Reports from day three of the founding A.N.L.C. congress include a speech from Otto Huiswoud on the Black press, full texts of resolutions on the A.F. of L. and on Jim Crows laws, as well as a synopsis of Bishop brown’s address on behalf of the International Labor Defense.

‘Day Three of the American Negro Labor Congress’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 2 No. 247. October 29, 1925.

A.N.L.C. GIVES ENTIRE SESSION TO TRADE UNIONS

Recognize Only Division of Classes

The American Negro Labor Congress, the first mass organization of class-conscious Negro labor, which is meeting this week at the Metropolitan Community Center, 3118 Giles Avenue, completed a discussion of the Negro worker and the trade unions with a mass meeting on Monday night. The subject of the mass meeting was the bar of color prejudice raised by the officialdom of the trade unions, with the result that very few Negro workers can gain admittance to the unions. The speakers discussed ways and means of organizing the colored workers to fight their way into the unions, and stressed the necessity of a united front of labor, black and white, against the aggressions of the bosses.

Again and again the speakers point- ed out to the audience the slogan which was stretched across the front of the hall: “Organization is the first step to freedom.”

Otto Huiswood, a colored worker from New York and a delegate to the congress, urged the congress to take concrete steps toward the organization of the Negroes into labor unions. He pointed out that when color prejudice works in such a way as to keep Negroes out of various other organizations, they do not for this reason remain on the outside of these activities, but organize their own. The Negro workers must take the same stand with regard to the trade union question, Huiswood pointed out. If they cannot force the A.F. of L. officialdom to admit the Negro workers, then these workers must organize their own unions and use these organizations not to fight the white workers, but to get into the movement of the whole working class and fight with it in its struggles against the owners.

C.W. Fulp, president of the local union of the United Mine Workers of America in Primrose, Pennsylvania, and Norval Allen, southern organizer of the American Negro Labor Congress, told of fights waged by Negro workers to enter the trade unions, and urged the delegates to adopt concrete measures of organization.

Negro Kept Press Is Silent.

The entire capitalist press, including the race press owned and controlled by a few wealthy Negroes, has been carrying out what Lovett Fort-Whiteman, national organizer of the congress, characterized before the congress as a “conspiracy of silence.” Months before the congress opened, the capitalist newspapers were carrying “exposes” of this gathering of Negro labor, branding it as “a tool of Moscow, which will only fool and betray the colored workers.” One and all, they “warned” the colored workers to keep away from this congress–to boycott it. And now that their efforts have resulted in complete failure–now that these servants of the bosses realize that in spite of their lying attacks, the American Negro Labor Congress is successfully working out plans for the solution of the problems of the race; now that they see the Negro thinking of himself as a worker, with aims and interests like the aims and interests of the white workers of the United States–now these papers have resorted to the expedient of ignoring the congress Since the congress opened, only one or two of the capitalist papers have mentioned the gathering. The others have dismissed it with a notice, and a lying sentence or two.

Of the two large Negro papers in Chicago, neither has up to the present moment said a word about the congress. The Chicago Defender–popularly known among the militant colored workers as the Chicago “Surrender,”—because it refuses to put up a real fight for the colored workers—ran its usual large edition on the day before the congress opened, and that edition carried not one word about this nation-wide gathering of workers of the colored race. In this connection Whiteman pointed out to the congress that just because a paper is edited by colored people does not necessarily mean that that paper has the interests of the race at heart. Their interests are as often as not centered on their pocketbooks, for, like the white bosses, their only thought is the thought of profit.

A.N.L.C. TAKES RAP AT GREEN FOR SLANDERS

Call Upon Organized Workers to Help

The American Negro Labor Congress, which is now in session at the Metropolitan Community Center, 3118 Giles Ave., adopted the following resolution scoring the attack of President Green of the American Federation of Labor on the American Negro Labor Congress is being no different from the attacks of the open-shop bosses in America upon the Negro workers and appealing to organized workers in the American Federation of Labor to aid them in their fight:

“The attitude assumed by the president of the American Federation of Labor, William Green, towards the American Negro Labor Congress, in published statements is clearly erroneous, harmful and prejudicial: he best interests of the American labor movement.

“These statements alleging this congress to be ‘an effort of Bolsheviks to stir up hatred between the races’ are distinctly contrary to facts and can only serve the ends of the most reactionary oppressors of labor whose foul purpose it is to destroy every genuine attempt of workers to unite for their protection and improvement.

Use Open-Shop Tactics.

