A shift in Communist Party policy in organizing Black workers was inaugurated by the Emergency National Convention Against Lynching in St. Louis during November, 1930. At that meeting the League of Struggle for Negro Rights was founded, replacing the American Negro Labor Congress as the Party’s primary vehicle for Black work. The change of attitude is reflected by the different names, with the new orientation explicitly supporting self-determination and placing the struggle for Black and white workers’ unity in a campaign against white chauvinism in the movement and Jim-Crow in society. While the early 1930s Communist position on Black liberation is closely associated with ‘Self-Determination for the Black-Belt’, the struggle for civil rights was also central as the manifesto makes clear. Langston Hughes became its President in 1934 with Harry Haywood as General Secretary. At the end of the Third Period and the beginning of the Popular Front, the League was closed and the C.P. focused on the National Negro Congress by 1935.

‘Manifesto of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights’ from the Daily Worker. Vol. 7 No. 296. December 11, 1930.

(Adopted at the St. Louis Convention)

To all Negro workers and farmers!
To all white workers!

THIS convention of Negro and white workers taking place at a time of deepest crisis both in industry and agriculture, when masses of workers are unemployed and faced with starvation, when all reactionary forces are being mobilized to crush the growing movement of the workers, when a wave of lynching and ruling class terror is sweeping the country, notes with alarm and indignation the increased efforts of the bosses and their agents to divide and split the workers on the basis of race and nationality.

We, the representatives of the black and white workers here assembled for the purpose of drawing up a joint program of action for struggle against the brutal oppression of the Negro toilers, deem it urgently necessary to call the attention of all workers to the following facts:

I.

In this so-called democratic United States of America, the citadel of capitalist civilization and culture, the white ruling classes carry out the most shameless and barbarous oppression of millions of Negro workers and farmers. Economically super-exploited, socially ostracized, in many places denied even the most elementary human rights, the Negroes are relegated to the lowest ranks of the social ladder and exist as a nation of “untouchables” or “social lepers,” subjected to the most flagrant persecutions and abuses.

It is an infamous lie perpetrated only by a government of slave drivers and their agents to maintain that the yoke of slavery has been lifted from the Negroes in these United States. The so-called “proclamation of emancipation” only signified a formal abolition of slavery without removing its real basis–the monopoly of the land by the plantation owners of the South, a monopoly they still enjoy–after the Civil War with the connivance and support of the so-called friends of the Negroes, the northern capitalists. The fact is that in the South millions of Negro workers and poor farmers are still in a position in many instances worse than actual slavery.

II.

The plantation system with its accompanying evils, share cropping, denial of the right to sell crops, landlord supervision of crops, plantation stores, peonage, usury, convict labor, etc., serve to reduce the Negro poor farmers and farm laborers to a condition of the most abject poverty and dependency. Upon the basis of this special exploitation the white ruling class has created a whole system of social and political inequality for the Negroes (segregation, political disfranchisement, etc.)–which has for its object the retention of the Negro masses in the state of servility and degradation, a condition for their continued enslavement. This vicious system is backed by the brutal force and reinforced by law and custom. The slightest protest is met by the most arbitrary violence, beatings, murders, lynchings. The entire state apparatus, police, militia, courts, etc., are mobilized in the service of the slave drivers. The Negro has no redress. He is at the complete mercy of the bosses, a prey to their slightest whims. The only justice he can expect is “mob justice.” He “has no rights that a white man is bound to respect.” The results are grinding poverty, widespread misery, illiteracy and disease. The South is a virtual tomb in which millions of Negro toilers He imprisoned and suffocating, the victims of the white slave drivers’ democracy.

III.

Not only in the South are Negroes subjected to special exploitation and oppression but even in the North. In all large cities the Negroes are forced to live in segregated districts, are the victims of high rent, are jim-crowed and discriminated against in public places. They are made to feel their position as social outcasts in innumerable ways. The slightest attempt to overstep the boundaries of discrimination is accompanied by risks of ill-treatment included even by violence. Lynching is not only a feature of the South, but is becoming increasingly practiced in the North. Everywhere it is allowed to go unpunished.

As wage workers the Negro workers are forced the lowest, the most difficult labor. As a rule, they receive lower wages than the whites and in many cases do not get the same wages as white workers for similar work. They are as a rule the first to be laid off “in hard times” and the last to receive work in times of “prosperity,” in addition to this, they are barred from many unions in the A.F. of L. by the labor bureaucrats.

IV.

