Black middle-class resistance to labor organizing in Chattanooga during the first months of crisis in the Great Depression from Gilbert Lewis. Originally from New Orleans and born in 1904, Gilbert Lewis left school young to life as a migratory worker. Ending up in New York City as window cleaner, he soon became active in organizing a union among his fellow workers, which led him into the Communist Party and began writing for the Daily Worker. In early 1930, Lewis went back down south as an organizer for the Trade Union Unity League; a potentially deadly assignment. In this article, Lewis describes his 1930 arrest, beating, and incarceration on a Tennessee chain gang for his activities. While there he contracted tuberculosis. After his release, comrade Lewis traveled to the Soviet Union for medical treatment, suffered a relapse and tragically died in a Yalta sanatorium on June 1, 1931.

‘Class Against Class in the South: Negro Misleaders in Chattanooga’ by Gilbert Lewis from The Daily Worker. April 7 & 8, 1930.

IN its campaign of reaching the Negro masses of the South and winning them for the revolutionary movement, the Party and trade unions under its leadership cannot raise too sharply the issue of class against class. Every opportunity must be utilized to impress upon the mass of the Negro proletariat the utter hostility of its interests to those of the upper and middle class Negro. For the petty-bourgeois Negro of the South, as well as his brother of the North, is definitely lined up with the white bourgeoisie and actively sup porting its campaign of suppression and exploitation of the working class, to the extent of segregation, jim-crowism and by their passivity, even lynching.

Recent facts will serve to bear out the above statement. When the Trade Union Unity League opened its headquarters in Chattanooga, Tenn., and began carrying out its program of organizing both Negro and white workers into the same unions on a basis of absolute equality, the Negro misleaders were among the first to come forward in a bitter attack upon us.

The Chattanooga headquarters of the Trade Union Unity League (T.U.U.L.) was opened on February 1, with a mass meeting of some 250 workers, of whom 185 were Negro proletarians from the railroad shops and metal plants in the vicinity. It was beyond a doubt the largest gathering of Negro and white workers ever assembled in one hall in the South. The white workers were composed of skilled and semi-skilled workers from the metal plants and furniture factories, with a small number from the textile centers.

It was a decidedly responsive group and hung upon every word of Negro and white speakers as well, applauding enthusiastically whenever any of the basic principles of the T.U.U.L. was outlined. After the meeting the workers crowded around the organizers eager to join the T.U.U.L. or leave their names to receive literature.

The following morning the southern ruling class, frightened stiff at our appearance in this part of the South, lost no time in mobilizing its agents in an effort to smash our organization; the Negro misleaders were among the first of these agents to be enlisted!

Negro Bourgeoisie Attack T.U.U.L.

In the February 4 issue of the Chattanooga “Times,” a newspaper boasting the same ownership as the supremely reactionary New York Times, we find that one Milton S. Hampton, Negro secretary of the Southern States Educational Committee, is calling a special meeting of the organization to “lay plans to counteract the activities of the Reds here.” Says this petty-bourgeois traitor: “The Negro shall never be a party in any attack upon private property, for we have as much to lose proportionally as the American white man.”

A little later we get an item which should prove very revealing to both Negro and white workers who still think in terms of race instead of class. After voicing his opposition to the T.U.U.L. and stating that the Negro wants the sort of “harmony” that “the better class of whites” are striving for, one D.C. Harper, referred to by the “Times” as a leader of his race, declares: “Of course, we are not asking for social equality, but we do want, more than anything else, to get along with the white people and this I think will help e us all. I am asking every Negro pastor in Chattanooga to instruct his congregation next Sunday against these Communists.”

That this tool Harper kept his word and that there were Negro pastors in Chattanooga quite willing and eager to comply with his request is shown by the following item which appeared in the “Times” for February 8. Under the caption: “Minister Suggests Negroes Shun Reds.” and vicious subtitle: “Rev. Hill issues open appeal and calls attention to lurking danger,” we find the Rev. P.B. Hill, pastor of Union Hill Baptist Church, declaring: “I wish to advise you against the movement that is launched by the Communists to organize white and Negro labor, and I wish to advise that you do not take part in it, as it is not for the best and will do nothing to promote your advancement. It would be unrighteous and ungodly for a poor man to rise up against a rich man.

