The full text of a May 22, 1934 speech by Harry Haywood in Detroit, Michigan on the case–and its wider context–of James Victory, a Black worker framed-up for assaulting a white woman made in the midst of a larger lynch atmosphere created by press and politicians. Victory would be defended by a mass campaign in the streets and by the legendary Detroit movement lawyer Maurice Sugar at his jury trial, One month after this speech, James Victory would be acquitted of all charges. The conditions in Detroit Haywood describes led nine years later, in the midst of World War Two, to the 1943 Riots in which white racist mobs attacked Black neighborhoods and individuals in a bloody pogrom that killed dozens and led to U.S. troops patrolling the city. In another world, it would be taught in high school history classes.

‘The South Comes North’ by Harry Haywood from Detroit’s Own Scottsboro Case. League of Struggle for Negro Rights, New York. 1934.

DETROIT’S OWN SCOTTSBORO CASE

An Address Delivered in Detroit by Harry Haywood, General Secretary, League of Struggle for Negro Rights. Tuesday, May 22nd, 1934.

The Meaning of the Foul Campaign Against the Negro People

THE EXPOSURE OF

The Frame Up of James Victory, Innocent Negro Worker

DETROIT’S SCOTTSBORO CASE

The attack on the Negro people in Detroit, expressed in the campaign of incitement in the press, the police terror against the Detroit Negroes and the arrest of James Victory is not an isolated event. It is part and parcel of the whole campaign of suppression and terror carried on against the Negro people of which the Scottsboro frame- up was the most outstanding case.

For three long years, workers throughout the country and throughout the world have joined hands in mass struggle to save the lives of the nine innocent Scottsboro boys. Four times the mass movement has wrested these innocent victims of white ruling class justice from the clutches of the executioners.

What is the lesson of this world-wide struggle? It is that Scottsboro represents not only the fight for the freedom of the nine innocent Negro boys, but the fight for the freedom of a whole people. Scottsboro is but a single expression of the whole system of oppression and persecution which is the lot of the Negro people in these so-called “democratic” United States.

To every Negro, to every worker the word Scottsbroro has come to symbolize Jim-Crow-frame-up-lynch justice, and terror; therefore, Scottsboro by no means is confined to Alabama or the South. On the contrary Scottsboro is nation-wide. You do not have to go to South for Scottsboro; every locality has its own Scottsboro.

The situation of the Negroes right here in Detroit, equals in many respects the worst part of the South. The City Administration of Detroit, headed by millionaire, Mayor Frank Couzens, and the Detroit Police Department, have instigated a campaign of intimidation and lynch incitement against Negroes which rivals in many respects the methods of the Southern slave masters. Elementary rights of Negroes are daily violated by forces of “law and order.”

Beatings, killings, frame-ups, of innocent Negro toilers are common occurrences. Public open-air meetings are prohibited in Negro neighborhoods by decrees of the Police Department. This is obviously for the purpose of forestalling any protest against the crying injustices inflicted upon the Negro people of this community. A glaring example of police brutality was the fiendish attack and clubbing of over 500 of the Moorish American Society, Peacefully assembled in front of Police Headquarters to protest the arrest of members of their organization. This attack was directed in person by H.A. Pickert. It was followed by the savage sentence of one to ten years handed down against one of its members.

SOUTHERN WHITE POLICE FOR NEGRO NEIGHBORHOODS

Adding insult to injury, Police Commissioner Pickert has established a system of detailing southern white policemen for duty in Negro neighborhoods. In this, he is undoubtedly acting upon the principle that these by virtue of their training in an atmosphere of race-hatred and Negro baiting “know best” how to handle Negroes.

The whole atmosphere in Detroit reeks with the stench of the Southern slave markets. 40 Negro postal employees are refused service in a downtown restaurant, the Michigan Civil Rights Law notwithstanding. A white school teacher recently declared that Negroes could not be scientific, because they are “superstitious” and believed in “voodooism.” Negro high school students were refused admission at a school entertainment. A Negro school girl is brutally beaten by a white gymnasium instructor, etc. etc. This is but a partial list of injustices heaped upon the Negro people in this community.

