One of the events that defined the Harlem of the 1930s was the so-called ‘race riot’ of 1935. A rebellion against police brutality, it was a scene so often repeated since. Yet it was in stark contrast to most big city ‘race riots’ of that time, pogroms against isolated Black ghettos, and marked the growing confidence and militancy of Northern Black workers. The Daily Worker responds to the events in Harlem of the night of March 19, 1935 after residents of Harlem rose up following the reports of a Black youth being beaten by department store guards. Dozens were wounded and arrested, with one person, Edward Laurie, shot and killed by police. With their tried and true playbook. the police, city administration and capitalist press all tied the Black Scare to the Red Scare, and blamed the Communists for incitement. Below are the first day’s coverage with news reports from the scene, the text of a Young Communist League flyer on events, a statement from James W. Ford, as well as the New York City Communist Party, and an editorial for the Worker.

‘Negro Harlem Terrorized! Neighborhood an Armed Camp’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 12 No. 69. March 21, 1935.

Resentment Against Hunger, Relief Cuts Sweeps Harlem; One Dead, 100 Hurt, 120 Jailed

Capitalist Press and the Officials Endeavor To Blame Communists

Harlem, the largest center of Negro population in the world, is today an armed police camp.

Its 400,000 Negro inhabitants are being terrorized by police, equipped with tear gas, revolvers, riot rifles and sub-machine runs.

One man was killed more than 100 severely injured by police guns and clubs and 120 jailed yesterday and Tuesday in riots precipitated by the police when they attacked crowds of Negroes who rushed out into the Harlem streets hearing a report that a 15-year-old Negro boy had been attacked for stealing a ten-cent jackknife in the Kress department store off Seventh Avenue, in West 124th Street.

The boy was saved from a murderous beating only by the screams of Negro women shoppers in the store who saw the youngster being dragged down to the basement by two burly house detectives.

See Boy Beaten

Reggie Thomas, Negro member of the Harlem section of the International Labor Defense, entered the store at the time the boy was being beaten by the manager and the store detective and saw the boy dragged into the back of the store. Negro women shoppers in the store, fearful that the boy would be harmed, began to shriek. Thomas then led a group of the women to the manager demanding that the boy be released.

The manager evaded their questions and tried to tell them that the boy was not badly hurt and had been released. The delegation refused to believe him and called on other people in the store to join them in the protest.

At this point the police rushed into the store and began beating the delegation in an attempt to drive them from the building. One woman was badly hurt and the police took her to the station.

All-Night Struggle

The pent-up anger of the Negro population, persecuted by discrimination and starvation by the relief authorities found its undisciplined expression in the smashing of the shop windows of big department stores known to charge exorbitant prices. During the entire night thousands swarmed the streets of Harlem, facing the clubs and guns of the police. Encounters took place in dozens of points.

“The Communists spurred the unwitting Negroes into the most disastrous outbreak,” shrieked Hearst’s New York Journal, and this cry was echoed by practically all the metropolitan newspapers.

Slander Refuted

This slanderous charge was decisively refuted in the statement by James W. Ford, Negro Communist leader and Section Organizer of the Communist Party in Harlem, who declared:

“The city administration and the press is attempting to lay the blame for the rioting, looting and incipient race riots upon the Communist Party. But they cannot and will not do this. The whole world knows that the Communist Party does not believe in, and is opposed to provocation, race riots and looting as a means of solving the terrible conditions of the Negro people. We have been organizing and teaching the masses that this is not the method to better their conditions.”

A white worker, eye-witness for several hours of the scene along 125th Street and Seventh Avenue declared emphatically that, “There was nothing like a race riot in Harlem last night. The crowd was in good temper toward white workers on the street. I did not see one instance of attack against a white worker who was in sympathy with the beaten boy. All the resentment was directed against the large stores, which charge excessive prices to Negroes for inferior goods, and do not employ Negroes.

“Police for over an hour had massed at Herbert’s on 125th Street and Seventh Avenue with sawed-off shotguns, trying to egg the crowd into attacking them. When police finally injured a Negro woman’s hand at this corner, the windows were smashed.

“It is significant that those stores, like Koch’s or the Empire Cafeteria, which were forced to employ Negroes as a result of recent struggles were not molested.”

Mayor Takes Hearst Cue

Taking his cue from the red-baiting Hearst press, Mayor LaGuardia yesterday issued a prepared statement to the newspapers declaring that the events of Tuesday night and yesterday morning were “instigated and artificially stimulated by a few irresponsible individuals.”