When one considers the influence of the church in the South, the grip that religion has over large sections of the Negro (and white) proletariat, one can readily realize just what such doctrines mean. One instantly realizes that in just so many words do the Negro middle class not only condone the whole category of segregation, discrimination, class and race oppression but lend moral support to the bourgeoisie in its campaign of violence, mob-rule and lynch law.

Much more can and will be said about the Negro traitors and the southern Negro proletariat in this article. However, the forces of black reaction formed such a complete united front in their attack upon the T.U.U.L. when it opened its southern headquarters, that a word about it will not be out of place here.

The press, the Chamber of Commerce, the American Legion, the Klan, the police, the American Federation of Labor, the church, the Negro politicians were all joined hand in hand.

After a slimy attempt on February 2, to ridicule our meeting, held the night before, the bourgeois press openly showed its fangs and on Feb. 3, the “Times” blazed forth with the following headline: “Labor leaders keeping watch on Communists.” Reading through the body of the article we find this: “Observers of the Saturday night meeting stated yester day that the speakers swayed the crowd and that the propaganda being preached here by the trio representing the Trade Union Unity League is a menace to the peace of the community.”

In the Chattanooga “News” for February 4, under an editorial entitled: “No Cause for Alarm,” we find: “Chattanooga labor is far too advanced for the Communist agitation to be considered seriously. Then, too, the eye of the agitators who have appeared here appears to be centered on the amount of money contributed when they pass the hat. Those who wish to pay to hear violence preached may lend them an ear. Others–sensible laboring men–will not be bothered.” Opposite this dribble is a long editorial welcoming William Green and the A.F. of L. to the city. Following the long list of betrayals and sell-outs of the working class by Green and the A.F. of L. every worker knows why Green is welcomed while the Communists are attacked.

Attacks by various other agents of the ruling class came in rapid succession. The Chamber of Commerce announced its intention of investigating our literature, the chief of police declared that his department would conduct an investigation of the appearance here of a group of Communists if it were deemed advisable.” The American Legion called special meeting to decide on the most feasible plan of driving us out of town.

Labor Bureaucrats Join Chorus.

The fakers of the American Federation of Labor, leaping to the crack of the whip of its capitalist masters, joined the chorus in a loud howl against us. Says Robert M. Cooke: “Organized labor can be depended upon to do its part in blocking the progress of Communism and class hatred in Chattanooga. The part of “organized labor” in blocking the progress of the T.U.U.L. in Chattanooga was to mobilize a band of thugs to smash our meeting the following Saturday night. When, however, the thugs saw the powerful following of Negro and white workers that had been won to our program they immediately changed their minds.

A.F. Whitney, grand president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, (A.F. of L.), after being welcomed to the city by the mayor and feted at the city’s finest hotel, declared, in a bitter attack upon the Daily Worker for exposing Hoover’s fascist “Economic Council” and the Hoover-Green pact, that “the president very wisely stepped in and made an effort to stem the tide of business reaction.” In this manner do the so-called “leaders” of labor not only betray the workers by fighting a real workers’ organization but actually defend the bosses in their attack upon the living standards of the workers.

THE question naturally arises: Why is the Southern ruling class so thoroughly alarmed, so thoroughly frightened at the appearance of the T.U.U.L. in Chattanooga? It is because evidence is at hand to prove that organizations under the political leadership of the Communist Party can smash the barriers of race prejudice and mobilize the workers of the South, black and white, for a militant struggle against capitalism. Because Chattanooga has not escaped the general crisis of capitalism and here as elsewhere, one witnesses the terrific onslaught of capitalist rationalization with its wage cuts, speedup and stretchout and increasing unemployment. At the same time one also witnesses a decided growing resistance of the workers to these attacks upon their living standards.

This growing resistance of the workers is shown in their response to our program of revolutionary unionism–in the fact that 1,000 leaflets with a minimum of information on them, could bring into our hall some 250 workers–in the fact that the T.U.U.L.’s acceptance of the political leadership of the Communist Party, which has been brought out to them time and again, did not in the least keep the workers from crowding around the organizers after the meetings were over to join the T.U.U.L.–in the fact that in a space of two weeks time, in Chattanooga, absolutely new territory, a number of workers from the shops and factories were drawn into the Communist Party.