What is the source of this race-hatred and prejudice in the school system of Detroit? Are these accidental? NO. It is a deliberate policy and can be directly traced to high officials in the Board of Education of the city of Detroit. Superintendent of school, Frank Cody, while speaking in Windsor recently, in regards to Negroes, declared, “he had eaten chicken prepared by colored cooks, and it was good, but when he had to eat and sit down to the table with the Negroes, he became sick at the stomach.” (The Detroit Guardian. May 19, 1934).

This rabid Negro hater is the head of public education in the city of Detroit, a man receiving a salary of $18, 000 a year from the taxpayers of this community–a large section of whom are Negroes. It is this person, steeped in hatred against the Negro people, who has been entrusted with the responsibility for the training of the children of this city. Is it any wonder that race prejudice is rampant in the Detroit school system? Is it any worder that Negro children and teachers are flagrantly discriminated against?

Can Negroes receive justice in the Detroit courts? The answer to this is to be found in the case of Mrs. Jessie Crowell, a Negro woman. A jury recently awarded her $5,000 for the murder of her husband at the hands of a policeman. Although it was definitely established, beyond a shadow of doubt, that this was but another of the many cold-blooded unprovoked murders on a defenseless Negro worker by the police of this city, the Negro baiting Judge Campbell of the higher court set aside this verdict calling it a miscarriage of justice. This amounts to an announcement of an “open season’ for the shooting of Negroes by Detroit police without fear of punishment.

SOUTHERN METHODS COME NORTH

At the same time, the employer-controlled press of this city carries on a continuous and pernicious campaign of slander and vilification against the Negro people. In this campaign, Negroes are depicted as “rapist,” “Voodooist”–natural criminals, gavages, etc. For example: At the time of the police attack on the Moorish American Society, the newspapers of this city justified this attack in big headlines to the effect that secret rituals of this organization included sacrifice and murder of white people. Here we have the same sort of race-inciting propaganda which was carried out by the Czarist regime in old Russia against the Jewish people. The Jews are also branded by the Czarist reactionaries as killers of Christian children, the blood of whom was used in the ceremonies. This slander against the Jews was calculated to inflame the minds of the Russian toilers and to justify mass murder of the Jewish people. In this way, the Czarist reactionaries attempted to divert the attention of the toilers from the struggle against their common oppressors.

In the last few days, the campaign of slander by the employer-controlled newspapers of the city has burst forth anew. Big headlines are being carried about the Man-Hunt ordered by Chief of Detectives Fred W. Frahm for an alleged Negro slasher–a sort of a “Jack-the-Ripper”–in the form of a giant Negro, who is loose, running around slashing white women. Under the cover of this manufactured bugaboo, the Police Department under the leadership of Police Commissioner Pickert has launched a new terror drive against the Negro citizens of Detroit. Dozens of innocent Negro workers are being picked up, thrown into jail, beaten and tortured thru the third degree. As soon as one batch is released, another is picked up. During the week of May 14th, over 40 Negroes were arrested, while hundreds have been stopped on the streets and questioned. The homes of Negroes are being raided. Negroes are being stopped and questioned and subjected to investigation anywhere, anytime and anyplace. Special police details have been thrown into Negro neighborhoods with instructions to pick up all “suspicious characters.” But this is not all! Chief of Detectives Frahm has issued orders for the arrest of all Negroes found in white residential neighborhoods!

NOT THE SOUTH BUT DETROIT

No, this is not Alabama or South Africa, which pass laws or curfews restricting the movement of Negroes, this is the free “democratic” city of Detroit on the Canadian border.

But why all this incitement against the Negroes? Why is this lynch hysteria being whipped up? Is there any foundation for these reports? Let us see. When we look for facts, we are confronted with a mass of contradictory reports. It will be remembered that the newspapers gave it out that the alleged slasher was a big man, gorilla like in appearance, a “maniac,” etc. The woman alleged to have been attacked for a considerable period failed to identify any suspects. The man finally identified by one of the women does not tally with the description previously carried in the press. Then, too, the charges are suddenly shifted. We find that it is not a rapist, not a slasher, who is hunted, but a robber. James Victory, the man who was finally identified and is now being held and charged with “robbery armed.’

Who is this Man Victory?

