The Messenger. Vol. 2 No. 2. February, 1920.

Contents: Editorials: Defeating the Treaty, Labor and Lynching, Republicans and the Jim Crow Car, Justice, Legalized Lynching, Gene Debs and the Negro, The American Legion Our National Ku Klux Klan by the Editors, The Irish and the South, Propaganda, Wilson and Coolidge, Socialism Excelsior!, Radical Organizations on the Negro Question, The Miners’ Strike and the Negro, Confederate-Americanism by William N. Colson, Prohibition Promise or Menace?, Who is Colonel Charles Young, A Hymn by John James Holmes, The Open Forum.

The Messenger was founded and published in New York City by A. Phillip Randolph and Chandler Owen in 1917 after they both joined the Socialist Party of America. The Messenger opposed World War I, conscription and supported the Bolshevik Revolution, though it remained loyal to the Socialist Party when the left split in 1919. It sought to promote a labor-orientated Black leadership, “New Crowd Negroes,” as explicitly opposed to the positions of both WEB DuBois and Booker T Washington at the time. Both Owen and Randolph were arrested under the Espionage Act in an attempt to disrupt The Messenger. Eventually, The Messenger became less political and more trade union focused. After the departure of and Owen, the focus again shifted to arts and culture. The Messenger ceased publishing in 1928. Its early issues contain invaluable articles on the early Black left.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/messenger/v2nRN-02-feb-1920-Messenger.pdf