Thus, the slave conditions on the plantations follow the Negroes into the industrial centers. The Negro poor farmers and farm workers fleeing from misery and starvation on the plantations into the cities of the North and South do not thereby obtain freedom. Suffering from the degrading slave conditions of the Southern farms, they are easier victims of the wage-cutting, slave-driving bosses in the industrial centers. There they create a source of cheap labor. Thrown into competition with the white workers, they unwittingly serve as a weapon in the hands of the bosses to beat down the living standards of the whole working class. But this is not all. Upon the basis of the competition thus created, the bosses and their agents, the labor bureaucrats, Ku Klux Klan, etc., stir up prejudices, and race hatred among black and white workers and in times of “depression” directly organize “race” riots and massacres of Negro workers. In this manner the bosses achieve their purpose of splitting up the ranks of the workers, isolating the Negro workers from the general labor movement and thereby perpetrating the slave condition of the latter even in industries.

Thus the Negro toilers cannot free themselves by fleeing to the North. The heritage of the plantations still clings to them in the industrial centers. The chains of the convict laborer in the South extend to the cities and enshackle the Negro industrial worker. The Negro worker in the North can not free himself as long as his brother remains a slave in the South.

V.

In order to obtain the moral support of the masses of the white population in the brutal oppression of the Negroes, the white ruling classes and their hirelings utilize the difference in color between the Negroes and white and create false “race theories,” purporting to “prove” the natural inferiority of the Negro peoples. Thus black skin is made to symbolize moral and cultural backwardness, while white skin is made to represent the highest moral and cultural development. In this manner the Negro’s color becomes a badge by which he is singled out as an object of scorn and hatred. By bribing a section of white skilled workers with higher wages out of the huge profits (a large share of which comes from the special exploitation of the Negro workers)–the capitalists succeed for a time in interesting this section in the support of a hundred percent white Americanism. This group under the leadership of the A.F. of L. bureaucrats, socialist party, Musteites, etc., betraying their class interest for momentary gains, align themselves with the ruling classes not only against the Negro workers alone but also against the great masses of unskilled, foreign-born and native white workers. The bosses with the connivance of the labor fakers strive to keep these latter unorganized. So their lot is little better than that of the Negroes.

The interest of the great masses of white workers are diametrically opposed to any special oppression of any section of the working class. The existence of a section of workers specially exploited and oppressed is a constant threat to the living standards of the working class as a whole. The presence of cheap labor is a weapon with which the bosses are able to nullify all the economic gains of the workers. The poisonous venom of race hatred injected into the ranks of the white workers becomes an instrument for the destruction of working class solidarity, the only guarantee for successful struggles.

Thus the slave conditions of the Negro share cropper on the land, the cultural backwardness of the Negro workers, becomes a drag on the working class as a whole. Every act of violence, lynching, etc., every persecution of a Negro worker, in short all acts calculated to perpetuate the position of Negro workers as objects of special oppression, are so many blows against the working class as a whole. The shackles of the Negroes are at the same time the shackles of the whole working class. This convention declares that the white worker who does not militantly support and go to the forefront in the struggle against all oppression of the Negroes is allowing himself to be used as a tool of the bosses and a betrayer of his own class.

“Labor in a white skin can not be free while labor in the black skin is branded.”

VI.

On the other hand the Negro workers can not liberate themselves except through the closest alliance with the militant white workers. Bitter experience has proven beyond doubt the utter bankruptcy of the self-styled “race” leaders (the Duboise, Kelley Miller, Moton, Depriest, Garvey) and the absolute fallacies contained in their doctrines under the cover of slogans of “race loyalty,” “race cooperation,” etc.; they attempt to deceive the masses into support of their own selfish class interests as landlords, insurance brokers, bankers, etc. Their “race loyalty” is loyalty to their own class interests as against the interests of the masses of Negro toilers. It is clear that the Negro politicians, business men, professional and real estate men, preachers, etc., who have been thrown up to prominence and wealth on the basis of the segregation and discrimination of Negro masses, many of whom are directly interested in perpetuating segregation, are incapable of carrying out a consistent struggle against oppression and for the equality of the Negroes. While giving lip-service to the struggle for equality they are constantly concluding reactionary agreements with the bosses behind the backs of the Negro toilers (activities of the National Urban League, Chicago race riots, etc.). The struggle for the rights of the Negroes is utilized by them either as a lever to raise themselves to prominence or to strengthen their ability for maneuvering and bartering with the white ruling class on behalf of their own class. They never question the dominance of the white rulers but merely want a larger share in the profits that come from the exploitation of the Negro toilers. In actuality, they concur in the segregation policy of the white masters by striving to keep the masses of Negro workers under their own leadership and isolated from the militant white workers. This is glaringly revealed by the representatives of this group in the Negro workers organizations (the activities of Phillip Randolph in the Pullman Porters Union, the “socialist” Crosswaite, etc.). However, Garveyism is the most subtle and therefore the most dangerous form of treachery to the Negro masses. This doctrine has played a great role in hampering the development of a real struggle for the liberation of Negroes. The program of “back to Africa” in actuality means the desertion of the struggle for equal rights of the Negroes in the countries where they live. By directing the hatred and distrust of Negro workers not against the white ruling classes, their real enemies, but against the revolutionary labor movement, Garveyism actually accepts the segregation policies of American imperialism. The very logic of this program led to an alignment between the Garvey leadership and the most violent enemies of the Negro toilers (Garvey’s reactionary bargainings with the Ku Klux Klan and the southern senators).