A special committee, representing the International Labor Defense, the League of Struggle for Negro Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union, started an investigation of this case. In the course of this investigation after interviewing a number of people including businessmen, professionals and workers in the neighborhood where  James Victory worked and also members of the Charles Young Post of the American Legion, the following facts were established:

1. That James Victory is a World War Veteran, a member of the Charles Young Post of the American Legion; that he was employed as a car washer at 12332 McNichols Road (Gasoline Station) for over 2 years; and that he is well-known in the neighborhood of Gratiot and Six Mile Road for over 10 years.

2. All of the people interviewed, testified to the unimpeachable character and honesty of James Victory. They were of the opinion that Victory is being FRAMED-UP without any basis of fact.

3. The fact that the bail was set so high ($100,000) as to make it impossible for James Victory to be bailed out is an indication that the police have no case against him, but that the authorities wish to keep him in jail; firstly, to create the impression that he has committed a terrible crime; and secondly, to give them time to build up a false case against him, and to him a scapegoat for their whole attack on the Negro people.

4. The examination of Judge McKay Skillman’s court proved that the Prosecution had no case against Victory and has to rely SOLELY upon the testimony of Mrs. Kay who only recognized HIS HAIR WHICH SHE SAW IN AN UNLIGHTED ALLEY AT NIGHT.

All the newspapers, in this city carried daily conflicting stories creating incitement against Negroes. By far the worst in the yellow sensational Hearst paper, the Detroit Times, which climaxed a week of vicious inciting headlines in its story of May 14th, which read:

“Giant maniac sought in attacks, Knifing of 3 women in lonely streets reported; Police set net.

“Police prepared a net today for the giant Negro maniac whose razor already has mutilated three women as they walked in lonely East Side streets.

“The hunt of the Negro is going on under the personal direction of Fred W. Frahm, chief of detectives. Police radio broadcasters have been instructed to converge all scout cars toward any area in which the attack of a woman is reported.

“Saturday night, Detective Frank Fitz of Chene street station fired on a Negro running down an alley near Hendrie and Harper avenues who refused to halt. None of the detective’s shots took effect. He resembled the slasher, Fitz said.

“The attacker has been described as more than six feet tall, light skinned and weighing 180 pounds. He wears a maroon jacket and a gray felt hat.

This campaign of incitement still continues:

Therefore, it is quite clear that this is a crude frame-up, cooked up in the office of the Police Department, using as their stool, a woman recently from the South inflamed with all the prejudices of the Southern ruling class against the Negro people.

WHY LYNCH HYSTERIA?

What is the purpose of all of this? Why all of this vile lynch hysteria? Why are the capitalist newspapers belching forth columns of lies and slanders against the Negro people? Why this crude frame-up against an innocent Negro worker?

What is underneath this whole structure of slander, lies, terror and racial incitement? Let us get to the bottom of it.

It is clear that the purpose of this whole campaign is to intimidate and browbeat the Negro toilers of this city to make them accept without protest the increasing oppression and Jim-Crowism which is their lot.

The attacks of the employers on the standard of living of the working class in the city of Detroit has hit the Negro toilers the hardest. Jim-Crowism has been sharpened along the whole front–in the factories, in the issuance of relief and on relief jobs. Thousands of Negroes are literally starving. Death and disease are rampant. But the Negroes are becoming restless. These is a noticeable stir in the Negro sections of the city. The protests of the Negro toilers are taking various forms, demonstrations before relief stations, but most important, is the growing sentiment of unity with the militant sections of white toilers as expressed in the fight for the Scottsboro boys and other demonstrations in the city. Negroes are awakening to a sense of injustices being heaped upon them by the white ruling class. Here, as in other parts of the country, there is to be seen a growing militancy, a willingness to fight against the increasing persecution and oppression.

Therefore, the purpose of this campaign of terror is to make secure the whole system of Negro oppression. It is aimed at crushing the growing militancy of the Negro toilers, retaining them as a reservoir of cheap labor, as a source of special profits for the automobile lords who rule the city of Detroit.

NEGRO AND WHITE–UNITE

The Negro workers are awakening. They are beginning to break down the barrier of Jim-Crowism. It, therefore, becomes necessary for the master class to draw tighter the lines of Jim-Crowism to re-enforce these lines with additional support of an artificial campaign of prejudicial lies or slander calculated to inflame the whites against the Negroes as depicting them as brutes, savages and rapists. This is the meaning of this attack. The answer of the automobile barons and the city administration to the strivings of the Negro citizens of this community for their just rights is a vicious attack of terror and slander. “Stay in Your Place!” Don’t dare ask for decent conditions!

