"Jim Crow in Uniform"
Title
"Jim Crow in Uniform"
Date
1940 July
Creator
Jones, Claudia
Source
World War II Vertical File
Rights
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Identifier
auc.146.0014_001.doc
auc.146.0014_002.doc
auc.146.0014_003.doc
auc.146.0014_004.doc
auc.146.0014_005.doc
auc.146.0014_006.doc
auc.146.0014_007.doc
auc.146.0014_008.doc
auc.146.0014_009.doc
auc.146.0014_0010.doc
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auc.146.0014_0012.doc
auc.146.0014_0013.doc
Format
image/jpeg
Language
en
Publisher
New Age Publishers
Contributor
Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library
Subject
African American soldiers; Discrimination in the military; United States--Armed Forces--African Americans
Type
Booklets
Text
Jim-Crow in Uniform by Claudia Jones
Introduction
Already the blood of nearly a million men, women and children has flown forever under the bridge of history. Twentieth century history moves with seven league boots by the hour today.
The warring imperialists of Great Britain and France, after seeking for 7 months to make the so-called “phony war” into a “real” war against the Soviet Union, via Finland, are faced with the fact that German imperialism has broken the stalemate on the Western front, and let loose an inferno on the peoples of Europe. The small nations of Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium have been sacrificed on the false alter of “protection.”
Today, those who sold out the national interests of France by building up Hitler, by stabbing Spain, have signed a separate peace with Germany and Italy. The people of France now reap the bitter fruit of betrayal by the Daladiers, Blums, Petains and Weygands. Such a peace is not just. It is the kind of peace which imposes the same solution as was imposed on the German people in the Versaille Treaty.
The betrayed French people must conduct a fight on two fronts – against their own rulers who have set up a military dictatorship against them and against the invaders of Germany and Italy.
A virtual dictatorship has been set up in Great Britain. Reaction, led by the Roosevelt Administration, follows the reactionary path of France and Britain, which today vies with Germany as to degree of oppression of their peoples. Roosevelt drives America to war, with locomotive speed. “National defense” of America is being raised alarmingly at this time to prepare the ground for America’s entrance into the war. In all this development the Soviet Union stands firmly as the strongest force for peace in the world.
Only a few months ago, 500 million dollars needed to finance the American Youth Act for jobs and education for five million unemployed youth couldn’t be found, but today 4 ½ billion dollars have been found for armaments.
If soberly examined, it becomes clear that these huge sums are not for defense at all. They are calculated to speed America’s entry into war on the side of the Allies at the earliest possible moment.
From the Wall Street and Washington circles, coupled always with talk of “defense,” is talk also of these places...Dutch West Indies...British and French West Indies...Mexico...Canada...South America...Greenland...British and French possessions in the Atlantic. These are the far-flung colonial prizes, in which nearly 25 million Negroes live, which are making the yearning of United States imperialism articulate, and for which they plan to plunge America into the arena of world war.
Who will pay for this might war machine?
The people, of course; but the “cost” is said by the President to be “minor.”
Already the trade unions are being made the main targets of these burdens. And it is becoming clear that true defense demands greater safeguards if the rights of labor and the people are to be secured against the labor baiters who have now found in the phrases of “defense” the ideal mask for their labor wrecking.
Is it for the “defense” that the American people must accept the unbridled rule of the sweatshop, the start miseries of unemployment, the cruelties of profiteering, the loss and wrecking of all the social gains they have won? Is it for “defense” that the voice of Labor and the people must be gagged by police terrorism, and a whole people imprisoned in the shackles of M-Day?
Is it for “defense” that everyone who speaks of liberty and civil rights, for their own opinions, will be dubbed “Fifth Columnists” by the lynchers of American democracy, the real fifth column in America?
Anyone could be dubbed a “fifth columnist” if he or she protests the shameful sabotage of the Senate Committee against the passage of anti-lynching legislation!
True national defense is needed. But more and more it is becoming obvious that peace is America’s best defense! The real traitors to the nation’s security and national defense are the big rich people. The crime of these people is their plans to attack Latin American nations. For the real defense of the country, the American people demand that the government stay out of war. That it advance the living standards of its people, Negro and white. That it refuse all aid to the belligerents. That it feeds America and starves the war. Labor and the people have the united strength to save America from the horrors of M-Day and war.
The newest proposal of the president is for national conscription of all of America’s youth – young men and women. This is a military dragnet for America’s youth. The plan is for the development of youth as a cheap labor source for the munitions industries and for cannon fodder for Wall Street.
A necessary condition of real national defense is a free and prosperous people. This means an increase, not a decrease in the living standards of the people. This would mean the preservation and enlargement of the democratic liberties of all the people. Under such conditions, the youth of the country labor and the working people train for true defense against the enemies of the people-the monopolies, against all policies of military adventures for “protecting” the neighboring colonies, or small countries in Latin and South America.
