An important document of Black Communism in the United States. This program was discussed and adopted at the Emergency National Committee Meeting of the League held in Harlem in October, 1933. The meeting was attended by a who’s who of Black Marxism (see the Board listed below), and was responding to the upsurge of Black political action of the period, particularly tied to the Scottsboro and Angelo Herndon cases. Langston Hughes was elected interim President, a new board and organizational norms put in place, a Bill of Rights drafted, and this document proposed for discussion in anticipation of a National Conference in May, 1934. The successor to the American Negro Labor Congress, The League of Struggle for Negro Rights was organized by the Communist Party in 1930. With the end of the Third Period and the beginning of the Popular Front, the League was closed and the CP shifted focus to the National Negro Congress in 1935.

‘Equality, Land and Freedom: Immediate Program for Negro Liberation’ by The League of Struggle for Negro Rights, New York. 1933.

IMMEDIATE PROGRAM OF THE LEAGUE OF STRUGGLE FOR NEGRO RIGHTS

The Struggle for Equal Rights (Complete Economic, Social and Political Equality).

To obtain equal rights we must conduct a continuous fight against all forms of oppression suffered by the Negro people.

1. Against Jim-Crowism, and discrimination in all forms, and in every field, on jobs, in professions, public places, trains, boats, buses, all institutions, places of residence, etc.
2. A relentless fight to wipe out all forms of forced labor, chain gangs, forced work on roads and public works for payment of taxes, and all other hangovers from chattel slavery.
3. A constant daily fight for ordinary human and civil rights for Negroes in all parts of the country, for the actual enforcement of their rights as human beings.
4. A determined fight against the whole system of social segregation in which Negroes are set apart from the rest of the population as a despised and outlawed people.
5. A ruthless combatting of all ideas of “white supremacy” and “superiority” fostered by the white rulers to justify their enslavement of the Negro people.

To obtain these rights, the League of Struggle for Negro Rights calls upon the Negro people and white toilers to organize, and fight for the following vital and pressing needs of the Negro masses:

I. Struggle Against Lynching and All Forms of Terror, Violence and Abuse Against Negroes

Whether by Officers of the Law, Organized Murder Gangs or Any Individual.

1. For the enforcement of the death penalty for lynchers.
2. For the outlawing and disbanding of the Ku Klux Klan and all other anti-Negro, terroristic organizations.
3. For the formation of self-defense organizations of Negroes and white toilers for open defense and resistance to lynching and terror.
4. For the enforcement of the right of Negroes, and their white supporters, to keep and bear arms in self-defense.
5. For immediate unconditional release of all victims of white ruling class frame-up.

II. Struggle for the Unqualified Right to Vote, to Elect Officials, to Hold Public Office and to Sit on All Juries.

1. For the immediate abolition of all restrictions of these rights, whether legalized by “grandfather” clause, poll or property tax, literacy test, exclusion from primaries, or by direct or indirect intimidation or pressure.
2. Redistricting for the abolishment of artificial political boundaries established to split up Negro territories and so nullify their majority voting power.

III. Active Support to the Struggles of the Negro

Workers for Immediate Improvement of Their Living Conditions.

1. For complete equality of Negro wage workers with white workers in wages, hours of labor and working conditions.
2. For the actual enforcement of the right of Negroes to work at any job, in all trades, industries and professions.
3. For the admittance of Negroes to all Trade Unions on equal basis with white workers.
4. For the abolition of discrimination against Negroes in unemployment relief.
5. For unemployment and social insurance at the expense of government and employers, without discrimination against Negroes.

IV. Full and Active Support to the Struggles of the Negro Small Farmers, Renters and Sharecroppers.

1. For the abolition of all forms of debt slavery, peonage, landlord supervision of crops, overseeing, and the system of plantation stores.
2. For the right to sell crops independently, and against forced pooling of cotton and other crops.
3. For the abolition of oppressive taxes and rents, and the cancellation of all debts and mortgages of the small farmers.
4. For mass resistance to eviction from land, and against the seizure of tools and livestock for debts.
5. For immediate cash relief for the small farmers and tenants at the expense of the government, landlords and capitalists.