Attacking the Young Liberators, without mentioning them by name, and the various leaflets against discrimination in Harlem, he assailed what he termed “the false statements contained in mimeographed handbills and placards.”

A thinly-veiled threat to stop Negro or white workers from distributing literature in Harlem then followed. “Attempts may be made,” the Mayor declared, “to repeat the spreading of false gossip, of misinformation and distributing misrepresentation in handbills or other printed matter.”

The statement, in full, follows: “To the People of New York City:

“The people of New York City must know that the overwhelming majority of the Negro population of West Harlem are splendid, decent, law-abiding, American citizens.

“The unfortunate occurrence of last night and early morning was instigated and artificially stimulated by a few irresponsible individuals. A very small fraction of one per cent of the population took part in the demonstration and violence. Small groups of vicious individuals marauded throughout the section from time to time, committing acts of violence, attacking individuals in cowardly fashion and breaking plate glass of stores unoccupied during the night.

“The maliciousness and viciousness of the instigators are betrayed by the false statements contained in mimeographed handbills and placards.

“Attempts may be made to repeat the spreading of false gossip, of mis-information and distributing misrepresentation handbills or other printed matter. I appeal to the law-abiding element of Harlem to carefully scrutinize any charge, rumors or gossip of racial discrimination being made at this time.

“Every agency of the City is available to assist in investigating all such charges. I expect a complete report from several sources giving me details of everything that occurred. As soon as I receive these reports they will be made public.

“I am appointing a committee of representative citizens to check all official reports and to make a thorough investigation of the causes of the disorder and a study of necessary plans to prevent a repetition of the spreading of malicious rumors, racial animosities and the inciting of disorder.

“F.H. LAGUARDIA, Mayor.”

Three “Investigations”

Three separate “investigations” got under way yesterday when | Mayor LaGuardia, the Police Department and District Attorney William C. Dodge all announced their intention of pushing inquiries. Dodge will press a Grand Jury inquiry, it was stated by his office. The demand for the Grand Jury inquiry was made by Mayor LaGuardia.

He will particularly seek Communist influence in the Harlem events, Dodge said.

A “fact-finding” commission was set up by the Mayor. “This is to make a survey of the social and economic conditions in Harlem,” the Mayor told reporters. The police would hold “the people responsible for the commission of crime.” he said.

“My purpose,” Dodge declared, “is to let the Communists know that they can’t come into our country and defy our laws.”

Courts Begin

The capitalist courts began their job of frame-up cases and grinding out convictions. Most of their victims were unemployed workers in the Magistrates Court on 121st Street between Lexington and Third Avenues, 30 cases of Negroes were disposed of in, almost as many minutes. Some were charged with felonious assault, with robbery and other crimes.

In this court yesterday authorities were making a drive to single out what they considered “ring-leaders” in the fighting of Tuesday night. Three white workers, David Miller, Sam Jameson and Murray Samuels and one Negro worker, Claudio Viano were being charged with “responsibility for the riot.” Authorities declared that they “would prove they were Reds.”

$2,500 Bail for Four

Viano, the Negro worker, and the three others were held in $2,500 bail and their trials were set for Monday at the special request of Charles Carey, Negro Assistant District Attorney. Carey told Magistrate McDonald that the four were the “real instigators” of the events in Harlem.

I. Englander, International Labor Defense Attorney who defended the four, declared that they were arrested long before the rioting started, and that when police arrested them at 7 p.m. it was on the charge of picketing Kress’s.

Prisoners Beaten

The four, along with Henry Gordon, were viciously beaten by police and subjected to a third degree before they were brought to the courtroom.

When Yetta Aramsky. I.L.D. attorney, protested to Magistrate MacDonald that none of the prisoners had been given anything to eat since their arrest Tuesday night, MacDonald answered that he had no responsibility in the matter.

The nearly 100 other Negro and white workers who were arrested Tuesday night are being held until Friday on general charges to enable police to cook up larceny and other frame-up charges against them.

Many in Hospital

More than 50 people were brought to the Harlem Hospital for treatment Tuesday night. They were being brought in by friends up to five o’clock Wednesday, according to Dr. Stemholtz, superintendent of the hospital.