But, national conscription of America’s youth, which is based on Roosevelt’s policies of shattered neutrality – on a policy of Yankee imperialism for Latin America – cannot but mean a betrayal of America’s youth.
This sinister proposal of the President, which should be fought against, more than ever shows the true hand of the Washington government in its plans for war, for slashing the civil liberties and rights of youth, and the working people who ask for peace, jobs, civil liberties, and education.
Peace hangs by a thread!
But you can help keep America out of war, by raising your voices high. The youth of America want jobs, not cannon!
Pass the Anti-Lynching Bill!
Keep America Out of War!
James W. Ford
Jim-Crow in Uniform
Jesse Clipper, Negro Hero, 1895-1917
In the heart of the 5th Ward, center of the segregated Negro residential section in Buffalo, New York, a monument stands erected to the memory of Jesse Clipper, Negro hero who died in battle in the first World War of 1914-18.
Jesse Clipper is so honored because of his bravery and his valor. Young Jesse Clipper died believing that he had done his share “to make the world safe for democracy.” He must have died happily too, at the thought that he and his buddies had given their lives “in this war to end all wars” – that the armistice which was signed would be a permanent one. But this belief was a shocking illusion.
Twenty-three years ago, in 1917, three years after President Wilson proclaimed the neutrality of the United States and had implored the citizens to “refrain from taking sides,” America, at Wilson’s advice, took sides, and Jesse Clipper enlisted.
Jesse Clipper died in battle. He had no chance to weight the aftermath of the war. How could he know, for example, two years later, when it was all over, that the war dead of America together with the rest of the world numbered some 12 million? How could he know that the war had given birth to some 25,000 new millionaires? How could he read the same press which now blatantly confessed that many of the atrocity stories concerning the Belgians weren’t true, after all?
No, Jesse Clipper could never know, now. Even if he could come to life again, he would probably die again of disillusionment. He would see at a glance, that the very things he fought for and was promised – freedom, equality, opportunity, were still denied his people. He would see the tragedy of Natchez, Mississippi – in which over 240 Negroes died – the pyres of charred bodies which is symbolic of the half-slave, half-free Jim-Crow oppression which Negroes in America still suffer from, economically, politically and socially.
But the thing that would perhaps alarm Jesse most would be the realization that the second World War was in progress. The reaction did “break faith” with those who sleep in
Flanders Field. That already, the youth of three continents, Europe, Africa and Asia, were in trenches again. That the threat to American liberty and freedom was becoming more real every day, by the studied build-up in the press of America of prejudices, hatred against countries, all under the similar guise “to preserve democracy.”
He would hear the laughter of the Wall Street clique, while they maneuvered in Congress making loans and selling arms to belligerents, already cashing in on the blood money of the war. He would see the formation of a “national unity” among men, who only a few months ago were bitter enemies on both domestic and foreign policies. A “unity” designed to take us into war.
Whose War Is It?
The newspapers are saying in our time, some of the things they said in Jesse Clipper’s time. They are saying that this war, between two of the major imperialist powers in the world, Great Britain and Germany is a war “to preserve democracy.” They say that it is a “holy crusade” which will decide whether freedom and democracy will forever prevail, or whether force and violence will rule the world.
The newspapers ask you and me to believe this. But how can we believe this, when we are aware of the fact that democracy has been a farce to some 500,000,000 enslaved colonials under the domination of English rule? Can this was give the kind of real democracy which previous centuries did not give? We’re sorry if we cannot believe this, just because the newspapers say so. No, the colonial peoples, black and white, cannot support this war.
For it is a war that is imperialist in nature, which means that both England and Germany are out to get more territory, out to gain more influence in international affairs, are out to have a showdown as to who can exploit and enslave more peoples, small nations as well.
Colonial Folk Against the War
British imperialist “democracy” in action, besides, has in each previous war made thing worse, not better for colonial peoples.
While pretending to be fighting for the rights of small nation and for democracy, the British ruling class denies to its colonies the most elementary democratic rights.
That is why the progressive forces in the West Indies take the stand as indicated in the editorial columns of the Barbados Observer:
“We colonial workers have not forgotten the last World War, when all kinds of promises were made to us...Therefore we are determined never again to allow ourselves to be used as cannon fodder by either camp in the war.” (My emphasis-C.J.)
Some apologists for British imperialism argue that under British rule, Negro colonials have fared better as compared with their status under German rule, and for this reason, beginning with the premise that either side must win in the end, it is better for Negroes to support British imperialism in this conflict. Mr. W. A. Domingo, British export-import Negro merchant, openly supports this proposition.
