The fourth day of the American Negro Labor Congress, the C.P.’s first mass Black organizing effort, discusses the danger of the Klan, then in power in a number of states and cities, at its founding conference. Includes resolutions.

‘Day Four of the American Negro Labor Congress’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 2 No. 248.  October 30, 1925.

During the Wednesday business session of the American Negro Labor Congress, now meeting at 3118 Giles Ave., in a strong resolution attacking the ku klux klan and showing the class character of the government which brings into being and protects such organizations as the klan called upon the workers of all races and nations to unite in a struggle against the klan.

In the measures taken during the past two or three years against the foreign-born worker-restrictive immigration, proposed laws to finger-print immigrants–the American Negro Labor Congress sees the working out of the klan ideas with respect to workers who are not necessarily of another color, but who belong to the class which the American government is interested in keeping down. The resolution adopted by the congress follows in full:

Ku Klux Klan.

“The ku klux klan declares its purpose to preserve white supremacy meaning to keep the Negro permanently out of his rights of equal citizenship and degraded to the conditions of a wild animal to be persecuted, hunted, tortured and burned at the pleasure of white individuals or mobs not content with the legal means of suppressing the Negro under ‘democratic’ government, which are bad enough.

“The ku klux klan forms itself into a criminal band for illegal murder, coercion and terrorization assuming to act as a secondary government. The klan directs its venom, criminality and bigotry not only against the Negro but also against other hard-working people who happen to have been born in other countries and brought here to do the hardest labor of the industries of this country and also against religious liberty.

“This criminal organization shares the authority of the government in many places; it is semi-officially recognized in some states and has complete control of other state governments. Not only does the federal government fail or refuse to act against the band of bigotry and crime, but the influence of the ideas of the klan can be seen in refusal of congress to enforce the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments; and can also be seen in legislation recommended to congress, including the proposals which seek to force all foreign-born working people to carry passports and be registered with the police and to be segregated in special residence districts as the Negroes are segregated. Therefore,

United With All Workers.

“BE IT RESOLVED by the American Negro Labor Congress that we declare the ku klux klan an enemy to humanity, and that we will fight it to the bitter end, and will make common cause with foreign-born workers and others who are persecuted by it.”

In a resolution attacking the exclusion of the Negro from the jury in trials where Negroes are tried, was decried as an attempt to prejudice the Nero and to sentence him long before he is really tried. The congress in the following resolution makes some of its demands that a belief in “white supremacy” be made a bar to anyone who is to be impaneled on a jury:

Juries.

“It is a general custom of police and criminal courts to accord to every white defendant a jury composed of white persons, but at the same time to exclude Negroes from juries to try Negro defendants in important cases. This custom is based on the theory that the white man alone proves the presence of race prejudice in every such trial; therefore, be it

“Resolved, By the American Negro Labor Congress that as long as the principle of white supremacy exists a Negro cannot get a fair trial before a white jury or a mixed jury; and we demand that a belief in ‘white supremacy’ shall be a legal bar to anyone serving on a jury to try a Negro; be it further

“Resolved, that no Negro owes any respect or obedience to the decisions of any court in which he is discriminated against.”

The American Negro Labor Congress scores the attempts of those in power to strangle the working class thru the curbing of free speech, press and assemblage, and in the following resolution condemns these acts as a tyrannous infringement on the rights of the working people:

Free Speech, Press and Assemblage.

“The constitution guarantees the freedom of speech, press and assemblage, but in recent years certain reactionary groups which succeeded in winning political power in various sections of the nation, have robbed the poorer class of people of the above mentioned rights. Therefore be it

“Resolved, That the American Negro Labor Congress condemns such acts, whether legislative or otherwise, as a tyrannous infringement on the rights of the working people.”

Following the adoption of the resolution on free speech, press and assemblage, the congress adopted the following resolution condemning the actions of the United States war and navy departments for the segregation of Negro soldiers and sailors and denies the right of any power to conscript members of the race for military service as long as those members of the race are denied social equality:

Army and Navy.

“Be It Resolved, That this congress demands that the war department and navy department of the United States government abolish all Jim Crow distinctions in the army and navy; and be it further

“Resolved, That we demand that congress pass a law forbidding the army and navy to make or keep any record whatsoever making any distinction of Negro and white in the military, air and naval forces in time of peace or war or in any way to segregate the races in these services, and be it further

“Resolved, That we deny the right of any nation to conscript any Negro while such nation holds our race and class in subjection and inequality.”

Brother C. W. Fulp, a delegate from the United Mine Workers, Local 2012, was chairman of the evening session and after a few introductory words introduced Lovett Fort-Whiteman, national organizer of the American Negro Labor Congress.

