An excellent number of ‘The Messenger’ with the usual must-read editorials, Chandler Owen on Henry Ford, Art Shields and the beginnings of the 1920’s Klan revival, Randolph on Ben Fletcher’s I.W.W. Local 8, notes on the Irish Free State from a Black U.S. perspective, the struggle against lynching, a biography of Benjamin S. Schlesinger of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, and so much more.

The Messenger (New York City). Vol. 4 No. 2. February, 1922.

Contents: Editorials: The Dyer Bill: Coal Miners Strike; False as Hell; Waist Makers’ Drive; Soldiers’ Bonus; The Irish Free State; Lynchers Get Life; Art in America; The Russian Famine and Hoover; The Labor Press; Registry Jobs, The Labor World, Henry Ford by Chandler Owen, Local 8 of the I.W.W. on the Firing Line, Is the Ku Klux Klan Returning? by Art Shields, Meyer London Demands Justice for the Negro, Letters, A Sketch of Benjamin S. Schlesinger President of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, A Call to Solidarity.

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/02-feb-1922-mess-RIAZ.pdf