This argument is fraught with danger for two reasons. First, it is a vicious acceptance of the status of Negroes as inferiors, who must be ruled, regardless. Secondly, and perhaps more important, it is a statement designed to lull the actions of Negroes, who want peace, not war, and to offset their attempts to raise their voices and act to halt the war, now.
Besides, it is also a false premise, when it is assumed that either side must win. For the ever-present desire for liberty on the part of Negro colonials will never be achieved through a change of masters, both of whom are interested not in the freedom, but in the further enslavement of them. Only through organization, education, and struggle against reaction, against war-profits, against reaction’s drive on civil liberties, under the guise of war emergencies, can this new threat to the ultimate freedom of the colonial peoples be met. Only the abolition of imperialism, of the whole system of the war makers, will guarantee peace and security for the peoples.
Who knows that yet Ethiopia may not rise again soon in revolt against both Anglo-French imperialism and Italo-German imperialism, showing the path to all colonial peoples
of Africa to freedom and liberation from imperialism as a whole? This is the real choice!
Lindbergh – Spouse of the Morgan Fortune
Sometimes the reactionaries themselves let the cat out of the bag as to the true situation.
Take the speech made by Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh, the lawful spouse of the fortune of Morgan, decorated by, and friend of Field Marshal Goering of Germany for instance:
The speech is entitled simply “Aviation, Geography, and Race,” delivered over a national net-work and re-printed in the Readers Digest of 1939. He says:
“...Western nations are again at war, a war likely to be more prostrating than any in the past, a war in which the White race is bound to lose, and the others bound to gain, a war which may easily lead our civilization through more Dark Ages if it survives at all.”
Lindbergh then goes on to warn that his “civilization” is menaced by “the infiltration of inferior blood.”
It is clear that Mr. Lindbergh feels that the war is a white man’s war – or more correctly – a war for white supremacy. That it is a war, which, unless his Western nations win, will mean world domination by darker peoples, which will then be a civilization equivalent to the Dark Ages. Obviously, civilization as he sees it does not include the black man.
What contribution can “inferior blood” make? Ask George Washington Carver, Negro scientist and inventor of 100 or more uses of the peanut, for instance. Ask Marian Anderson, outstanding Negro contralto. Ask Paul Robeson. Ask Joe Louis, who tore down the myth of “Aryan” supremacy. Ask all the millions of heavily-pigmented people throughout the world, whose sweat and blood have been given for centuries to build up empires, profits, and wealth.
They have even contributed their “inferior blood” time and again in defense of democracy because they believed the cause was theirs, also. Ask the dead who fought with Crispus Attacks in Concord, for American independence. Or the Negro soldiers who died on the battlefields with Jackson in New Orleans. Or the War of 1812. Ask a few Negro Civil War veterans who fought with Sherman. Ask the Negro dead who lie in Flanders Field.
The False Theory of a White Man’s War
Prof. Rayford Logan of Howard University and Elmer Carter of Opportunity are bearers of a theory of ill-repute, the theory of the “white man’s war.” The fact remains that Negroes comprise a good bit of the cannon fodder for Europe’s war makers.
In our own communities, since the war, the bubble of the false theory of a “white man’s war” quickly explodes amidst the rising cost of living, the corresponding lowering of income, as a result of the Roosevelt war and hunger budget. The Negro population are delivered not only as cannon fodder, but the acute brunt of the war crisis is first felt by them. The falsification of actual fact as shown here is for one main purpose: to weaken the domestic front of Negro and white unity, to lull the Negro population against fighting the imperialist war, and to slander the white working population who want and have no part in this war. The theory must be fought against, for it is both anti-Negro and anti-working class.
The Administration Gives a War-Deal to the People
That the New Deal has become a war-deal, is an ever-conscious growing fact on the minds of everybody The few concessions of appointments of Negroes to hitherto-unheld Federal, state and city posts, the integration of Negroes into the Federal program, in theatres, labor and social service have been forsaken by Roosevelt.
Only 200,000 Negro workers are now left on the WPA rolls as a result of the Woodrum amendments and the Roosevelt war and hunger budget.
If the United States intends to keep out of war, why the huge armaments program as against social betterment for the people of America? And what kind of security can the people have, when even the temporary security of WPA, NYA, PWA is taken away from them? The President’s message offers neither peace nor security to the people of America!
The demagogic slogan of “national unity” means that Roosevelt, has been promoted to full leadership of the rulers of America and they are nationally united against the people, to make more profits, by starvation, by clamping down on the civil rights of the people, on the basis of war.
The Anti-Lynching Bill – Touchstone of American Democracy
In urging unity of the nation behind his budget message, the President ended on the note that now is the time for everyone to come together, forget past quarrls, and so establish once and for all that democracy as a system still remains unchallenged as the best way of life yet devised by man.
