‘The Harlem Workers School’ by Williana Burroughs from the Negro Liberator. Vol. 3 No. 3. July 7, 1934.

ΟVER 500 students have attended various courses in the Harlem Workers School during its first year. The majority of these students were members of revolutionary organizations and active fighters on the class war front at relief stations, on the picket lines, and at other danger points. One of the aims of the school was to involve the minority who did not belong to these organizations in the campaign for relief, unemployment insurance, against war and fascism, etc., carried on by the workers.

The extra activities such as the regular Sunday afternoon Forums, the Lenin lecture series, conferences and entertainments were used toward this end. Some of these students, as a result, became members of our militant organizations and the Communist Party.

The School was given its initial start by the Friends of the Workers School and its continued. existence was made possible by the Friends of the Harlem Workers School who by faithful work established a sustaining fund. The comrade who directed the work of this committee is now lying dangerously ill in the hospital. The student council working with this committee participated in the campaign for relief for the Austrian workers at the time of the mass murder of these workers by the Dolfuss government.

Our appeals for help to build up our library have brought response from friends in Wisconsin, Connecticut, and even London, England.

For the summer months, we plan two lecture courses of six weeks each, on the HISTORY OF THE NEGRO IN AMERICA and PROLETARIAN DRAMA. We are sure that subjects of such timely interest will attract many students and others who are now in the city for special summer study.

The Harlem Workers’ School is filling a great want here in this. section. Harlem is a cosmopolitan region with a population gathered from the four corners of the globe.

These workers have many problems and grievances and feel the need of leadership in their struggles for bare necessities and decent human life. But here are also to be found the reform leaders, nationalist organizations and renegades from the revolutionary movement who deliberately work against the unity of Negro and white.

It is clear that for all these reasons, the need for the School is very, very great. Therefore the school is laying plans so that it can be of still more service to the workers of this community. It will move into larger quarters for the fall term. Many new courses will be added to the curriculum, such as Dialectics, Colonial Problems, etc. The forums will be continued and extended. As I write this article, the Bulletin for the Spring Term has just been issued by the students of the school, in which they have contributed their opinion, and suggestions for the development of the school as well as stories, poems, etc. These proposals and criticism will help to make the second year of the school a memorable one for the workers movement, here in Harlem.

The Liberator was the paper of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, largely edited by Benjamin Davis and begun in 1930. In 1932, its name changed to the Harlem Liberator, an again to the Negro Liberator before its run ended in 1935. The editorial board included William Patterson, James W Ford, Robert Minor, and Harry Haywood. Printed, mostly, every two weeks, The Liberator is an important record not only of radical Black politics in the early 1930s, but the ‘Harlem Renaissance’ as well. The successor to the American Negro Labor Congress, The League of Struggle for Negro Rights was organized by the Communist Party in 1930 with B.D. Amis was the LSNR’s first General Secretary, followed by Harry Haywood. Langston Hughes became its President in 1934. With the end of the Third Period and the beginning of the Popular Front, the League was closed and the CP focused on the National Negro Congress by 1935. The League supported the ‘Self-Determination for the Black Belt’ position of the Communist Party of the period and peaked at around 8000 members, with its strongest centers in Chicago and Harlem. The League was also an affiliate of the International Workers Order.

PDF of full issue: https://dds.crl.edu/item/57585