Massive march in support of the Scottsboro defendants led by Angelo Herndon in Harlem on November 3, 1934.

‘10,000 March in Harlem Scottsboro Protest’ by Cyril Briggs from the Daily Worker. Vol. 11 No. 264. November 5, 1934.

3 MOTHERS, C.P. NOMINEES LEAD PARADE

Mrs. Norris Assails the Treacherous Plan of Leibowitz

The insistent demand “Free the Scottsboro Boys!” rang out stormily in Harlem Saturday afternoon as 10,000 persons in march formation and other thousands swinging along on the sidewalks demonstrated their hatred of the ruling class lynchers and their determination to prevent the legal murder of Haywood Patterson and Clarence Norris, two of the Scottsboro boys, set by the Alabama Supreme Court for Dec. 7.

The mighty mass march was headed by three of the Scottsboro mothers, four leading Communist candidates in Tuesday’s elections and other veterans in the fight for the rights of the Negro people. The candidates of the other political parties were conspicuous by their absence, as in every real struggle for the rights of the Negro people and the working class. While the election platforms of those parties are silent on the demands of the Negro people, the Communists have made these demands a part of the election struggle and, in the fifth demand of the Party’s election platform, call for a mass fight “against Jim-Crowism and lynching: for equal rights for the Negroes and self-determination for the Black Belt; for the Negro Bill of Rights.”

Ford, Haywood, Mothers Head March

Marching directly behind an automobile containing the Scottsboro mothers were the following Communist candidates for election: James W. Ford in the 21st Congressional District; Harry Haywood, National Secretary of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights and candidate in the 19th A.D.; Peter Uffri, leader of the tobacco workers and candidate in the 19th Congressional District, and Merrill C. Work, in the 1st A.D.

Others heading the march included Angelo Herndon, heroic Negro leader of the working class; Samuel Patterson, secretary of the National Scottsboro-Herndon Action Committee, of which William N. Jones of the Baltimore Afro-American staff is chairman; Aaron Douglas and Dr. Donawa of the Committee; Charles Krumbein, District Organizer of the Communist Party; Richard B. Moore, National Field Organizer of the International Labor Defense; Nat Stevens, District Organizer of the I.L.D.; Louis Campbell, leader of the Upper Harlem Unemployment Council, and Steve Kingston of the New York District of the Communist Party. Not only did no candidate of the Republican, Democratic and Socialist Parties participate in this important action against the brutal oppression and persecution of the Negro masses, but campaign loudspeaker cars of those parties attempted, although unsuccessfully, to detract attention from the march and the fight for the lives and freedom of the nine Scottsboro boys. In sharp contrast, the Communist Party loaned four of its election loud-speaker cars to help mobilize the masses of Harlem for the march. The cars took an active part in the entire demonstration.

Negro and white marchers, men, women and children, bore “Vote Communist” bands on their hats, arms and chests, signifying their recognition that the Communists are the best fighters for the rights of the toilers, Negro and white. As the long line passed by the offices of the New York Amsterdam News, the workers indignantly booed its publisher, William H. (Kid) Davis, one of the leading tools of Samuel S. Leibowitz, renegade defense attorney, and Alabama lynch officials in the attempt to scuttle the defense of the boys.

The march, which went up Lenox Avenue from 126th St. to 141st St., west to 7th Ave., north to 145th St., west to 8th Ave., south to 135th St., east to 7th Ave., south to 132nd St., and back to Lenox Ave., ended with a huge demonstration on the block between 131st and 132nd Sts. There the workers heard the Scottsboro mothers, Herndon and other speakers. The first speaker, Ben Davis, Jr., editor of the Negro Liberator, was lustily cheered when he reported on Haywood Patterson’s repudiation of Leibowitz and his gang and his expression of unshaken faith in the I.L.D. and its attorneys. A tremendous ovation was given Angelo Herndon and the Scottsboro mothers, Mrs. Ada Wright, Mrs. Ida Norris and Mrs. Viola Montgomery. All three of the mothers sharply attacked the latest maneuver of the Negro misleaders in describing them as “women claiming to be the mothers of Scottsboro boys.” Mrs. Norris declared that their photographs had been published enough during the past three and a half years to remove any doubt as to their identity. Together with Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Montgomery, she called on the people of Harlem and of the entire country to support the I.L.D. in its fight to save the boys. “We must show Leibowitz he can’t put over anything on us,” she declared.

“Defeat Lynchers!” Vote Communist!”

Charles Krumbein pointed out that the Scottsboro case is one of the most important issues that the Communist Party is putting before the masses in this election campaign. He called on all workers to vote the Communist ticket as the best means for freeing the Scottsboro boys and smashing the lynch terror. Richard B. Moore stressed the short time remaining in which to defeat the lynch verdicts and called for an intensification of the mass fight. Angelo Herndon pointed to his case as an example of the power of mass pressure on the lynch courts.

Samuel Patterson spoke on the tasks of the National Scottsboro-Herndon Action Committee to mobilize the widest united front struggle for the boys, and called for mass support for a national delegation to Washington about the middle of this month. Mr. Hyde, of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners, pledged that body to continue its vigorous support of the militant policies of the I.L.D. in the Scottsboro case, while Nat Stevens stressed the two-fisted policy of the I.L.D. of mass pressure, plus the best legal defense.

The marchers carried an effigy of Gov. B.M. Miller of Alabama with the legend “Gov. B.M. Miller, Official Alabama Lyncher,” and placards protesting the fiendish lynching of Claude Neal, Negro youth, in Florida on Oct. 27th, and denouncing the collusion of Alabama, Florida and Federal authorities in the kidnapping and lynching of Neal, who was tortured for 36 hours before his murder.

The capitalist press, which maintains complete silence on the repudiation of Samuel Leibowitz, renegade defense attorney, by four of the Scottsboro mothers and by Haywood Patterson and Clarence Norris, yesterday published a report that Leibowitz in a statement in Birmingham, Ala., promised a “complete change of scenery and atmosphere” in the “conduct of the case.” The promise was made to Alabama lynch officials and the lynchers’ press, and refers to the attempts by Leibowitz and a group of Harlem Negro misleaders to oust the International Labor Defense and its policy of mass pressure, which alone has kept the boys alive during the past three and a half years. Patterson and Norris are the two Scottsboro boys whose legal murder has been set for Dec. 7 by the Alabama Supreme Court. While the Leibowitz gang has hitherto centered its claims to “control” of the defense around Patterson, the news dispatch quotes Leibowitz as admitting that he has no authority to handle the appeal of Patterson to the U.S. Supreme Court. Patterson’s repudiation of Leibowitz, declared by him to be final and signed jointly with Clarence Norris, was published in Saturday’s Daily Worker.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

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