For whom? might be the query of the Negro. How can he forget past quarrels when Negroes in the South still remain disenfranchised? How can he forget past quarrels when in the heart of the nation’s capital prejudice against the Negro abounds?
Only recently, at the premier opening of “Abe Lincoln in Illinois,” Negro citizens in Washington picketed the theatre because Negroes are not allowed to mingle with whites in the unwritten laws of American democracy.
High in the annals of achievements of American progress for 1939 is the passage of the Anti-Lynching Bill in the House of Representatives for the first time. But reaction in the person of Representative Rankin of Mississippi recorded the typical yearly slander when he shouted in the House:
“You are trying to placate a few nigger communists who are infesting the gallery.”
“Nigger Communists...” And in this slander, the Tory Representative Rankin paid unwilling tribute to the Negro Communists who have, together with white Communists, fought for the passage of the Anti-Lynching Bill, fought against distortions of the role of Negroes in American history, fought against every manifestation of prejudice where the Negro was concerned.
Representative Rankin rants, with the Bilbos, Ellenders, Cotton Ed Smith, because his idea of democracy is being challenged by progress.
As it was challenged by Angelo Herndon, Negro Communist, who led the fight for Negro and white unemployed workers in the heart of the deep South, in Georgia.
As it was challenged and brought to a new high by Ben Davis, young Communist editor of the Daily Worker, who, in the Senate caucus hearings upset the dignity of the “Democratic reactionaries” and “Republican hypocrites” by exposing the truth.
The President has never once raised his voice in support of the Anti-Lynching Bill. It is still the touchstone of American democracy, and it will require even greater mass support if it to become law. Current reactionary lies to the effect that lynchings no longer take place, therefore there is no need for an Anti-Lynching Bill, must also be answered. In the year 1939, 20 “silent lynchings,” the new technique of reaction, minus the mob, took place. Since 1940 already five lynchings have occurred. This – in face of the reactionaries’ lie that this is a “lynchless year.” That is why the voice of progress must be raised ever louder and clearer to Pass the Anti-Lynching Bill!
The 1940 Elections
Negroes constitute a balance of power in most of the major cities of the nation. Already there is being recorded in the press bids for their support by both the Democratic and Republican parties – twin parties of reaction. These old traditional major parties have today less of a division on real issues and political currents in American life, than in any former period of their existence. On a domestic scale both the Republican and Democratic parties fully agree to scrap all labor and social legislation as much as possible, to militarize labor, to drastically curb civil liberties, to lower the standard of living of all the people. They are both agreed on dubbing peace lovers, and fighters for democracy – “fifth columnists,” because they both want to bring about America’s entry in the present war. The real fifth columnists can be most easily recognized, because it is they who most openly sow the seeds of race prejudice, the seeds of Negro-baiting, or if they don’t do
it openly, they are in secret agreement with those who do. The leadership of both parties contains the real fifth columnists.
But Negroes cannot agree to such a program, for the Negro people want peace, want to keep America out of war. The Negro people want jobs, economic security, civil liberties, passage of social legislation, such as the Anti-Lynching Bill.
No, the answer is not in a return to support of either of these parties. The answer lies in independent political action of the people in 1940, aligned with labor, as expressed recently by Earl Browder, when he called for a People’s Platform for Jobs, Peace, Civil Liberties.
Such independent action will make the people’s answer clear against the war and hunger budget of the Roosevelt Administration, against the policies of the Republicans who in effect give support to his policies.
Such independent action can be a powerful force for support of progressive congressional candidates regardless of their party labels.
This, coupled with day to day actions against America’s entry into war, for peace, for social legislation, for an advanced standard of living, against step by step involvement policies of the Roosevelt Administration can be the means for making 1940 be symbolic of the people’s will for peace and prosperity.
The only party which fights for the interests of all the people is the Communist Party. The only party which truly fights for the interests of the Negroes is the Communist party. Vote Communist! Vote for Browder and Ford, its standard-bearers! For jobs, peace and civil liberties! Vote Communist!
Historical Comparisons of Two Presidents
In 1917, too, the people of America had to make a choice on how best to keep America out of war.
Then, as now, Wall Street’s profit-making men, under the guise of free trade, were pouring money and supplies into “Little Belgium.” Loans were followed with human security.
The recent historical analogy is “Little Finland.” Remember the headlines. For months, the typewriter generals in Helsinki issued thousands of dollars’ worth of ink, paper and type, in an eort to create the impression that here was a moral cause to be rightfully defended. Roosevelt and Hoover urged its defense with loans, with arms, with a huge “Relief” campaign.