But it would be a mistake to believe that this campaign of terror and incitement is directly only against Negroes. It is against the white workers as well. It is against the whole working class. Its purpose is to split and divide the workers, Negro and white. To prevent the growing unity of Negro and white workers in the struggle against the wage-cutting, union busting drive of the automobile manufacturers. The automobile lords are preparing a new attack against the workers, Negro and white. This is shown by a recent ruling issued by the Auto Board regarding layoffs and re-hirings. This ruling means that the automobile manufacturers are preparing and already are carrying through mass layoffs. The automobile workers, black and white, are preparing for struggle against this new attack.

The workers in the city of Detroit have been themselves betrayed by the AFL fakers who supported the Roosevelt agreement with the automobile manufacturers. They have seen that with the aid of this agreement the automobile companies and the AFL officials were able to temporarily check their fight for decent living conditions and for the right to organize their union. The workers are turning away from the influence of the AFL fakers and are again taking the path of struggle under militant rank and file leadership against layoffs, for decent wages against discrimination of Negroes, for the right to organize class struggle unions. The Detroit working class, Negro and white, stands on the eve of great class battles.

THE OLD GAME OF DIVIDE AND RULE

This frame-up of an innocent Negro worker; this campaign of lynch incitement conducted by the boss-controlled press is deliberately timed to head off the gathering struggles of the workers against starvation conditions. It is a preventative measure aimed to insure the defeat of the workers. What could be more ideal for the bosses on the eve of decisive battles than to have the ranks of the workers divided along the lines of race and national hatred-fighting amongst themselves! Instead of a common front against the oppressors–division, disunity, race riots. It is the old policy of divide and rule. It must be against the common enemy–the ruling class of Detroit. met by a solid united front of Negro and white workers Where are the so-called Negro leaders in this emergency? Where are the “leading colored citizens” of this community? The Mr. Roxboroughs, the right Reverend Bradfords, and other leading lights of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League. Have they nothing to say against these crying injustices and insults against the Negro people? Why have they not taken up the cudgel of struggle against this vicious campaign of oppression and slander? Why are they silent? Are their mouths stuffed with traitors’ gold?

MISLEADERS HELP ENEMIES OF NEGRO PEOPLE

At a time when the Negro toilers are pressed to the wall before the most vicious attack, the leaders of the NAACP and Urban League advocate cooperation with the white rulers, a united front with the “best citizens” of both races, that is the united front with the persecutors of the Negroes! Their policy is one of belly-crawling, groveling before the ante rooms of the automobile lords, seeking a place at the feast of the mighty, secure in their own role as Judas, they turn a deaf ear to the anguished cries of the oppressed Negro masses. Instead of a struggle, they call upon the Negro toilers to accept peacefully, their increasing misery and persecution. They call upon the Negroes to have faith in the Laws and Courts of the white rulers. This means faith in those who are the instigators of the persecution of the Negro people.

Instead of a united front of Negro and white toilers which is the sole condition for successful struggles against the ruling class oppression, these people preach disunity, division between Negro and white workers. They preach that Fords and Rockefellers are the Negroes’ friends; they say that it is the white workers who are their enemies.

At the time when the Negro and white workers are uniting in common struggle against the most barbarous attacks, when the white workers in ever greater numbers are rejecting the Jim-Crow policies of the AFL officials and are seeking unity with their black brothers; at this time, the Negro misleaders call upon the Negro workers to reject the proffered hand the militant section of the white workers. Instead of the National Urban League comes forward with a proposal for setting up Jim-Crow unions; in this manner, playing directly into the hands of the white ruling class and the Jim-Crow officials of the AFL.

Henry Ford is the Negroes’ friend, they say. No doubt, Mr. Ford is the friend of certain Negro politicians and self-styled leaders in this community. No doubt, Mr. Ford and other capitalists have contributed liberally to the campaign funds of certain Negro politicians in the city of Detroit. No doubt, they are contributing to a certain influential Negro preacher. But these funds are contributed for services rendered. This is Judas’ silver. It is the price for the betrayal of the Negro people.