Lovett Fort-Whiteman read the following answer to the telegram sent by the American Negro Labor Congress to Dr. Ossian H. Sweet, who is to be tried the latter part of the month with 10 codefendants for the murder of a hoodlum killed in an attack on the Sweet home in Detroit: “We, Dr. O.H. Sweet and ten codefendants thank you for your sympathy and support. With such people we cannot fail to fight to establish the right of any American citizen to buy and live in homes commensurate with their means and aspiration.”

Another telegram was read from the striking Polish miners of Shamokin, Pa., who expressed their solidarity with the purpose of the American Negro Labor Congress and to unite with the workers of all races to fight against the common foe.

“The capitalist white and Negro  press said that the purpose of this congress was to promote race prejudice,” declared Lovett Fort-Whiteman, after he had read the telegrams, in denouncing the attacks of the press on the congress. “Here each night we see workers, black and white, meeting together in a common cause. Workers who are fighting for a common cause regardless of clime, color or nationality.”

With a few introductory words he introduced the speaker of the evening, George Wells Parker.

“It was five or six weeks ago that I learned of the American Negro Congress. When I read the article by William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, warning the Negro to stay away from this congress because he said it was directly connected with the Soviets of Russia, the moment I read the article I became interested in the congress,” said Parker. “There was a time when they said freedom was bad for the Negro. They also said education was bad for the Negro. They said association with whites was bad for the Negro. No mat- ter what the Negro wants, what he desires, it is a bad thing for the Negro. So when Mr. Green said this congress was a bad thing for the Negro I became interested.”

Parker then began to show the relation of the Negro to the ku klux klan. In decrying the attempts of many Negro workers to ignore the klan issue, he said:

“The klan is not dying. The klan is going ahead by leaps and bounds. I receive at my desk fifteen different klan papers. They are organizing chapters in every hamlet and town. They have set 1935 as the year when they shall take government.

“The members of the klan who wear the nightshirts are the dumb-heads. They are pawns in the game. The men who are ruling the klan, the higher-ups, they are brilliant, they are wise, they are adopting measures to rule the world. The only thing they fear is Communism.

“The future for the Negro in America is dark. The stars of hope in your sky are gradually being blotted out one by one.

“The order has gone into the steel mills to hire the Negro last. The klan is behind this.”

Parker then read a part of the ku klux klan ritual which follows, in which the klan shows that its purpose is the spreading of the idea of race inferiority in attempting to keep the white worker and the black worker divided:

“The social chasm between whites and blacks is greater now than it has ever been and it must still be made greater by teaching the inferiority of all races excepting the white. We must not only constantly teach that they are inferior and destroy all facts that might prove otherwise, but we must suit our actions to these teachings so that they will forever believe in their inferiority.

“When I read to you another part of the klan ritual it will be an explanation to you why Mr. Green is afraid of this congress.

“When the workers of the world clasp their hands, I care not if they are of the red sands of Syria or of the Riff country of Morocco, if they say let us form an international workers’ organization and let us work it out together, if the workers of the world believe that, then Negroes that is your salvation. That is what Mr. Green and the klan fear.”

He then read another part of the ritual which follows, showing the aim of the klan was the division of those who opposed them in order to crush each group much easier: “A world coalition of malcontents could cope with us temporarily, but we are insured against this by roots of dissension amongst them so deep that they cannot be torn out. We have created antagonisms between the personal and national interests of these people by arousing religious and race hatreds which we have nourished in their hearts for centuries.

“We might fear the combined strength of intellectuals of vision with the blind power of the masses, but we have taken all measures against such a possible contingency by raising a wall of mutual antagonism between these two forces.

“This klan is drawn up so true,” declared Parker, “so deep (psychologically) that it is not possible to circumvent them except by organization.”

He then finished his speech with a rousing cry to the Negro to know more of his own race and rid himself of the inferiority complex which he suffers and called upon him to unite with the workers of all lands in the common struggle against the common foe.

B.B. Moore, of the Ethiopian Students’ Alliance of New York, followed Parker. He called upon the Negro workers not only to tell of the things they are going to do, but also to do them.

In speaking of the future that America holds for the Negro, he said: “The United States is the darkest place in the world for the poor man. When we look to the east, we see the dawn, the rise of a new movement that is taking hold of the minds of men. It is not a golden dawn, but a crimson dawn.”

He then began to describe the accomplishments of the workers of Russia, who thru mastering the principles of organization were able to overthrow the most despotic government in the world, and the Jew, whom he described as the Russian Negro, today is safe from pogroms and has been armed by the Bolsheviks in power to prevent recurrences of pogroms.

In decrying the present Negro leadership of doctors, lawyers, etc., who have always betrayed the workers of the race, Moore said:

“You Negroes have to develop a new type of leaders. He must come from the workers, one who will not bend the knee.”

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-ny/v02b-n249-NYE-oct-31-1925-DW-LOC.pdf