Today there is peace in Finland. Today, the same press which threw you off your balance candidly admits its lies. Why the lies? Why the fakery?
It was because the newspapers spoke the aims of the imperialists whom Roosevelt leads, who would drag America into war. There is peace in Finland because of the peace policy of the Soviet Union, which aims to defend its own borders, which aims to limit the sphere of World War, and establish peace. There is peace because the Finnish generals have become convinced that they were being used as pawns of the Allies against Germany.
Herbert Hoover, Chief Egg in the Scramble of Finnish Relief
The truth about the Finnish-Soviet conflict is most clearly understood when we look at the person who raised the most noise about it. Remember Hoover of “apple a day” fame? Well, Herbert Hoover was the chief egg in the scramble of Finnish relief. Hoover, who couldn’t help the millions of Americans, Negro and white, who starved while he was President, headed the committee which raised loans and contributions for the “relief” of the Finns. What of the millions of Americans who are not in need of relief today, Mr. Hoover?
But Hoover was well interested in this cause. Hoover, together with Roosevelt and the imperialists of America and England, was responsible for egging Finland on to perform aggressive acts on the Finnish border, which resulted in the death of Red Army patrols there.
Yes, Hoover hopes to add to his fame, his humanitarian efforts for the rich of Finland. But since we’re talking of fame, let us not forget to give Hoover his due. He has one outstanding action to his credit, not often told.
Hoover may have sent your grandmother, or my aunt on
a segregated freighter which was really a cattle boat to France. You remember, the Gold Star mothers, who were Negroes, went over in a cattle boat provided by Hoover, to see the graves of their dead sons.
Wasn’t This a War for Democracy?
Thousands of sons of Negro mothers were also led to believe that joining the Army, fighting for Uncle Sam, would help to win them freedom. For after all, wasn’t this a war for democracy?
It was no wonder then, that in 1917, when an NAACP editorial called for support of Negro Americans in the newly-declared war, that Negro America, as in the past, “closed ranks” in support of American democracy.
Stories of Jim-Crow treatment of Negro men in arms seep through even the most conservative journals. No matter what their qualifications, Negroes were given the most disagreeable jobs. Negro professionals were taken out of their ratings and given jobs as laborers, while white doctors weer assigned to Negro troops.
Jim-Crow in Uniform
Did you know that Negro soldiers in uniform were stoned, jeered, and mobbed on the streets? The 8th Illinois, on way to Texas, suffered such treatment. When the 92nd Division, at Camp Funston, Texas, refused to recognize the Jim-Crow line at local theatres, the notorious Bulletin 35 was issued by the white commanding officer which read, “Don’t go where your presence is not desired. White men made the Division and they can break it just as easily if it becomes a troublemaker.”
It is a historical fact that in Houston, Texas, where the 24th Infantry was stationed, members of the provost guard had to endure the humiliation of going about their duties unarmed. Local white policemen disregarded their authority constantly. The famed “Houston Affair,” which resulted in the killing of 18 persons, is another example of Jim-Crow in uniform. Court martial proceedings, which followed this incident, without War Department review, resulted in the hanging of 13 (not even granted the usual military death by shooting), 41 got life, 4 short terms, and 5 were acquitted.
The nation-wide protests which followed this, and other “troublemaker” actions, forced the Wilson Administration to pass a statute which declared that soldiers were not to be executed without War Department review. But this was not the only verdict resulting from Houston. The people also gave one.
Significantly, many white soldiers from the North protested such treatment of their brother soldiers.
Anti-War Sentiment Among Negroes
But these protests only climaxed the great anti-war sentiments and agitation for Negro rights which punctuated the response of the Negro people to broken promises almost from the start of the war.
Most of the historical books written about the Negroes’ participation in the first World War give the impression that nowhere was there any anti-war sentiment expressed among the Negroes. This omission is designed to keep the false halo of complacency about the Negroes, wishfully expressed by reactionary historians.
Before America’s entry into war, for instance, in 1915, great protest developed around the premier of “Birth of a Nation.” Even the reactionaries argues – for their own purposes, it is true – that this play developed antagonisms between whites and Negroes. Already then, preparations for America’s entry into war were on the way. Today, “Gone with the Wind” typifies the same, though subtler, slander of the Negro people and is designed to whip up the war spirit of hysteria and race prejudice.
One of the most significant protests, recorded in the Negro Year Book of 1918-19, was the parade of some 5,000 Negroes along Fifth Avenue in New York, held on July 28, 1917, in demonstration of the indignities which Negroes suffered in this war “to make the world safe for democracy.” The parade bore such banners, with slogans:
“Make America Safe for Democracy”; “Taxation Without
Representation is Tyranny”; “America has Lynched Without Trial 2,876 Negroes in 31 Years and Not a Single Murderer Has Suffered”; “Put the Spirit of Christ in the Making and Execution of the Laws.”