HENRY FORD NO FRIEND OF NEGRO

No, Mr. Ford is not the friend of the Negro toilers. He is the enemy of both, Negro and white workers. Let no one be mistaken about that. Was it not Mr. Ford’s gunmen who shot down the Dearborn demonstrators bearing demands of equality for Negroes. True, Mr. Ford hires more Negroes in his factory than other automobile manufacturers. But this is only because Mr. Ford has developed the most inhuman method of exploiting workers and makes the Negroes the worst victims of this exploitation. Every worker knows that the Ford-Controlled City of Dearborn is the worst Jim-Crow spot in the states. The majority of the Negroes in Mr. Ford’s plant work at the heaviest jobs at the lowest pay.

It is high time for the Negro workers to denounce these self-styled leaders. These Judases, like Marshall and others, who have been reared up into prominence on the blood, sweat and misery of the Negroes and who are using their influence for their own personal gains at the expense of the suffering Negro masses, must be driven from the ranks of the Negro toilers. The Negroes must join hands with the militant sections of the white workers in joint struggle against their common enemy the automobile manufacturers and their tools, the city administration.

WHERE IS THE LEADERSHIP OF THE NEGROES?

Where are Negroes to look for this leadership? This new leadership is to be found among the working class. An outstanding example of the new type of leadership which is developing is young Angelo Herndon, Negro leader for the unemployed movement in Atlanta, Georgia. On trial for his life before a southern lynch Court, Herndon hurled the gauntlet of defiance in the face of the Ku Klux Klan Persecutors and said: “You may do what you will with Angelo Herndon. You may indict him. You may put him in jail. But in his place will arise thousands of Angelo Herndons to carry on the struggle for unity of Negro and white workers and for the emancipation of the Negro people and the working class.” This is the kind of leadership the Negro workers need. Angelo Hendon’s voice is the voice of the new leadership among the Negroes. This new leadership the Negro working class in close alliance with the militant sections of the white workers is the only force capable of leading the fight for rights of the Negro people for the overthrow of the brutal system of Jim-Crow oppression which is their lot in these United States.

THE TEST OF SINCERITY

By what test are the Negro workers to recognize their friends? What is the iron test by which we can distinguish friends from enemies? How are the sincerity of our so-called friends and of those who call themselves our leaders? In Detroit this task must be the immediate taking up of the struggle against the local terror drive, against the Negro people of this community, and the joining in the struggle, side by side, with the Negro and white toilers to beat back the attacks of our common persecutors. Those who hold “Aloof” are your enemies. They must be branded as traitors and Judases! They must be rooted from your ranks. Let the Negro workers be alert and keep a watchful eye on those who pretend to be their leaders. It becomes the duty of every Negro worker to demand of his or her preacher, the leader of his or her lodge, club or union. “Where do you stand on the question of terror against the Negro people in the city of Detroit?” “Are you with us or with the white rulers?” “If you are with the workers, if you are with the masses of Negro people, let it be known by joining hands with those that are fighting for the rights of the Negroes!”

N.R.A. MEANS Negro Robbed Again

The campaign of terror against the Negroes in Detroit, their deliberate whipping up of lynch incitement and race hatred, is not isolated. It is not confined only to Detroit. It is part of a nation-wide terror against Negro and white workers against the Negro people and the white working class who all over the country are arising in joint struggle against hunger and oppression.

The workers are becoming disillusioned with the silky promises of the Roosevelt New Deal government. They are beginning to see that the Roosevelt government, despite its liberal phrases is a government of big-monied bosses the Rockefellers, Fords, Morgans, etc. It is the government of starvation, war and fascist terror, against the masses.

Even Clarence Darrow in his report for the National Recovery Review Board recently published in the newspapers was forced to admit this. He was forced to admit that the NRA is the brutal domination of the most powerful reactionary Wall Street monopolies, the NRA codes have led to increased hunger, sharpened slavery and exploitation of the masses, Negro and white, of this country. Negroes, especially, have born the brunt of this New Deal attack. To the Negroes, the NRA means sharpening of Jim-Crowism and persecutions all along the line. The codes discriminate against the Negro workers. They legalize the double standard which forces the Negroes to the heaviest jobs at the worst pay. The Negro share-croppers are experiencing the “blessings” of the New Deal in the “plow-under” program which legalizes the robbery of their land, crops and chattles. Small wonder that the Negro toilers of the South are interpreting the initials of the NRA to means “Negroes Robbed Again,” “Negroes Refused Aid,” etc.