V. Housing and Living Conditions

To insure immediate relief of the Negro masses from frightful conditions of overcrowding, excessive rents, unsanitary living conditions with resulting high sickness and death rates:

1. Abolition of residential segregation, and the unrestricted freedom of Negroes to live wherever they choose.
2. For the enactment of federal legislation to make restrictive clauses in property deeds which limit sale or rental to a certain racial or national group, illegal. Mass disregard of such restrictive clauses.
3. For the abolition of the special high rentals in neighborhoods wholly or largely occupied by Negroes.
4. Mass resistance against evictions.
5. For mass boycott of proprietors who raise rents upon re-letting from white to Negro tenants, or who neglect the upkeep and maintenance of sanitary conditions of their property after renting to Negroes.
6. For adequate facilities in neighborhoods wholly or largely occupied by Negroes for health, recreation and culture. (The establishment of medical clinics, hospitals, playgrounds parks, gymnasiums, baths, social centers, schools, libraries and places of amusement.)
7. For the tearing down of dilapidated and untenable houses, tenements, and shacks now inhabited by Negroes, and their replacement by modern sanitary apartments and houses at the expense of municipal, state and federal government.

VI. Education and Culture

In order to improve the cultural conditions of the Negro masses, to forward their fight against cultural backwardness and illiteracy, for a free and unrestricted development:

1. For enforcement of free, universal, compulsory education for all Negro children of school age, and unrestricted opportunity for Negro young people to secure secondary and higher education of their own choosing
2. For the abolition of all forms of discrimination and segregation in education, and for the right of Negroes to attend and use, any and all public and private schools, libraries, museums and cultural centers in any part of the country, North, East, South or West
3. For mass boycott of institutions withholding these privileges from Negroes.
4. For mass protest against and boycott of business concerns, publications, radio broadcasts, theatres that use the Negro in caricature to degrade and defame.
5. For the building of modern primary and secondary schools in neighborhoods where Negroes reside, and in the rural districts of the South, with equal equipment, curricula, staff, and appropriations.
6. For the condemning of shacks and firetraps as school buildings and against overcrowding; part time sessions and bodily punishment.
7. For the adoption of text books and histories that render a true account of the Negro, especially his contribution to American life, and to discard those that foster the slave and white superiority psychology.
8. For the widest popularization of the revolutionary traditions of the Negro people of the United States, Africa, West Indies, South and Central America.

VII. Negro Professionals, Students, Artists, Writers, Clerks, Small Business People, Nurses, Etc.

1. Abolition of discrimination of Jim-Crowism against Negro nurses, internes, doctors and dentists; adequate representation on staffs of all public and private hospitals and clinics.
2. Abolition of all discrimination and Jim-Crowism in the civil service. Immediate discontinuance of the federal government requirements that photographs accompany applications for clerical positions.
3. For equal opportunities for all Negro chemists, pharmacists, engineers and skilled workers to organize in craft organizations and unions without discrimination or Jim-Crowism.
4. For Negro artists and writers to produce works of culture without obeying dictates of art galleries and publishers. No discrimination in exhibitions and publications.
5. For the right to do business without intimidation or violence wherever they choose; abolition of discrimination against small business people in rent and credit.

VIII. Negro Women and Children.

1. For complete social, economic and legal equality for Negro women.
2. For the right of Negro women to all jobs at equal pay.
3. For the organization of domestic workers to fight against long hours of work and low wages, for an eight hour day whether living on or off the job, and a minimum wage.
4. For the abolition of night work, against restriction of Negro women to dangerous and unhealthy jobs.
5. For unemployment and maternal instance, (with leave of absence from work with full wages one month before and after child birth, with free medical care included.)
6. For the repeal of all laws prohibiting intermarriage which legalize the fiction of Negro inferiority and render Negro women helpless and unprotected.
7. For the legalization of all offspring, with property rights.