Further evidence of anti-war sentiments among the Negro people is unwittingly brought out in a letter written to George Creel, chairman of Committee on Public Information in Washington, by Trumbull White, of the Investors’ Public Service in New York, informing him that:
“...The big Negro colony in Harlem is badly infected with a series of rumors arousing great distress and disquiet....The rumors are of various kinds....One is that the Negro regiments are being terribly abused by their white officers. Another is that the Negro regiments are being discriminated against in the distribution of troops where the danger and suffering will be the greatest....Another is that the Negro regiments are being discriminated against in the distribution of troops where the danger and suffering will be the greatest....Another is that already more than 200 Negro soldiers with eyes gouged out and arms cut off, after having been captured by Germans and then turned loose by them to wander back to the American lines have been sent home to this country and are now in the Columbia Base Hospital, No. 1, in the Bronx....”
He concludes his letter by making two recommendations. One, that a permit be arranged for a Negro preacher, doctor, and “intelligent” Negro woman from Harlem be sent to the hospital for complete inspection. And the others that preferably, Irvin Cobb, lecture in Harlem on the subject of Negro troops in France since “Cobb has the Southern affection for the Negro and could do the thing right.”
It was obvious that things were not right either at home or in France the the Negroes were answering back with protest and signs of discontent.
Other outstanding examples of anti-war sentiment would include the work of William Monroe Trotter, progressive Negro editor of the Boston Guardian who, during the war, fought in his columns against America’s participation in the war and the treatment of Negroes. Among the outstanding
*”The American Negro in the War,” By Emmet J. Scott
present-day leaders who protested the injustices was James W. Ford, now an outstanding leader of the Communist Party, its present candidate for Vice-President of the United States, then with the 8th Brigade of the 92nd Division in France, in 1918. And foremost against the imperialist was Ear Browder, now general secretary of the Communist Part of United States, and its candidate for President, who went to Leavenworth Prison because he spoke against the war.
Commissioning of Officers and “High Blood Pressure” Removal
Have you ever heard of Col. Charles He. Young, highest ranking Negro West Point graduate? But, even though it was before our time, you probably didn’t hear of him, because he was suddenly retired, supposedly because of “high blood pressure” when America entered the last World War.
He was returned to active service soon after. You know, that after once having been retired, you need not necessarily be considered for promotion.
It is to be wondered if all the “high blood pressure” wasn’t that of certain super-patriotic gentlemen, which rose at the thought of a Negro officer being promoted to a high position in their army over the heads of many white officers. Equality is at a premium even for black men in most armies.
Most of the 1,200 Negro officers who were commissioned during the war were in Jim-Crow regiments. It was the pressure of the Negro and white progressives against quartering of troops in the South which led to the establishment of the first Negro officers’ training camp at Ft. Des Moines, Iowa, from which 275 Negro officers were commissioned.
Such was the treatment accorded Negro men in arms at home in this “war for democracy.” What could they expect fighting for American democracy abroad?
Men of Color Abroad
Negro troops in France numbered a small percentage of the A.E.F., but they furnished 75 per cent of the A.E.F.’s labor supply. Given stevedore jobs, in the main, they were used to do road building, loading and unloading ships, and cars, building depots, re-burying the dead, and detonating scattered explosives.
The Negro troops who fought, however, were outstanding. The 8th Illinois (part of 92nd Division), offered by Negroes received more citations and Croix de Guerres than any other regiment in France.
“Secret Information” and Slander Against Negroes in France
Carter G. Woodson, in his book “Negroes In the World War” exposes certain “Secret Information Concerning Black American Troops,” August 7, 1918, issued in a document by American reactionaries in France. He writes:
“...The Negroes were branded as a menace of degeneracy which could be escaped only by an impassable gulf established between the two races.
“This was an urgent need because of the tendency of the blacks to commit the loathsome crime of assault, as they said Negroes had already been doing in France. The French was therefore cautioned not to treat the Negroes with familiarity and indulgence, which are matters of grevious concern to Americans and an affront to their national policy. The Americans, it continued, were afraid that the blacks might thereby be inspired with undesirable aspirations, TI was carefully explained that although the black man is a citizen of the United States, he is regarded by whites as an inferior with whom relations of business and service only are possible; and that the black is noted for his want of intelligence, lack of discretion, and lack of civic and professional conscience. The French army was the advised to prevent intimacy between French officers and black officers, not to eat with them nor shake hands nor seek to talk or meet with them outside the requirements of military service.
“They were asked also not to commend too highly the black American troops in the presence of white Americans...The French were urged to restrain the native cantonment population from spoiling the Negroes, as white Americans become greatly incensed at any deep expression of intimacy between white women and black men.”