The best refutation of the slanders of the capitalist press that the Communists “tried to incite a race riot” is found in the following leaflet issued by the thousands in Harlem on Tuesday night:

“FOR UNITY OF NEGRO AND WHITE WORKERS!

“DON’T LET THE BOSSES START RACE RIOTS IN HARLEM!

“The brutal beating of the 12-year-old boy Riviers by Kress’s special guard for taking a piece of candy, again proves the increasing terror against the Negro people of Harlem. Bosses, who deny the most immediate necessities from workers’ children, who throw workers out of employment, who pay not even enough to live on, are protecting their gard property rights by brutal beatings, as in the case of the boy, Riviers. They shoot both Negro and white workers in strikes all over the country. They lynch Negro people in the South on framed-up charges.

“The bosses and police are trying to bring the lynch spirit right here to Harlem. The bosses would welcome nothing more than a fight between the white and Negro workers of our community, so that they may be able to continue to rule over both the Negro and white workers.

“Our answer to the brutal beating of this boy, by one of the flunkies of Mr. Kress, must be an organized and determined resistance against the brutal attacks of the bosses and the police. “WORKERS, NEGRO AND WHITE: DEMAND THE IMMEDIATE DISMISSAL AND ARREST AND PROSECUTION OF THE SPECIAL GUARD AND THE MANAGER OF THE STORE.

“DEMAND THE RELEASE OF THE NEGRO AND WHITE WORKERS ARRESTED.

“DEMAND THE HIRING OF NEGRO WORKERS IN ALL DEPARTMENT STORES IN HARLEM.

“DON’T LET BOSSES START ANY RACE RIOTS IN HARLEM.

“DON’T TRADE IN KRESSES.

“Issued by

“Communist Party

“Young Communist League.”

Brutal Relief Policy

The brutal relief policy of Director of Home Relief Edward Corsi, which is carried out with special violence by his Harlem supervisor Victor Suarez, is directly connected with the events of Tuesday evening. It is admitted by Corsi’s office that of the 12,000 families cut from relief last month, many are in Harlem, a number far out of proportion to the average for the city.

It is becoming impossible for the majority of Negro families to get the same rent scheduled as is paid elsewhere, because Harlem has comparatively few tenements with the steam heat, hot water, bath on same floor, cooking privileges, and outside windows needed to get the full rent schedule. In In addition many thousands of Negroes are denied relief who cannot prove residence for two years, although they have lived for many years in New York City.

Suares Anti-Negro

Corsi is the man who recently advocated that all aliens on relief be deported. This would directly affect a large number of the 100,000 West Indian Negroes living in Harlem.

His supervisor, Suarez, who recently framed up and caused the conviction of three Negro boys at the 124th Street Bureau, is a bitter enemy of the Negro people. He has declared that the majority of the unemployed of Harlem are “fakers,” and has said that Negroes do not qualify for higher jobs.

Merrill C. Work, Secretary of the Upper Harlem Unemployment Council, 109 West 133rd Street, said yesterday that relief cuts and unemployment were in the background of the events in Harlem. “The beating of a young Negro boy, whose mother, forced to live on a small pension, could not buy him food, touched off the resentment of the people of Harlem at the latest wave of relief cuts and police brutality.”

Miserable Relief

Work, who the day before had called upon Victor Suarez, supervisor of a Harlem Home Relief Bureau at 124th Street and Lenox Avenue cited figures obtained from Suarez.

Suarez’s precinct expended only $214,000 in February to feed, house, and clothe more than 7.500 Negro and Latin-American families. This is an average of relief per family of only $28, compared to average monthly city relief of $41 per average family. Suarez reluctantly admitted that in February his precinct spent only $12,000 on clothing, or $1.60 per family.

The increasing militancy of the workers at this bureau has forced Suarez to overspend his small relief budget by $11.000 in February and by $16,000 in the first sixteen days of March.

Work pointed out that when the police, riding horses over the sidewalk and handling the crowd roughly for several hours, finally goaded them into action, food, clothing and shoe and jewelry stores were the ones affected. People had decided to take into their own hands the problem of providing clothing, shoes and food for their families, denied them by the Home Relief Bureau.

***

Witness Tells How the Police Beat Negroes

Say Youth Was Clubbed Unconscious by Officer in Station House

By an Eye-Witness

At about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, news flew through Harlem that a Negro boy was murdered in the Kress 5 and 10-cent store at 125th St. and Seventh Ave. It was reported that he was hungry and took some candy from the counter, and for that was beaten to death by the management. Reports also had it that a Negro woman who attempted to defend the boy had been badly beaten and had her arm broken.

