thing, which would have afforded us the chance of mobilizing these young workers.

6) We did not succeed in sufficiently drawing in our Negro League members into the campaign. This afterwards proved to be one of the main obstacles in successfully extending our influences among the clubs reached as a result of the campaign.

Lessons.

1) The calling of the Anti- Lynching Conferences was one of the most important tasks ever initiated by our League. The general policy and perspective of these conferences was correct.

2) The objective possibilities for the building of a mass youth movement among the Negro youth are very good, providing that we go at it in the proper way. The basis for this movement must be the struggle against racial discrimination, and for the demands of full social, political and economic equality for the Negro masses. These central slogans must be linked up with concrete demands and issues for the Negro youth, such as discrimination in schools on playgrounds, swimming pools. parks, theatres, in bosses sport and cultural clubs, etc., etc. We must lay very much stress on discrimination against the Negru youth in industry, in local factories, and shop.

3) Recent intensified attacks against the Negro workers, especially the lynchings in the South, must be utilized as a means of bringing forward the immediate need for defense corps among the working youth.

4) The penetration of the various youth organizations and the building of fractions within these clubs is one of the most effective methods of winning over the membership to the program of the ANLC and the YCL.

5) The last few months have proven to us that there is a good basis for the building of the Young Liberators. The Young Liberators must be a broad youth organization of white and Negro youth, affiliated to the ANLC, and working under its direction. The Young Liberators shall follow the program of the ANLC with a number of concretized youth demands and slogans. The Young Liberators shall form branches on the basis of individual membership, as well as accept affiliated bodies of youth. The Young Liberators shall carry on (besides the daily struggle against racial discrimination) sport, social, education and cultural activity among the youth.

Plenum Must Formulate Policy.

The National Plenum must work out a clear program of work among the Negro youth. and in connection with the establishment of the Young Liberators. The various experiences must be gathered, and the lessons drawn from them, must be utilized to broaden out the scope of work, teach our membership the new methods to be applied in handling this work. and how to utilize the Young Liberators as a means of increasing the influence of our Young Communist League among the Negro youth, as well as drawing in the best elements into our ranks.

The Young Worker was produced by the Young Workers League of America beginning in 1922. The name of the Workers Party youth league followed the name of the adult party, changing to the Young Workers (Communist) League when the Workers Party became the Workers (Communist) Party in 1926. The journal was published monthly in Chicago and continued until 1927. Editors included Oliver Carlson, Martin Abern, Max Schachtman, Nat Kaplan, and Harry Gannes.

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