The Returned Negro Soldier
The Noble Sissles, the John Henrys, all the Negroes who returned came back to learn that the percentage of lynchings had increased during the war years. Total 96; 38 in 1917, 58 in 1918! Five were Negro women! When five Negro soldiers were lynches in uniform, the last remnant of belief faded for hundreds of returned Negro soldiers and their families.
The post-war crisis, causing race riots, because reaction played Negro against white, native against foreign-born, lynched the returned Negro soldier economically.
To his great surprise, after fighting “for democracy abroad” the returned Negro soldier found it still had to be fought for at home. Democracy had to be won for Negroes too. Bitter, yet undaunted, he began to learn that it could only be won with the help of other workers. Negro and white workers began to organize while rebuilding the wastes of the war here at home.
Just and Unjust Wars
Today, with the Second Imperialist War raging in Europe and Asia, Negro youth face almost a similar situation as that preceding America’s entry into the last World War.
However, unlike Jesse Clipper, we have a chance to contrast the experiences of Negroes during the First World War, and also in wars since then.
All wars, for example, are not fought for a false democracy as was the first World War for empire, or the present war between Germany and England. Didn’t we support Ethiopia? It was because they were genuinely fighting for democracy, for their independence, against the intervention and brutal aggression of Fascist Italy. At that time the governments of France and England and the United States did nothing to stop Mussolini’s brutal aggression.
Another such genuinely democratic war was the war of the Spanish people against the fascist Franco and his cronies, Hitler and Mussolini.
That is why the returned Negro and white youth speak only with pride of their service across in Spain. Ask such men as Walter Garland, who rose to the rank of lieutenant in that army. Ask the brave young Ethiopian fighter who fought in
Spain “to get the murderer, Mussolini, in his lair.” Ask Sterling Rochester, Negro machine-gunner and hero.
Today in China, Chinese people for over two and one-half years have been heroically fighting a genuine war for democracy, against Japanese imperialism, back by 80 per cent of American products.
These are wars of national liberation. These wars are modern versions of the type of wars that T’Oussaint L’Ouverature fought for the independence of the black thousands in Haiti.
Enemies of Peace
There are many enemies of peace. There are those who cry peace and simultaneously stir up racial hatred and intolerance. There are those who cry “civil liberties for all” and proceed to deny to Communists and others, their civil rights. Where was Dies in the case of Angelo Herndon? Or the Scottsboro boys? He has been a Congressman for some twenty-two years now.
We can record many instances of the rise of anti-Negro violence, to a higher pitch today. Only recently from South Carolina came reports of several vicious attacks on Negro citizens exercising their constitutional right to vote.
Yes, the K.K.K. Rides Again with “Gone With the Wind” in the Saddle.
But anti-Negro violence is limited not alone to the South. For over two years, John Williams, 23-year-old Brooklyn Negro youth, was confined to prison on a trumped-up charge of rape, despite the fact that the decision was twice set aside by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court.
The jury which did not have a single Negro on it found John Williams guilty and he was sentenced to from 7 ½ to 15 years.
At the second trial the presiding judge was the anti-Negro, anti-labor Justice Peter J. Brancato. In passing sentence, the judge declared: “I would give him 20 years if I could. Remember she is a white woman.”
On June 17, as a result of the mass fight against this northern “Scottsboro Case,” John Williams was released.
This is a major victory for civil liberties of Negroes and for that matter, for all progressives today, in face of reaction’s drive to war, led by the Rosevelt Administration.
That is why the reactionary District Attorney O’Dwyer of Brooklyn met the delegation of the Communist Party and Young Communist League, who brought, 10,000 signatures to him, demanding the release of Williams, with the words:
“Millions of American boys will shed their blood before this war is over, and there will be plenty of ‘black boys’ too.
It is clear that the fight for civil liberties is inherently connected with the fight to keep America out of the imperialist war.
Just imagine what such action would mean on a national scale against the war. Remember reaction wants a divided people in order to drive more quickly to war!
Fight the War Every Inch of the Way!
We don’t want to wait until the war is upon us. This was the mistake which the youth made in 1914. Whether it is a question of the high cost of living, whether it is a question of sale of arms and planes, whether it is a question of loans to the belligerents, to foreign registry, or attempts of British propagandists, on “visits” to America who are trying to sell us their cause. whether it is the apologists who speak for British imperialism while invoking the good name of the colonial people, whether it is the newspapers who would feed us a blind pro-Ally allegiance, we must fight the war-makers every inch of the way!
