A central leader of U.S. Communism during its first two decades speaks to the growing importance of Black women as wage workers and the need of Party activists, particularly in unions, to turn their attention to the needs of Black women and organize them into the Party. Before the 1920s, Black women figured barely at all in the discussions of the workers’ and Socialist movements, with it not being–with some exception in the needle trades unions–until the C.I.O. that appreciable numbers of Black women were organized.

‘Negro Women in Industry’ by I. Amter from The Daily Worker. Vol. 8 No. 55. March 4, 1931.

THE Negro in industry is a growing factor. The bosses recognizing that they can play one section of the working class against the other are employing foreign-born workers to antagonize the native born and the Negro workers; and again, in other situations, are using the Negro workers in order to antagonize the white workers, both native and foreign-born.

In the present crisis not caring what becomes of the workers, and yet, understanding that the entire American working class is being aroused by misery, starvation and wage slashes, the bosses are doing everything possible to divide the working class. For unity of the working class, with definite working class purpose and militant leadership and policy will be dangerous to the interests of the bosses.

The Negro workers, although fearfully affected by the crisis, are playing a big role in industry. The Negro worker not only in the past, but at present, earns the lowest money at the hardest work. He has to pay more for living in the industrial cities than the white workers. The rents are outrageous, and the result is that the Negro workers have to double up in flats in order to meet the rents. Negro workers are unable to pay their rents, and in all industrial cities and towns, evictions of Negro workers are very numerous.

The Negro women and girls in industry are increasing in number. They are entering all the industries in which women are employed. And yet for the same operation, even though it be an unskilled operation, they receive less pay. They are given places in factories where it is more difficult to work, thus lowering their earnings.

The Negro workers, and particularly the women workers, are far from organization. The American Federation of Labor, with its traditional policy of keeping the Negroes out of the unions, does absolutely nothing to Induce women to join the unions. The fascist leaders of the A.F. of L. who follow the policy of the American bosses (Green’s promise to Hoover not to lead any strikes, which can only be in the interest of the bosses), also follow the policy of the bosses in lowering the standard of the Negro workers, which was terribly low even before the wage slashes began. Negro women are totally unorganized in the American Federation of Labor, for added to its policy of discriminating against Negroes generally, the A.F. of L. does not even make a pretense of carrying on work among Negro women workers, for they are mainly unskilled workers.

Only In the revolutionary unions of the Trade Union Unity League do the Negro workers, both women and men, find a place. In these unions, the Negro workers stand and fight shoulder to shoulder with the white workers. The Trade Union Unity League not only admits the Negro to its ranks, but carries on a militant fight to line up the Negro workers. It conducts a bitter struggle against white chauvinism (the feeling of superiority of whites over Negroes on the basis of bosses ideas taken over by the white workers); it makes it the duty particularly of the white workers in its ranks to fight for the rights of the Negroes against Jimcrowism, segregation and discrimination. Thus, not in words alone, but in deed, the Trade Union Unity League is the only organization of the workers on the Industrial field, where the Negro and white worker is united in struggle against the bosses.

This applies in equal measure to Negro women worker, who are growing in numbers in industry. Still the number of Negro workers in the Trade Union Unity League, and particularly of Negro women workers, is insignificantly small. Therefore the Trade Union Unity League must pay far more attention to this important section of the working class.

The Communist Party, which unites the workers of all nationalities in its revolutionary ranks and leads the struggles of the entire working class, is the only political party of the working class which fights for its interests. The Negro women together with the Negro men, have been fooled by Negro leaders, also of the stamp of the socialists, who work together with the fascist strikebreaking leaders of the American Federation of Labor and the bosses. The socialists make a bid for the support of the lily whites of the south and of the north. They not only do nothing to prevent lynching, but even aid it by their indifference. The Communist Party is carrying on a bitter fight for Negro rights, and has as its policy the prevention of lynching by demanding the death sentence for lynchers, and also the organization of white and Negro workers into defense corps to prevent the mobs from laying their hands on Negro workers. The Communist Party supports the right of the Negroes to self-determination in the south, where the Negroes in the black belt are the majority. It fights for the right of a Negro state thus founded to separate from the United States if they so desire.

This policy, for which the Communists fight openly, has made them feared and hated by the white bosses of this country and their government. The Communists are hated also by the Negro intellectuals and businessmen, who see that the Communist Party is being regarded by the Negroes as the ONLY organization that represents their interests.

The Negro women workers must begin to recognize that only through organization and fighting for working class rights will they be able to improve their conditions. The white workers, and particularly the women workers, must recognize the need of getting the Negro women workers into the fighting industrial unions, of lining them up for strike struggle. This is the duty of the Trade Union Unity League and the Communist Party toward this growing section of the American working class, at the same time that they lay particular emphasis on the special grievances and demands of the Negro workers.

International Women’s Day on March 8, must be a day for mobilizing the Negroes and particularly the Negro women for the struggle against the crisis and the danger of a new imperialist war. The Communists must make this one of their principal duties in the campaign to unite and lead the entire working class in struggle.

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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