This aroused the entire Negro population and brought them to the scene.

It was then that the police arrived and started swinging their clubs and guns over the heads of the Negroes that gathered to protest.

Windows Smashed

As a result of the viciousness of the police, the people were aroused. Many smashed windows, especially of the big stores which had discriminated against Negroes. These scenes continued all during the evening and through the early hours of the morning. Hundreds of Harlem store windows were smashed.

As fighting spread among thousands of theatre-goers, the police became more vicious. Squad cars rode the sidewalks right and left, and many shots were fired, wounding several Negro and white workers.

Leaflets Issued

In order to develop the solidarity between Negro and white workers, thousands of leaflets were issued and distributed by the “Young Liberators,” several of whom were arrested and badly beaten.

The general feeling around Harlem is that what happened was the expression of anger demanding relief and security. At the 135th St. station I saw a young Negro boy being dragged in, carrying two cans of vegetables. A policeman took one can and threw it at the boy’s head. He missed him, and then proceeded to club hm unconscious, as blood splattered all over the policeman’s clothes.

Fire was set to a 5-and-10 cent store at 429 Lenox Ave. Then another was set of the roof of a house at 5 W. 131st St. This was done, I suppose, to draw the attention of the police force and riot squads from Lenox Avenue where they had concentrated their forces and were attacking the Negroes.

***

Behind Harlem Events-Terrorism, Starvation by James W. Ford

Vice-Presidential Candidate of Communist Party in 1932, Secretary of Harlem Section of Communist Party.

The responsibility for the events in Harlem falls squarely upon the city administration and the police. The reported beating up of a 12-year old Negro boy yesterday in Harlem was but the incident for letting loose the bitterness and resentment of the Negro people of Harlem as a result of their starvation conditions and terrible suffering.

In the first place this condition arises from the serious unemployment existing in Harlem. It is variously estimated that between 55 and 65 per cent of the people in Harlem are unemployed, that the relief given for the unemployed of Harlem is about one-third of that given in other sections of the city, while tens of thousands are discriminated against and denied all relief. The relief for a family, for example, in Harlem is $31 per month, lower than for families in other sections of the city. This unemployment situation, has led to various attacks on the Negro people by police authorities.

Besides subjecting the Negro unemployed to inhuman suffering they are hounded, persecuted and attacked by the police at the Home Relief Bureaus. A young Negro by the name of Owens was brutally beaten up a few weeks ago at the 124th Street and Lenox Avenue Home Relief Bureau by the police for simply asking for relief. Two months ago a Negro boy by the name of Desilver was beaten up by the police while standing in front of the relief bureau.

Police Terrorism

Recently there has been a series of attacks by the police on the Negroes on the streets of Harlem, some of them being shot. A few months ago three Negroes were sentenced to a combined term of 90 years for allegedly stealing 38 cents. In other parts of the city also, these provocations and attacks upon the Negroes by the police are shown by the frame-up of Clide Allen in Brooklyn who has been sentenced to Sing-Sing for 30 years and accused of being a “gorilla man.”

Now the city administration and the press are attempting to lay the blame for rioting. looting and incipient race riots upon the Communist Party. But they cannot and will not succeed in this. The whole world knows that the Communist Party does not believe in. and is opposed to, provocation, race riots, and looting as a means of solving the terrible conditions of the Negro people. We have been organizing and teaching the masses that this is not the method to better the conditions of the masses.

The Struggle for Relief

The only way the masses can better their conditions and the situation of unemployment is through the organization of their Unemployment Councils, making demands upon the city, State and national governments for immediate relief and for the passage of the Social and Unemployment Insurance Bill.

At the same time the Communist Party certainly is not responsible for the suffering of the masses and the police incitements and attacks that have aroused the resentment of the Negro people. The Communist Party in fact has been leading the fight for adequate relief and against police brutality and terror that rages through Harlem, and we are against the discrimination that is widespread in the relief bureaus and on the streets.

I believe that if an open investigation is made, it would unearth startling facts about the terrible conditions of the Negro people in Harlem, the only real cause for the recent events. We, the Communist Party, stand ready to give and to offer information in such an investigation.

