The 2017 confrontation with fascists and murder of Heather Heyer in Charlotte, North Carolina was not the first in that city. Here, the Young Communist League gets the better of the blackshirts.

‘Young Workers Rout Fascists in Charlotte’ from Southern Worker. Vol. 1 No. 47. July 11, 1931.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. An open air meeting of the Young Communist League of Charlotte was attacked Monday night by a group of hoodlums dressed in a peculiar black uniform with white trimmings. The meeting took place at the foot of Eighth St., and the rats in uniforms were too afraid to come close to the young workers so they took up a stand on a hill close by and began throwing huge rocks and bricks down upon the meeting in an attempt to break it up.

The speaker, Dave Doran, continued the meeting while about fifty young workers present answered the assault by throwing back even larger rocks. The skunks on top of the hill were determined to hit the speaker as they kept on throwing rocks for about fifteen minutes until two young workers took up a stand close by the speaker and pointed guns in the direction of the rats on the hill. Under cover of the defense put up by the young workers, two young girl workers went up the hill in the direction of the rats and before this determined advance the spit-lickle tools of the bosses fled.

The meeting was continued to a close and was extremely enthusiastic. Many young workers present, particularly the young Negro workers, were won over entirely by the League. Many joined. The meeting ended with the singing of “Solidarity” and the waving of fists in the direction of the fleeing rats. This is the second time meetings of the YCL have been attacked by bosses tools on this corner. Each time they were chased away.

The girls who went up the hill recognized one of the skunks as a certain Burkelow, who owns considerable property in Charlotte. It is believed that the rats are part of a Fascist organization composed of bosses and landlords that are organized in a determined effort to prevent white and negro workers from organizing together for better conditions.

The young worker speakers at the meeting were Gertrude Golden, A. Black, Ralph Garrett and Doran. Much literature was sold and many young workers pledged their support in a fight to free the Scottsboro Nine and against bosses wars.

Begun in August, 1930, Southern Worker was a semi-legal regional newspaper of the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA) primarily aimed at building the Party in the South among Black workers and farmers. Pseudonyms of editors and writers, false publication places, illegal paper drops, and clandestine meetings were a necessary hallmark of the Southern Worker’s life. The paper extensively covered the campaign against lynching and southern unionization efforts. Originally a weekly, it went to a monthly in 1934 and ceased publishing in 1937. Editors included Solomon Auerbach (under the name “Jim Allen”), Harry Wicks, and Elizabeth Lawson.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/southernworker/v1n47-jul-11-1931-sw.pdf