Groucho Marx performs for Black prisoners at a Harlem benefit.

‘Groucho Marx and Bill Robinson to Grace Huge Ball in Harlem’ from the Harlem Liberator. Vol. 2 No. 7. May 23, 1934.

“I’ll be seeing you at the Renaissance at your June 1st Jamboree,” said Groucho Marx, in an exclusive interview with a representative of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners. “I’m very interested in your campaign for the Scottsboro boys, Angelo Herndon, Tom Mooney and the many other Negro and white prisoners. I’ll be there, with moustache, cigar, and all.”

Bill Robinson has also offered to appear at the affair and Rose McClendon, vice-chairman of the National Committee, is bending all efforts to make the dance as successful as was that recently held by the organization for the benefit of the Scottsboro Defense at the Savoy.

When the Scottsboro case was mentioned to Groucho Marx he looked up from his floor-bound gaze and raised his quiet voice a little “I suppose you’d like me to work in a wisecrack or two through all this,” he said. “Well, I’d like to, but I’m sorry; I can’t. All this means too much to me. Look at the whole business down South. The Negroes have been submitting passively to abuse for almost a hundred years. Fighting is the only thing that can change the situation, fight and protest.”

From discussion of Scottsboro and the Negro situation, talk naturally shifted to “Stevedore,” the thrilling protest drama playing to packed houses at the without question the best propaganda play I’ve seen in my life said Groucho. “When I thought of taking the long trek down to Fourteenth Street, I packed a suitcase full of clothes and took a couple of magazines along, because it’s a long time since I ventured below times Square for dramatic fare. The way I feel now is that I’d gladly have gone to California, or anywhere equally distant, to see it. For a while I thought it ought to come up town so that more people could come to sew it–but, on second thought, let it stay at the Civic. Let people make the trip there; it’s worth it.”

Groucho Marx is of humble origin: his father was an East Side tailor and his mother sewed in sweatshops. Once Groucho worked with a vaudeville troupe called the Leroy Trio; he received $5 a week for soprano singing, (he was then 13).

The June 1st affair promises to be a glorious evening of festivity. Many prominent members of the National Committee promise to be on hand with their friends. Tickets may be obtained at the office of the National Committee, 156 Fifth Avenue, Room 534, or at the Amsterdam News 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/57613