Against Race Hatred

We are fighting against any attempts to stir up race riots among the people in Harlem. The situation of looting and race rioting can only serve the interests of the bosses as their means of setting white against Negro in order to oppress both. The boss class would welcome nothing more than a fight of the Negro and white workers of our community so that they can continue to cut relief, break strikes and carry through their program of mass hunger and fascization.

I appeal to, the Negro people of Harlem and throughout the city of New York to hold firm, maintain discipline and defeat every provocation to race riots and looting, and for the establishment of the closest solidarity and unity between the white workers, liberals, intellectuals and the Negro people.

***

Communist Party Urges Unity Of White and Negro Workers Against Police Provocation

The New York District of the Communist Party issued the following statement yesterday in connection with the events in Harlem on Tuesday night:

“The New York District of the Communist Party calls upon all white workers to stand fast and refuse to be provoked into race riots or anti-Negro incitement. Don’t allow the ruling class and police provocateurs to use the Harlem incidents of Tuesday to set whites against Negroes. The ruling class will try to do this as a means to attack and enslave the entire working class.

“The full responsibility for the Harlem rioting falls squarely upon the capitalists and their city administration. The reported brutal beating of the Negro child in the Kress store was in itself but an insignificant incident. It was the occasion for the riots only inasmuch as it constituted the spark that set off the accumulated frightful hunger, the inhuman suffering and the police incitement, the frame-ups, the attacks and ceaseless provocations practiced against Negroes. The real reason for the rioting is the terrible unemployment, lack of relief, discrimination and starvation of the Negro people, plus the vicious police hounding and persecution.

“White Workers–Don’t believe the lies and provocations against the Communists and the Negro people that you will find in the capitalist press. Everybody knows that the Communists don’t believe in and fight against race riots and looting. The Communists believe in organization and mass pressure in the fight for the needs of the masses. The Communists are not responsible for the terrible suffering of the Negro people. The Communists have been leading every struggle for adequate relief, for food, clothing and shelter for the Negro and white workers. The Communists are not responsible for the police persecution and attacks on Negroes. The Communists, in fact, have been leading every fight for Negro rights, against persecution, against discrimination, against all forms of oppression.

“White Workers–Unite in the fight for adequate relief, against discrimination, for better housing and health facilities! Unite with your Negro fellow workers against the common enemy, the bosses. Unite in solidarity against every attempt to incite race riots or attacks on the Negro people.

***

Negro and White Workers! Unite Against Race Riot Provocations!

AN EDITORIAL

THE eyes of the working class, of the Negro people throughout the county, are upon the events in Harlem.

With the capitalist press leaping to the defense of the LaGuardia police, pounding on the note of racial incitement, and violence against the Communist Party, every worker, Negro and white, must rouse himself somewhat, against this latest brutal provocation of the capitalist rulers.

With one Negro worker already dead and more dying, with hundreds arrested and beaten, with the prostitute capitalist press shamelessly trying to let loose the dogs of race hatred and lynch violence, the Communist Party issues this clarion call to every Negro and white worker in New York. Workers! Clasp hands in working class solidarity against the vile attempts of the cunning rulers to divide us! Maintain disciplined unity! Close ranks against all poison of race hatred!

The LaGuardia administration, eagerly assisted by the dirty Hearst press, is now working feverishly to accomplish one purpose–to conceal its own guilt as the oppressor of the Negro people, to fix the blame on the Communist Party, to frame the arrested Communist workers, using this as a trick to foment race hatred, to set a ring of isolation around Harlem as preparation for a city-wide terrorism against the Communist Party and all militant workers!

LaGuardia is setting the stage for a monstrous frame-up! The entire city press is behind him in this plot to generate lynch atmosphere, terrorism, and an attack against the Communist Party.

But it is the Communist Party alone which stands as a bulwark against the menace of “race riots!” It is the Communist Party alone which bares the plot of the Administration, the police and the press!

The whole history of the Communist Party has been an uncompromising struggle for the liberation of the Negro people. It is in such world-wide struggles as the fight for the liberation of the Scottsboro boys, the fight for Angelo Herndon, that the Communist Party has proven its steel as the leader of the oppressed Negro people.

And yet the capitalist press dares to assert that it was the leaflets of the Young Liberator which started the violence.

This is a dastardly lie to conceal the fact that it was just these leaflets, distributed among the people, which prevented a race riot, which called for discipline, for unity, and for defense of the rights of the Negro masses.

The responsibility for the events in Harlem rests squarely upon the LaGuardia administration and the police, declares James W. Ford, Communist Negro leader.