“Mr. Green must know that such tactics are the chief stock-in-trade of open-shop, union-hating labor-grinding bosses-the abuse and vilification of the striking miners of West Virginia who are fighting heroically for a decent existence is a clear example–and in resorting to these injurious tactics he helps to strengthen this pernicious anti-union propaganda which must prove a boomerang to the American Federation of Labor itself and to the entire organized labor movement of America.

“It is doubtful whether the author of these statements altogether grasps their full significance for they imply logically that the only group in the American labor movement genuinely and sufficiently interested in the Negro workers to aid them in their struggles, and to undertake earnestly and practically to organize and unite them with their white fellow-workers is the very same Communist group which they denounce.

“A further implication, one which will be strongly resented by every intelligent, manly Negro worker is the insulting idea that they are fools and tools, that they lack sufficient intelligence and manhood themselves to realize their oppression and to initiate a movement for their emancipation.

Organized by Negro Workers.

“The truth of the matter is that the American Negro Labor Congress was organized by Negro workers who, while welcoming the co-operation and support of all sections of the labor movement reserve the determination of its policies and destiny wholly and properly to the congress in session assembled.

“The congress would not have been surprised to be denounced by the enemies of labor but certainly did not expect to be denounced by the responsible head of a great labor organization which includes in its ranks the largest number of organized Negro workers and which thereby had the power, if it desired, to have the largest delegation in the congress thru which to guide and shape the policies of the congress in session.

Try to Destroy Movement.

“Such an attack upon the congress, therefore, cannot fail to be interpreted by the majority of Negro workers as an unwarranted attempt to destroy their first nation-wide effort to find their place in the organized labor movement and will tend to confirm their suspicions of the sincerity of those labor organizations which do no more than pass paper resolutions about unity of black and white workers.

“The American Negro Labor Congress, therefore, deeply deplores this erroneous and harmful attitude and calls upon the American Federation of Labor to correct this misleading characterization of this congress and to co0perate with it whole-heartedly to realize in fact that unity of the black and white workers of America which alone can incur their protection, advancement, and emancipation.”

A delegate sent to the convention by the state of Oklahoma presented the following credential from Governor M.E. Tropp:

“To all to whom these presents shall come,

“Greetings,

“Know ye, That reposing special trust and confidence in the ability and integrity of Frank W. Reed of Oklahoma City, I M.E. Tropp, governor of the state of Oklahoma, do hereby appoint and commission him a delegate to the National Labor Congress of Colored Workers to be held in Chicago, Illinois.

“Given under my hand at the city of Oklahoma City, the twentieth day of October, in the year of our lord, nineteen hundred and twenty-five. Year of the independence of the United States of America one hundred and fiftieth.

“M.E. Tropp. “Governor of the state of Oklahoma.” (SEAL)

At yesterday’s session, the following resolution was adopted by the American Negro Labor Congress on race discrimination and social equality in which the Negro workers demand that all forms of race discrimination, whether they be residential, union affiliation or scholastic abolished and demand that the Negro workers be given the same benefits and privileges that the white workers are entitled to. The resolution follows in full:

“The so-called democratic society in the United State of America is so organized that a distinction is made between races. Regardless of written laws, political and civil rights are not given to the Negro in the same degree as to persons of the white race. Especially in the southern states nearly all rights as men and citizens are taken away from the Negro. It is a fundamental custom of public life to treat the Negro as an inferior caste both in the North and in the South.

Segregation.

“The Negro people are confined to the most miserable residence districts as an outcast people who cannot choose their place of residence among the general population. We are segregated in miserable separate railroad cars as tho we were cattle unfit to mix with human beings. In many cases we are segregated in separate labor unions, or denied the right to organize at all. In employment we are generally segregated, being confined to the hardest and most disagreeable kinds of labor. Our children are in many places not permitted to attend the general public schools, but begin life as a segregated caste. Negro teachers are not permitted to teach according to their ability in most of the public schools. In hotels, restaurants, theaters and such places of public resort for the general population, we are usually excluded and driven away at the cost of much inconvenience, suffering and humiliation.

“These social customs which de grade our people to a place of inequality in the nation, either legalized or established by traditions show that a racial caste system is a fundamental feature of the social, industrial and political organization of this country. This social degrading of our people, which has become as consciously a part of the political system that a late president of the United States publicly declared a political principle ‘Uncompromisingly against every suggestion of social equality’–this social regarding is not a question of relationships between individuals, but a question of relationships of classes. It is an attempt to create and perpetuate a permanent class of doubly exploited workers at the bottom of the social system. Intent upon holding down the workers of all races as a general lower class, our masters wish to make us a lower class within a lower class. The white worker must be made to realize that this discrimination against the Negro worker comes back against him ultimately. To reduce the Negro worker to a lower level, tends to drag the whole working class down to a similar level; and in the South where the caste system is most extreme the condition of the poor white people is the proof.