In contradiction to the fallacy of the “peaceful” return to Africa this convention declares its determination to struggle for the unqualified rights of the Negroes in this country; for complete equality, for the right of national self-determination of the Negro and for the removal of all armed forces of the white ruling classes from the territory–in the Black Belt.

In this connection this convention brands as a dastardly lie the assertion that the Negroes of the South have no territory which can be regarded as the basis for a Negro state. This lying contention propagated by the slave owners, approved by the northern capitalists, concurred in by Garvey and tacitly accepted by the whole clique of so-called “race” leaders, gives complete endorsement to the cruel oppression practiced by the landowners, the capitalists and their government, and to the monopolization of the land in the “Black Belt” by a few white landowners. This convention declares that the Negro masses were treacherously robbed of their land after the civil war by means of the so-called “Gentlemen’s Agreement” between the northern republicans and the former southern slaveholders. This convention, therefore, puts forth as one of its major demands the confiscation of land of the white landowners in the “Black Belt” and its return to its rightful owners, the users of the land, the Negro masses.

In contradiction to the illusions spread by Garveyism, of the voluntary granting by the imperialists of freedom without struggle for the African masses, this convention supports the revolutionary struggle of the masses of the various African colonies against the imperialist robbers and the establishment of independent native republics.

Only through a militant struggle of the Negro masses under the leadership of the Negro workers in close alliance with the militant white workers can the Negro masses achieve liberation.

Therefore, this convention calls upon the Negro and white workers to support the following program:

1. To carry on a united struggle of white and Negro workers against the special persecutions and oppressions of the Negro masses in the United States, which are the means of lowering the living conditions of all workers generally.

2. To fight for full equality of Negroes with all other nationalities for the abolition of all forms of discrimination, disfranchisement, anti-intermarriage laws, segregation, Jim-Crow laws, etc.; and against the special exploitation of Negroes by landlords through bad housing, high rents; and to secure defense for victims of persecution.

3. To fight for the right of self-determination of the Negroes in the Black Belt where they are the majority of the population by securing the land to the Negroes who work the land, by establishing the state unity of the Black Belt and by securing to the Negro majority the right and possibility of deciding its relations to other governments.

4. To assist in building up organizations of agricultural workers, poor farmers and sharecroppers in the South and to assist in their struggle against the exploiters.

5.To fight against the system of lynch law which is a direct survival of slavery and one of the most hideous expressions of the rule of imperialism, and to demand the death penalty for lynching. The present farcical “trials” of lynchers in those few cases which ever come to trial, where lynchers themselves also compose judge and jury, and acquit themselves, must be abolished and juries must be composed of white and Negro workers and poor farmers.

6. To fight against and destroy all racial and national barriers and prejudices which still divide large numbers of the exploited classes to the advantages of oppressors and exploiters.

7. To fight for a united trade union movement that includes the Negro workers on a basis of complete equality with all other nationalities.

8. To cement and maintain a real fraternal solidarity between white and black workers in the struggle for their common interests.

RULES OF ORGANIZATION

1. The organization shall be known as the League of Struggle for Negro Rights.

2. Its object is the organization of active struggle of the masses to attain full equality for the Negroes and the right of self-determination.

3. The direction of the work of the League shall be vested in a National Committee of 25 elected by the National Conference, the main task of which is to build a national newspaper, The Liberator, as the leading organ of struggle for Negro Rights.

4. The administration of the affairs of the League shall be through an executive board of five, elected by the National Committee.

5. Membership in the League shall be through affiliated organizations which declare their support of this program and make regular financial contributions to the work of the National Committee.

6. Individual supporters of the League, not members of affiliated organizations, shall unite themselves together in local groups according to their own decisions, especially for the purpose of affiliating to the League and carrying on its work.

7. In each locality a committee of the League shall be established consisting of delegates of all affiliated organizations and groups in a particular locality affiliated to the League. Each local committee thus established shall elect a small executive bureau.

8. The groups of white and Negro youth, organized as the Young Liberators, shall be a special part of the work of this organization and shall have full local organizational autonomy, including the right to establish their special local committees.

9. The function of the local committee of the League shall be the mobilization of mass support for the struggle for Negro rights, using as the main instrument, the mass circulation of The Liberator.

10. The local organizations of the League shall actively support and assist the building of bodies for the defense of white and black workers, for resistance against lynchings, and for protection against all forms of persecution and discrimination (defense corps, anti-lynching committees, etc.).

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. National and City (New York and environs) editions exist.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n296-NY-section_one-dec-11-1930-DW-LOC.pdf