IX. Negro Youth.

1. Abolition of all discrimination, Jim-Crowism against Negro youth.
2. Equal pay for equal work for Negro youth.
3. Limitation of hours of work on farms, in factories, in shops, etc.
4. Against night work and work at dangerous occupations for Negro youth under 21.
5. No forced labor in military training camps.
6. Vocational training for Negro youth between 14 and 16 with full pay and under trade supervision.
7. Abolition of compulsory military training in schools.
8. The right of Negro athletes to participate in all athletic games with white athletes, including rowing, swimming, inter-collegiate basketball, “football, major league baseball, etc.; against Jim-Crow policies of the A.A.U. in swimming pools, etc.

X. Negro Soldiers (Regular Army, National Guard) and Sailors.

1. Abolition of all Jim-Crowism and discrimination of Negro service men in all branches of service — army, navy, marines, etc. Complete equality with whites in these respective branches of service.
2. For the right of Negroes to serve in all branches of military service on an equal basis with whites— artillery, navy, marines, etc.
3. Right to enter and receive training in all military institutions.
4. Against the disarming and disbanding of Negro regular army regiments and their use as service or labor units.
5. No discrimination in the National Guards, no use of National Guard against the workers and Negro masses in strikes, demonstrations, etc.
6. Abolition of discrimination or Jim-Crowism against Negro veterans in the payment of bonus, compensation and hospitalization.
7. Freedom of fraternization between Negro and white soldiers.

XI. Effective Legal Protection for Negroes in All Fields of Occupation and in All Walks of Life.

1. Immediate repeal of all discriminatory laws.
2. The adoption by the U. S. Congress and the enforcement of the Bill of Civil Rights for the Negro people presented by the League of Struggle for Negro Rights.

XII. Freedom of Speech, Press and Assembly, the Right to Petition.

1. The right to openly advocate and conduct propaganda everywhere for the above rights, in public meetings, press and through all possible mediums.
2. The right of the Negro people to organize in the struggle for these rights.

NATIONAL COUNCIL of the LEAGUE OF STRUGGLE FOR NEGRO RIGHTS

President Langston Hughes

Vice-Presidents James W. Ford, Robert Minor, Mrs. Jessica Henderson, Benjamin Davis, Jr., William L. Patterson, Hose Hart

General Secretary Richard B. Moore
Assistant Secretary Herman MacKawain
Financial Secretary Esther Anderson
Recording Secretary Beraice Da Costa
Treasurer Dr. Reuben S. Young
Director of Education and Culture Louise Thompson
Director of Defense Activities Harold Williams
Director of Bureau of International Relations Charles Alexander
Director of Young People’s Activities Leonard Patterson
Director of Activities Among Women Williana Burroughs
Liberator Staff Eugene Gordon, Maude White
Director of Research Tom Truesdale

Executive Board Steve Kingston, Mrs. Mary Craik Speed, Henry Shepard, Bonita Williams, Harry Haywood, Hanou Chan, Dr. Arnold Donawa, James Allen, James Moore, Cyril Briggs, Rabbi Ben Goldstein, William Fitzgerald, George Maddox.

Equality, Land and Freedom: A Program for Negro Liberation. League of Struggle for Negro Rights, New York City. 1933.

Contents: Foreword, Preamble, I) The Struggle for Equal Rights, Struggle Against Lynching and All Forms of Terror, Struggle for the Unqualified Right to Vote to Elect Officials to Hold Public Office and to Sit on All Juries, Active Support to the Struggles of the Negro Workers, Full and Active Support to the Struggles of the Negro Small Farmers Renters and Sharecroppers, Housing and Living Conditions, Education and Culture, Negro Professionals, Negro Women and Children, Negro Soldiers and Sailors, Effective Legal Protection for Negroes, Freedom of Speech, II) Bill of Civil Rights for the Negro People, III) Draft By-Laws of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, The National Council, Join.

PDF of full pamphlet: https://archive.org/download/EqualityLandAndFreedomAProgramForNegroLiberation/LSNR.pdf