EVERY worker who has suffered or seen the misery which the city government has brought to the Negro people, has seen the police brutality and discrimination against the Negro people, will recognize the absolute truth of this.

The root of the events in Harlem is to be found in the utter misery and suffering of the Negro people, the hunger of their children, the systematic and heartless discrimination which the LaGuardia administration has meted out to the Negro people.

Two out of every three Negro workers in Harlem are jobless and starving!

With typical jim-crow rottenness, the “liberal” La Guardia administration follows the example of the Southern bourbons and pays starving Negro families 25 per cent less for relief than in other sections of the city. Negro workers are subjected to continuous police brutality, of which the grisly 30-year frame-up against Clyde Allen is a characteristic example.

On top of all this, the big capitalist merchants of Harlem have been pursuing the usual capitalist discrimination against Negro workers, refusing to hire them.

The Communist Party is not responsible for these conditions of misery, hunger, suffering, and police provocation, brought about, by the capitalist policies of the LaGuardia administration, conditions which roused the Negro people to such a pitch of resentment that the beating of a Negro boy set off an immense wave of mass anger. Seeing the spontaneous elemental action of the Negro masses, the LaGuardia police launched their attack.

It is the Communist Party which has been leading the fight against these horrible conditions.

It is against the picket lines of Negro and white workers which the Communist Party has been organizing before the press and other stores, that the fury of the Administration, the employers and the police is directed!

It is this growing solidarity of Negro and white workers, directed against the common oppressor, that the employers, the government and its hirelings fear more than anything else!

That is why the city government and the venal press is now beating the drum of racial incitement, lying, slandering, using every well-tried trick of mob hysteria so highly perfected by the American capitalist class in its century old oppression of the Negro people.

That is why they are striving so desperately to cover their own guilt by an attack against the Communist Party, which confronts them as the foremost fighter for the smashing of all jim-crowism, all discrimination, all oppression of the Negro people.

It is an old trick. When the ruling class drives its slaves to unbearable depths of suffering, then it unleashes the hounds of “race riot” so that it can better rob those whom it has aroused against one another, Negro white.

AMERCAN capitalism tried this in the hideous “race riots” of St. Louis, in Chicago, and in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

In the so-called “race riots” we see the deliberately fomented violence of the bosses, their government and their press, trying to perpetuate their whole brutal system of exploitation and national oppression.

The Communist Party warns against the police provocations intended to arouse individual violence, looting, street riots. On the contrary, the Communist Party works for the disciplined organization of the masses, into Unemployed Councils, into the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, into the Communist Party, for the welding of the unity of all workers, Negro and white, in united mass struggle against hunger and oppression.

All the more shameful and traitorous, therefore, is the action of such spokesmen for the wealthy bourgeois- reformist elements who betray the interests of the Negro masses, as the New York Age which joins the ruling class oppressors in a vicious attack against the Communist Party.

But the workers of Harlem, the workers of the entire city, know the Communist Party. They know it as their own class party, flesh of their flesh and blood of their blood, made up of the militant representatives of the working class. Against the fascist, brutal attacks of the LaGuardia administration, against the raging incitements of the boss’ press, the workers of New York, Negro and white, will unite their ranks in an unbreakable defense of their own party, the Communist Party!

THE Communist Party demands an open investigation of the shameful police and press provocations.

The Communist Party demands an investigation of the discrimination which the LaGuardia administration practiced against the Negro people, dooming them to degradation and suffering.

The Communist Party warns the population against the frame-ups which are now being prepared against the Negro and white workers seized by the LaGuardia police. It demands their immediate release and safety!

The Communist Party calls to all white workers who every day feel the effects of the LaGuardia relief slashes, the LaGuardia attacks on pickets, the LaGuardia strikebreaking to spurn the incitements of the capitalist press.

The Communist Party calls on workers everywhere to demonstrate their solidarity with the oppressed Negro people, fighting side by side with them against the monstrous national oppression by which the employers and the government plunder them.

Capitalist oppression seeks to divide us, Negro from white. American imperialism knows that only by this division can it exploit and oppress both.

In the LaGuardia police and press provocations, fascist violence and chauvinism menaces us, menaces our welfare and our political life.

Against all chauvinism! For solidarity of Negro and white! For adequate relief! Against discrimination. and jim-crowism!

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/1935/v12-n069-NAT-mar-21-1935-DW-Q.pdf