Black Communists Speak on Scottsboro Quotes

“In the early years of the Communist Party’s history in the U.S., this new Marxist-Leninist organization claimed few African American members…True, Eugene Debs and other prominent Socialist leaders were usually of racial segregation, disenfranchisement, peonage and lynching. Nevertheless, American Socialists did not emphasize work with blacks and they often downplayed or ignored white supremacy in the form of their party’s allegiance to trade unions that discriminated against non-white workers….Communists, in the United States, like the Socialists, at first displayed only a slight concern with black workers.”
― Walter T. Howard, Black Communists Speak on Scottsboro: A Documentary History

“The shared view of these African American communists asserted that black workers were exploited and oppressed more than any other group. Besides, they claimed, the history of Southern blacks could be characterized as essentially a reign of terror, of slavery, segregation, disenfranchisement, lynching, persecution, rape and murder. Black middle-class reform organizations such as the NAACP and the Urban League were too diffident and controlled by white elites”
― Walter T. Howard, Black Communists Speak on Scottsboro: A Documentary History