Social Equality.

“The first American Negro Labor Congress solemnly believes that the Negro workers and farmers of this country will abolish the system of race discrimination. We declare that race discrimination, degradation and general inequality of racial groups–the whole caste system–must be absolutely and completely abolished.

“We demand the full equality of the Negro people in the social system of the United States and everywhere. Against social inequality we raise the standard of social equality. We unqualifiedly refuse to regard our people as inferior in any respect.

“We demand the abolition of all laws which openly or by subterfuge discriminate against our people, or which in any way recognize a distinction of races. To champion this demand, not only for our own race, but also for all other races, yellow or brown. We declare that all claims of an inherent difference between races are ignorant and unscientific if not pure hypocrisy. We demand:

“1. The abolition of all laws which result in segregation.

Abolish Jim Crow Cars.

“2. The abolition of all Jim Crow laws.

“3. The abolition of all laws which disfranchise the Negroes, or any working people, on the basis of color or race or place of birth, ancestry, the lack of a permanent home, the lack of property, or for any other reason.

“4. The abolition of all laws which forbid the intermarriage of persons of different races.

“5. The abolition of all laws and public administrative measures which prohibit or in practice prevent colored children or youths from attending the general public schools or universities.

“We also take notice of those established customs which discriminate against Negroes in practice, altho not written into law. We demand:

No Discriminations!

“1. The abolition of the right of landlords and real estate agents to discriminate against the colored race in renting or selling homes and to this purpose we demand that the renting and selling of homes shall be taken at of the hands of all private person and be made a matter of public administration with the first applicant served regardless of race.

“2. We demand the full and equal admittance of our people to all theater restaurants, hotels, railroad, station waiting-rooms, and all other places public resort, and no separation or recognition of color distinction, and that heavy penalties be imposed against persons who discriminate.

“We regard these political and social demands as embodying the demand full social equality for the Negro people.”

Bishop William Montgomery Brown, recently expelled by the house of bishops for heresy, in a speech before the American Negro Labor Congress at the Tuesday evening session spoke on International Labor Defense.

In his speech the bishop ridiculed the idea of supernatural gods and called on the workers of all colors to unite in the common cause to wipe “gods from the skies and capitalists from earth.”

In speaking of saints and sinners Brown provoked much mirth by saying:

Workers Greatest Saints.

“Bishops and preachers are sinners and you are the saints. They do no useful work, that is why they are sinners. You do lots of work. Every strike is a saintly act. That is why you are giants. Human acts depend upon work. He who works hardest to make living is the great-est saint.”

When he described how he came to leave the orthodox viewpoint following the world war he expressed his then arising doubt as to the function of supernatural gods in the following words:

Gods Fight Wars.

“A great war came along. I knew nothing about the facts. I was too busy attending to what has been told me. I was supposed to believe that a christian god had sent this war to punish he imperialism of Germany and give the world democracy. The German thought that the christian god has sent the war to punish the democracy of America and to give the world imperialism.

“America came out of the war with lots of imperialism to burn. It has been devolved into despotism.

“Twenty million young lives were crushed out and the world flowed with blood, before the quarrel of the gods in the sky and the capitalists on earth came to an end.

Can’t Depend on Gods.

“As long as we look to the gods for help we shall be in a hopeless plight. I thought that if these gods were real they were gods so cruel that a decent man could have nothing to do with them.”

In speaking of the International Labor Defense, he said:

“The International Labor Defense is the greatest of all subjects.

“The greatest religious movement is the international labor movement.

“When a man goes to work, he gives himself to society more completely than mere philanthropists. The philanthropist gives his money and goes to play golf all day. The capitalist makes his investment and then starts a trip around the world. But when the worker contributes his labor, he has to give himself. cannot send it by special messenger, he has to go with it himself and stand by it thru every minute of his working hours, every day and every year.”

Must Overthrow System.

He described the mission of the workers under capitalism in the following words:

“Your purpose is to overthrow this system which impoverishes you. They believe that you are at war with society, simply because you are trying to liberate it from ignorance.”

He ended his speech amidst a great ovation with the slogans of “Down with Jim Crowism!” “Long live the Rifans in the fight for independence!” and “Long live International Labor Defense!”

NOTE: The entire speech made by Bishop William Montgomery Brown before the American Negro Labor congress will be printed in the magazine section of The DAILY WORKER, Saturday, October 31. Be sure and get a copy of The DAILY WORKER containing the stenographic report of Bishop Brown’s speech.

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.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1925/1925-nat/v02b-n247-Chi-oct-29-1925-DW-Q.pdf