Established in France by officers of the U.S. Army at the end of World War One, the American Legion was a vanguard of reaction in the 1920s, as it remains, often ‘volunteering’ to police striking workers and gatherings of Black people, as describe below.

‘The American Legion Our National Ku Klux Klan’ by A. Philip Randolph from The Messenger. Vol. 2 No. 2. February, 1920.

AFTER great wars, countries are in danger of having organizations which will continue to express the spirit of vandalism necessarily generated by the militarism in which they have just been schooled. After our Civil War we had the vicious Ku Klux Klan, which operated chiefly in the South, and in the states from which slavery had been swept by the Emancipation Proclamation and the war. The great war just ended has left us a more pernicious vestige in the blatant, patrioteering, American Legion, which is simply another Ku Klux Klan, but national in scope.

The activities of the Ku Klux Klan were largely confined to night riding and killing and beating of Negroes, as well as the white Union men, who had sympathized with or participated in the late war on the side of the Union. The activities of the present national Ku Klux Klan, doing business under the name of the American Legion, are the breaking up of radical labor meetings, stopping performances of German opera, condemning and opposing organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, dictating to mayors what course they shall pursue with respect to speakers who are scheduled to appear in cities, placing in box cars an ex-Congressman of the United States who is making a speech against the League of Nations, and a number of other things which might be enumerated which are as silly as they are vicious.

We are thoroughly aware of the fact that the American Legion is the physical arm of capital. It is organized to beat up and destroy the organized labor movement. The rapid organization of policemen into labor unions has made capital uneasy, lest it should find itself unable to rely upon its usual lackeys to do its bidding, so an emergency organization had to be formed. One of the most petty, and at the same time, pernicious acts of the American Legion was its prohibition of the German opera at the Lexington Opera House in New York City. This action had no justification either in morals or law. There was no popular opposition to it; it was perfectly lawful. People everywhere would have enjoyed hearing the music. But this Ku Klux Klan in New York wanted some notoriety and this was a very good method of securing it and getting away with it. Everyone knows that we have just closed the late war with Germany. Germany long ago ratified the Peace Treaty. Actually, if not technically, we are at peace with Germany. Now, unless we are hopeless asses, there is no more sense or reason in opposing German opera than there would be in opposing English opera on the ground that we once had war with England in 1776 and in 1812. In South Carolina and the Southern States, Negroes are denied entrance to the Legion’s Ku Klux Klan on account of race. This patrioteering humbug is just a machine of race prejudice. It condemned the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, stating that there was no place in South Carolina for this organization or any organization that worked for the advancement of colored people. Now the N.A.A.C.P. is a reasonably conservative organization, which would meet opposition only of the most rabid race-hating, race baiting group of the worst Americans, many of whom constitute the backbone of this National Ku Klux Klan. We wish to give a tip to Negroes. This American Legion is not any lawfully constituted body with any authority to determine what and where meetings are to be held, and in many sections of this country there are thousands of Negro soldiers who have the power, the courage and the intelligence to protect the lawful meetings of the N.A.A.C.P., their labor organizations, their church meetings and any meetings which Negroes desire to hold. Throughout the large Southern cities and Northern cities heavily populated with Negroes, the Negro soldiers should form what are known as Race Defense Legions, which should be at the service of all proper meetings of Negroes. These Race Defense Legions should be manned and led by cool, calm, deliberate, intelligent, sincere, courageous and honorable Negro soldiers. The objects should be (1) To be present at large Negro mass meetings and conventions, volunteering their services to help keep aisles clear, to prevent blocking the streets, to help maintain order, and generally to serve for the public accommodation of their race. (2) They should absolutely prohibit the American Legion obtruding itself into any Negro meeting uninvited, and if necessary should pitch them out. In doing this, the Race Defense Legions will be acting perfectly lawfully. Only the American Legion will be the unlawful intruder. (We shall have more to say about the details of this in a later issue.)

The Reading, Penn., Legion, Sunday, November 23d, prohibited James H. Maurer from speaking at an Amnesty Meeting. In other words, this American Ku Klux Klan, which claims to be the only true exponent of Americanism, is spending its time chiefly in preventing the Constitution of the United States from operating wherever that Constitution does not operate to its pleasure.

We have just seen in The New York World that the Congress of the United States passed a law that these legions should be provided with guns at their different posts. This is one of the most inexcusable laws which this reactionary Republican Congress has passed. The action is on all fours with Congress in 1865, providing the Ku Klux Klan with guns and ammunition. In any thoroughly civilized country, the American Legion would be regarded as a criminal organization, the dissolution of which would be ordered with celerity and expedition. The only reason that it can thrive in America is because we have so long winked at lawlessness, lynching and mob violence that we have forgotten what law and order are. This American Legion is our new National Ku Klux Klan. This American Legion is a Trojan horse.

The Messenger was founded and published in New York City by A. Phillip Randolph and Chandler Owen in 1917 after they both joined the Socialist Party of America. The Messenger opposed World War I, conscription and supported the Bolshevik Revolution, though it remained loyal to the Socialist Party when the left split in 1919. It sought to promote a labor-orientated Black leadership, “New Crowd Negroes,” as explicitly opposed to the positions of both WEB DuBois and Booker T Washington at the time. Both Owen and Randolph were arrested under the Espionage Act in an attempt to disrupt The Messenger. Eventually, The Messenger became less political and more trade union focused. After the departure of and Owen, the focus again shifted to arts and culture. The Messenger ceased publishing in 1928. Its early issues contain invaluable articles on the early Black left.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/messenger/v2nRN-02-feb-1920-Messenger.pdf