The statement on the pogrom in Tulsa, Oklahoma by the leadership of the newly formed (Unified) Communist Party which united the old CPA and the United Communist Party in May, 1921 was among the first of that organization. Printed and distributed as a flyer over 1921’s July 4th events.

‘The Tulsa Massacre!’ Statement and Flyer of the (Unified) Communist Party of America. June, 1921.

By the time this leaflet is in your hands all the horrible details of the mass murder of the helpless Negro population of Tulsa, Oklahoma will be known to the entire world.

There are no words vivid enough to describe the action of the well-dressed armed mob of businessmen who, with automobiles and airplanes, surrounded the Negro quarter in Tulsa on June 1st, setting fire to their homes, destroying 10 city blocks, and rendering homeless more than 10,000 Negro workers; ruthlessly slaying men, women, and children; killing over 90 and wounding more than 200.

There is only one appeal that will stop the fiendish and bloody outrages — that is the appeal to organized force. The only language that the bloodthirsty capitalist of America can understand is the language of ORGANIZED POWER. Only by reprisals — by answering force with force — will the business mobs and their White Guards, the Ku Klux Klan, etc., be restrained from continuing their brutal and cowardly assaults upon the Negro and working class population of this country.

If there is any red blood in the veins of the working class of America, it will come to the defense of its colored brothers, who are the victims of the same bloody capitalist class that exploits and murders the workers regardless of color or race.

In their own interests, the white workers of America must come to the aid of the exploited Negro masses. Their skins are darker-hued than ours, but the interests are the same. Black and White, we, the workers, have but ONE enemy — THE CAPITALIST CLASS — which uses its GOVERNMENT to suppress us.

There are more than 10 million Negroes in this country. Almost all of them are of the working class. These Negro wage workers, whom we have refused to admit into our trade unions, are rapidly being reduced to serfdom and peonage — to a condition of slavery worse than chattel slavery before 1861. Shall we, the white wage slaves, stand by idly and permit the CAPITALISTS to murder, rob, and crush 10 millions of our fellows? The crushing of 10 million Negro workers can mean nothing but the beginning of a system of peonage and degradation for the entire working class of America. For the breaking of the spirit of these 10 million Negro wage workers will enable the WHITE CAPITALISTS to use these colored men and women against the white wage workers as strikebreakers in order to crush the resistance of the entire working class. Already there are 5 million wage workers walking the streets of the cities and towns of America in search of work — unemployed, desperate, hungry — and the CAPITALISTS are making a general assault upon our unions, through the open shop movement, in the effort to destroy our unions and break our resistance.

If the Negro worker can be used against the White worker, who is to blame? We have refused to allow our colored brothers to join our unions. We have repeated all the idiotic accusations against their race. We have foolishly allowed ourselves to be swayed by race prejudice. We have failed to ORGANIZE the Negro workers. We have refused to treat him as our own, our equal BROTHER in the CLASS STRUGGLE. WE ARE TO BLAME.

BREAK DOWN THE BARRIERS IN THE UNIONS. WIPE OUT THE “COLOR LINE.” There is only ONE line that we can draw — that is the CLASS LINE. White and Black, Jew and Gentile, ALL THE WORKERS, the exploited masses, must be organized on the basis of their CLASS interests.

Our Negro fellow workers were supposed to have been “emancipated” during the American Civil War. The Constitution of the US is supposed to guarantee their “freedom.” Since then they have been herded into separate districts, segregated in Jim Crow cars, their women subject to the assaults of white men, their children deprived of elementary education, their men denied the right to acquire trades or professions, their whole race kept in ignorance and degradation. They have been burned alive, lynched, murdered, and brutally assaulted upon the slightest provocation. The hideous accusation of rapine has been fastened upon their entire race. This is the kind of “freedom” that the CAPITALIST CONSTITUTION guarantees to the working class. This is the only kind of “freedom” that the WORKERS can expect from the CAPITALIST GOVERNMENT of the United States. For the Government of the US is nothing but the organized expression of the WILL of the CAPITALIST CLASS. The Government of the US is nothing else but a ruthless DICTATORSHIP of the RICH over the POOR.

It is in the interest of both the Negro and the White WORKERS to destroy this CAPITALIST GOVERNMENT, root and branch. Shoulder to shoulder, and heart to heart, the workers of ALL races must UNITE to establish in this country a WORKERS’ GOVERNMENT — THE SOVIET REPUBLIC OF AMERICA. THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF AMERICA calls upon our colored comrades to ORGANIZE, and with arms in their hands, to resist the murderous armed assaults upon their homes, their women, and their children.

THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF AMERICA calls upon the White workers to assist their colored brothers and with arms in their hands, to help them to repel such armed attacks upon them by the wealthy businessmen, as occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma and in hundreds of other places.

THEIR FIGHT IS OUR FIGHT. THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF AMERICA recognizes no artificial division between the WORKING CLASS. We call upon ALL workers of ALL races to UNITE against their COMMON ENEMY — the Capitalist Class and the CAPITALIST STATE.

Both Negro and White workers must by this time realize the kind of “democracy” they fought for in France. This is the only kind of “democracy” that the workers can get under the capitalist government of the United States.

In Russia, under the Tsar’s Government, the Jews were the victims of race riots and pogroms. In Russia the workers and peasants overthrew the CAPITALIST Government of Russia and established a WORKERS’ GOVERNMENT — THE SOVIET REPUBLIC OF RUSSIA. The workers of all races in Russia are united. Race prejudice and race wars have disappeared.

Only by following our Russian Comrades’ heroic example and by establishing in this country the SOVIET REPUBLIC OF AMERICA will White and Black workers be able to live and work in peace and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

WORKERS OF AMERICA — ORGANIZE!
WIPE OUT THE “COLOR LINE”!
HAIL TO THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION!
DOWN WITH THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM AND THE CAPITALIST STATE!
LONG LIVE THE WORKERS’ REPUBLIC OF AMERICA!

CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, COMMUNIST PARTY OF AMERICA.