William L. Patterson, with his legal eye, on a some of the key roles of the federal government in fostering the many vehicles, large and small, of Black oppression in the United States. Such as the promotion of misleaders, the ignoring its own constitution, the practice of Jim Crow in its institutions, and its purveyance of white supremacist propaganda.

‘The Role of the United States Government in the Suppression of the Negro Masses’ by William L. Patterson from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 10. No. 57. December 11, 1930.

The anti-lynching campaign of the Communist Party of the United States and the American Negro Labour Congress and the nationwide support given it by the Negro masses has driven the Negro reformists, particularly of the “radical” group into a flurry of excitement. More and more loudly they emphasise the necessity of increasing their petitions to the U.S. Government and “exerting pressure” upon “sympathetic senators and representatives, in the Congress for the passing of a Federal anti-lynching Law.

These “extremely effective measures” for the curbing of lynching received the firmest” support from the inter-racial committees particularly in the South where the reformist National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People and the semi-fascist National Urban League tells us the composition of these committees consist of the best people” doctors, lawyers, editors, judges, legislators and even governors, all of whom are much “disturbed” at the “unaccountable” new wave of lynching and mob terror against the Negro masses. There can be no doubt about it. The anxiety of the “best people” is real, but they are not concerned about the passage of a Federal Anti-lynching Bill. They are however, seriously disturbed by the growing militancy of the Negro masses. All of the Negro reformists and reactionaries, big and little have been pressed into service. The best known and best trusted reactionaries have been sent on international missions either to quell the growing unrest of the exploited and oppressed Negro toilers on an international scale, or to prepare the way for a further penetration of American imperialism into Negro countries or both. Such were the tasks of the commissions upon which Dr. Russa Moton, the Dean of Negro reactionaries and also incidentally Dean of Tuskegee University Alabama, Charles S. Johnson of Fisk University and Geor Haynes of the Inter-denominational Church Council in Haiti, Liberia and South Africa respectively.

But in surveying the treacherous activities of these individual tools of American imperialism and even the larger activities of the reformist bourgeois and petty-bourgeois organisations; in reviewing the increasingly widespread lynching Campaign of the fascist Ku Klux Klan and the American Legion organisations and the sanctimonious lies deploring these horrors which emanate from the ranks of the liberal wing of the American bourgeoisie, and of the activities of the American Government with reference to these incidents, it is particularly important that we place the performance of these groups of betrayers and deluders of the Negro masses in their correct perspective.

The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, written into the Federal Constitution after the civil war, were to guarantee, all the rights of citizens to the Negro masses. These have been nullified by various cases and anti-Negro legislation in virtually every state of the union. Yet these same Negro “leaders” who “protest” against the failure of the government to enforce these “guarantees” are seeking the addition of another such innocuous law. What game are these Negro reformers playing with the government?

The United States government takes its place in the front rank of the imperialist agencies, formulating, propagandizing and disseminating the bourgeois “racial superiority” ideology. The corrupt bureaucracy of labour, the fascist organisations, the reformist elements, the prostitute press and the professional bourgeois ideologists, in keeping with their programme of division of labour, popularise the official state-policy, work out tactical measures surreptitiously or openly according to their nature, fermenting acts of provocation which terminate in race riots, lynching bees, arson, and even extend to the wholesale driving of Negroes from their homes. as has happened this year in the states of Delaware, Oklahoma and Texas.

In laying down its line of procedure for the suppression of the Negro masses, the government proceeds openly, particularly is this true in periods of sharpening social contradictions.

The segregation and discrimination imposed upon this Negro employees of the government, particularly in the various departments of government in the National Capitol, is another example of the manner in which the State laid down the line to be followed where the Negro masses are concerned. The Jim Crowing of Negro soldiers, the shutting of the doors of military, naval and aviation schools in the face of Negro candidates, the mass trial and “legal” murder of Negro soldiers who only defended their lives in the honour of their women, the creation and partial subsidisation of a Jim Crow College–Howard–are all notable cases of the leading role played by the United States government in the suppression of the social, political advancement of the Negro masses.

In industry the discrimination operates in many ways, of which the colour wage scale the paying of Negro labour a smaller wage than white labour on the same job is a glaring example.

The government now turns to a more extensive and Intensive use of Negro reformist and reactionary elements. These are now being utilised to quiet the growing militancy of the native, bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie in Haiti and the South African natives, and to prepare the way for a League of Nations mandate over Liberia, Nigeria and West Africa. The offensive of the American government against the Negro masses never ceases; open and concealed, it ramifies every phase of the economic-political life of the Negro toilers. Their struggle for social, national emancipation leads inevitably to a struggle against the American government.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1930/v10n57-dec-11-1930-Inprecor-op.pdf