NEW STRUGGLES BEGIN

Mass resentment to this program of terror and starvation is developing. This is expressed in the rising struggles of Negro and white in every part of the country. A wave of strikes is sweeping the country against the Roosevelt New Deal of Hunger and Terror, against wage-cuts, speed-up, mass lay-offs, for the elementary rights of the workers and Negro masses, for the right to form militant unions. This battle front of the workers, North and South, from East to West. It is expressed in the heroic strike of the Alabama Ore Miners, 75 percent of whom are Negroes. These miners have held their ranks solid for 3 weeks despite the most savage terror and lynch incitement on the part of the southern rulers; the strike of the longshoremen which has tied up the shipping on the western and southern coast. In the ranks of these longshoremen, are thousands of Negro workers.

At the same time, the struggle for Negro rights is growing. In Cleveland, the workers, Negro and white, have developed a mass struggle against Jim-Crowism. In New York, Negro and white workers, are developing militant struggles against residential Jim-Crowism, discrimination in relief and on relief jobs, for the right of Negroes to all jobs, against discrimination and ill treatment in City Hospitals, etc. In Portland, Oregon, there is a mass movement against the frame-up of the Negro worker, Jordan. Similarly in North Carolina, a mass struggle against frame-up of innocent Negro workers is being carried out.

The movement for the freedom of the Scottsboro boys continues to grow. Scottsboro meetings and demonstrations are being held throughout the country. Negro and white workers are taking up the mass fight for the release of Angelo Herndon. The militant Share-Croppers Union, an organization of over 6,000 share croppers and poor farmers of the “Black Belt” of the South, is waging a heroic struggle against the landlord robbery and oppression against the vicious “plow-under” program of the Roosevelt government.

BLUE EAGLE IS VULTURE

In an attempt to crush these struggles, the Roosevelt New Deal Government has launched a nation-wide campaign of terror against the workers and the Negro masses. A whole series of terroristic attacks in all parts of the country are being carried through. Among these are: The murderous attack of National Guardsmen and company thugs against the heroic Alabama ore miners which has resulted in the killing of 6 Negro miners and the wounding of dozens and in mass arrests; the shooting of the striking aircraft workers by the city police of Buffalo; bloody assault on the striking truck drivers in Minneapolis; the kidnapping and killing of the ILD organizer, Thomas in Florida; the vicious sentences handed down by the Chicago courts recently against 6 Negro and white leaders of the unemployment movement. This is but a partial list of the victims, of the vicious terror which is descending upon the workers and Negro masses throughout the country.

(Since his speech was delivered, 2 more workers were killed by the National Guardsmen in Toledo and hundreds hurt by rifle fire, bayonets and poison gas.)

The Roosevelt Blue Eagle stands exposed as a vulture preying upon the masses of Negro and white toilers. The Negro people and working class are confronted with the necessity of fight for their common human rights, supposedly guaranteed by the constitution of the United States. These rights are being violated daily.

The heroic struggles of our class brothers in other parts of the country must serve as an inspiration for Negro and white toilers in the city of Detroit. The answer to this new terror drive against the Negro people in this city must be the organization of a mighty mass movement for the defense of our rights and for the freedom of James Victory, framed-up Negro worker.

Negro workers! Stand your ground. Refuse to be cowed and trampled upon. There is only one way out, that is to organize and fight together with your white class brothers against the common enemy–the automobile lords and the city administration and its police hoodlums. To accept this attack without protest means further slavery, further attacks. Only an organized mass defense movement can stay the hands of our oppressors.

WHITE WORKERS SUPPORT NEGROES

White workers: Come to the support of your Negro class brothers; reject the lying slander against the Negro people. Altogether let us resist the attempts of the automobile millionaires, police department and city government to carry over to Detroit the methods of the southern lynchers!