Indicative of the radicalization in process here is the relationship existing between the Negro and white workers. Though the issue of race against race has at times, in the past, assumed acute form, the intense process of industrialization and rationalization has educated them to the need of standing together. Rapidly they are coming to realize how race prejudice is used by the bosses to keep them divided, so that the standard of living of both groups can be lowered. In several instances in this city Negroes who were barred from the A.F. of L. unions, have been used to scab on the white workers who have gone out on strike. In other instances, Negroes, though barred from the unions, have refused to scab on the white workers when on strike. At all of our meetings both Negro and white workers have taken the floor and pointed out the necessity of standing together.

The attitude of the Negro workers in this respect presents a very interesting study. He has absolutely no objection to uniting with the white worker but neither does he regard it in the light of a special privilege granted him. And while not in the least subjective they want to be certain that you mean it when you say absolute equality, for they have had sorry experiences with the A.F. of L.

In 1920 the A.F. of L. came to Chattanooga and carried on a campaign of organizing Negro and white metal workers together. At first they declared that the workers were to be organized on a basis of equality. Soon however, they revealed their true intention. They organized the white workers as mechanics and the Negroes as helpers, stating that while the Negroes were receiving only $6-$8 per day as mechanics, as helpers they would receive $8.50 and up. But the white mechanics would receive $10 per day. The Negroes told the A.F. of L. to go to hell and walked out in a body and have never returned.

Negro Workers in Basic Industries Militant.

Chattanooga has a genuine Negro industrial proletariat, capable of leading, together with the revolutionary white workers, the revolutionary struggle. The Chattanooga bourgeoisie is badly frightened at the prospect of its being organized. This fact is borne out by an item which appears in the “Times” for Feb. 6 bearing the following scarehead: “Wave Red Flag as Negro Hope Against Whites,” a definite attempt to whip up a lynching spirit by declaring to the white workers that the Communist Party was calling upon the darker races of the world to rise up and conquer the white man.

All of these attacks, however, have done little to hamper our work. The T.U.U.L. has moved steadily forward in spite of them and all of our meetings have been well attended by both Negro and white workers. Our membership has increased at a rapid rate of speed, excellent progress being recorded in Chattanooga, Atlanta and other parts of the South, including Birmingham.

The workers are ready for struggle and willing to struggle. Not only are they willing to struggle against the bosses for a bite of bread but they are prepared to wage a militant struggle against the whole capitalist system. Workers here in the South who have never heard of the Communist Party will tell you that what this country needs is a revolution.

The Party must pay close attention to the South and lend political guidance to these workers in their struggle. And in view of that fact some of the things that I said in the beginning of this article in regard to winning the Negro masses will bear stressing.

Class Against Class Must Be Emphasized.

Certain shortcomings of the Party in reaching the Negro workers of the North must be overcome in the South. We cannot repeat the same mistakes. While in the North a serious campaign has been carried on by the Party to win the Negro masses for the revolutionary movement, trained organizers have been put in the field with this as their primary task, etc., the fact must be recognized that our Party hasn’t a sufficient appreciation of the Negro question in this period. For while the slogan of class against class has been repeatedly raised not enough effort has been made to win the Negro on the basis of that slogan. In too many cases the stress has been placed upon his suffering as a member of an oppressed race and not enough upon his suffering as a member of an oppressed class.

We have not centered enough attention upon the shops and factories. In too many instances in approaching the Negro worker, we have subordinated the Party to general left-wing mass organizations. We have not sufficiently exposed to the mass of Negro workers the treachery of the Negro misleaders. It is not enough, to tell the Negro masses that the Negro middle class is too lacking in courage or has no program to effect their liberation. We must make them understand that the Negro middle class is definitely their enemy and the friend of their oppressor.

In this period of sharpening class conflicts such shortcomings become keenly apparent. Class against class must be the outstanding slogan of our Party in its approach to the Negroes of the South. My experience with the Negro in industry, the only one vital to the revolutionary movement, gives me to believe that the Negro is as class conscious as the average white worker and can be won on the basis of that slogan.

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/1930/v06-n338-NY-apr-07-1930-DW-LOC.pdf

PDF of issue 2: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v06-n339-NY-apr-08-1930-DW-LOC.pdf