We black and white workers, must let them know that we will not permit no Scottsboro frame-up in Detroit. We demand:

1. End the terror against Negroes.

2. Call off the police man-hunt.

3. Immediate release of James Victory, innocent Negro worker.

4. Withdrawal of special police details from Negro neighborhoods.

5. Freedom of speech and absolute freedom of movement for Negroes in all parts of the city unmolested by Colonel Pickert’s police bullies.

6. An end to discrimination and in relief on the jobs.

7. A united fighting front of Negro and white workers against cur common oppressors. Against the shootings and killings in the strike struggles.–Such must be our slogans.

We must flood the office of Mayor Couzens with resolutions and telegrams, bearing these demands. Every organization of the Negro people and white workers must be drawn into this campaign. All workers should immediately propose protest resolutions for adoption in their organizations, unions, clubs, churches, etc.

We must demand from Mayor Couzens the cessation of the terror against Negroes and the freedom of James Victory. We must demand from newspapers of Detroit that they openly and publicly retract their slanderous lying statements against the Negro people of this community. We must demand that they cease their campaign of lynch incitement and race hatred.

Finally, we must built up the mightiest mass defense movement ever witnessed in the city of Detroit against the terror and for the rights of the Negro people and the white working class. Every possible organization of workers and of the Negro people, trade unions, clubs, churches, lodges must be drawn into this campaign of mass meetings, demonstrations, and all forms of protest, and organize a big conference on a city wide scale to discuss ways and means for combatting the terror and frame-up in Detroit and to work out a program of action for promoting the Struggle for Negro Rights in this city.

LEAGUE OF STRUGGLE FOR NEGRO RIGHTS

In conclusion, to support these struggles, there is a crying need for a militant central organization around which can be grouped all of those organizations and persons, whether they are white or black, determined to fight for the liberation of the Negro people. Such a center will unite and centralize the efforts of various organizations and persons on the basis of a definite program, drawing them together into a powerful force against Negro oppression.

Such an organization is the League of Struggle for Negro Rights. Its program points the way for freedom of the Negro people. All sincere fighters can adhere to this program. Its watch words are “Equality, Land of Freedom.” A strong League of Struggle for Negro Rights in the city of Detroit is a guarantee of successful struggles against the oppression of the Negro people.

We call upon all workers to join this organization, to raise the question in your organization of affiliation to the LEAGUE OF STRUGGLE FOR NEGRO RIGHTS, and to popularize its official newspaper, the NEGRO LIBERATOR.

The lessons of the Scottsboro campaign show what results can be achieved when the Negro and white toilers unite their forces. The united action of the white workers and the Negro people of the city of Detroit will deal a crushing blow against the anti-Negro terror campaign, will free James Victory and will mark a tremendous step forward in the struggle to free the Negro people and the white workers from oppression. With the power of a whirlwind it will blow to one side the misleaders of the toilers and clear the path to freedom.

***

Immediate Program of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights

THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS (Complete Economic, Social and Political Equality)

To obtain equal rights we must conduct a continuous fight against all forms of oppression suffered by the Negro people.

1. Against Jim-Crowism, and discrimination in all forms, and in every field, on jobs, in professions, public places, trains, boats, all institutions, places or residence, etc.

2. A relentless fight to wipe out all forms of forced labor, chain gangs, forced work on roads and public works for payment of taxes, and all other hangovers from chattel slavery.

3. A constant daily fight for ordinary human and civil rights for Negroes in all parts of the country, for the actual enforcement of their rights as human beings.

4. A determined fight against the whole system of social segregation in which Negroes are set apart from the rest of the population as a despised and outlawed people.

5. A ruthless combating of all ideas of “white supremacy” and “superiority” fostered by the white rulers to justify their enslavement of the Negro people.

To obtain these rights, the League of Struggle for Negro Rights calls upon the Negro people to white toilers to organize, and fight for the vital and pressing needs of the Negro masses.

NATIONAL OFFICE LEAGUE OF STRUGGLES FOR NEGRO RIGHTS 2162 Seventh Avenue, New York City DETROIT TEMPORARY OFFICE, LONNY WILLIAMS, SECRETARY. 4653 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, Michigan.

PDF of original pamphlet: https://www.marxists.org/archive/haywood/1934/south-comes-north.pdf