The Young dead that lie in Flanders Field are telling us every day, “Don’t Raise Another Generation of Poppy Sellers!” “Fight the War Every Inch of the Way.” Young Jesse Clipper is telling us “Keep alive to get a job, to marry, to raise a family!” “Keep alive to demand passage of the American Youth Act, which would bring permanent federal aid to youth!” “Keep alive to free the four Scottsboro boys!” “Keep alive by fighting the war profiteers!” “Keep alive to get the Anti-Lynching and Geyer Poll Tax Repeal Bills passed!”
Young People Against the War
As a matter of fact young people are already doing some of these things. All the major youth organizations have gone on record against the war as an imperialist war. The American Youth Congress, the American Student Union, the United Student Peace Committee and the Southern Negro Youth Congress have taken such a stand in their resolutions.
These anti-war resolutions of youth and of the Negro people are but reflections of the broad anti-war sentiments among the whole American people.
In Harlem, South Side of Chicago, and other communities, young Negro people have been active in declaring that they want no part of the European war. They have specifically pointed to the need for conducting a fight for civil rights, for jobs, democracy and peace. This is the only war that they are interested in, as was so ably demonstrated in the historical Third National Negro Congress when they rejected the path of the former progressive, A. Phillip Randolph to choose support – of reaction by supporting the Roosevelt Administration, by supporting anti-Soviet schemes by preaching segregation for the Negro – and chose instead the path toward working with labor, through Labor’s Non-Partisan League, who has now agreed to make passage of the Anti-Lynching Bill the first job of labor!
What You Can Do
You can help spread the truth as to what kind of a war is being fought today. You can help to educate young people to the fact that the Roosevelt Administration, and the Republican Parties, twin parties of reaction are dragging America to war. You can help keep America out of war.
You will find that you are not alone in doing this, for right in your own community, you will find an organization, willing and ready to help you achieve this.
This organization is the Young Communist League, an organization of and for American young people, who look forward to a better future. There is no future in Flanders Field. All youth, regardless of race, creed, or color, belong to and are equals in this organization.
The Young Communist League fights for the interests of the toiling youth and the working class. It fights against imperialist war. It fights against the discrimination of Negro youth. It fights for the economic betterment of Negro youth for jobs and security.
The League opposes all measures aimed at the militarization of the youth. It opposes the militarization of the C.C.C. camps, the extension of the R.O.T.C., especially on a compulsory basis: the proposed increase in the Army and National Guard, the M-Day plan. Its guiding slogan is:
“Not a Man, Not a Cent, Not a Gun for Imperialist War Preparations!”
We believe that our ideals can best be achieved by socialism, by establishing a new social order in which the working people will own and control all the vast natural resources and means of production, and use them for the benefit of all the people, instead of the few.
The Soviet Union – Home of Free Peoples
Look here, fellows and girls, this system called capitalism, with all of its talk of free enterprise is free, all right, but for the bankers and Wall Street, for the German bankers, for the Bank of England, for the French bankers. Can you dream what it would mean to have the worry of a job eliminated? What if it was the law that your security, your job, was guaranteed? Then you could finish high school, college. Then you could marry, raise a family, get that coat, that radio, that library you always wanted. This is what the youth of the Soviet Union have because they live in a socialist society. That is why the bankers what to take it away from them
All roads are open to youth of the Soviet Union.
There is no national or racial oppression in the Soviet Union and in the U.S.S.R. people of all nationalities, all colors, live as free and equal peoples.
All young people are guaranteed free education in the U.S.S.R. to the age of 18. Equal opportunity exists for all.
For millions of us darker peoples, for oppressed peoples
throughout the world, the Soviet Union stands as a beacon of light, hope, truth!
While the majority of people in America today are not for socialism, they are willing to work in common with those who similarly desire such things as jobs, security, democracy and peace. That is why we Young Communists stand together with the majority of American youth – Negro and white, who desire above all PEACE, so that they can pursue the American dream of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Negro America remembers the false promises of the last war. They are saying The Yanks Are Not Coming.
The dream we mentioned earlier, can become a reality. In the course of the struggle for these thing, we will learn that these can only be achieved and kept in a more permanent society – Socialism.
We support no dreams of war abroad. We go to the wars at home. For jobs and civil liberties. For democracy and freedom!
Jesse Clipper, Negro hero, died believing he was doing his share to make the world safe for democracy. If Jesse Clipper were alive today, he would again fight for democracy. He would do it, however, not by following the loans of Wall Street to another Flanders Field, but by fighting for jobs, for relief, better housing, better health conditions – security for the people. We must make the world safe for democracy by making democracy safe for America. This is Jesse Clipper’s dream now. We, the living, take our stand today on the side of Life and Peace!
Published by
New Age Publishers
P.O. Box 28, Sta. D
New York, N.Y.
July, 1940
Introduction
Already the blood of nearly a million men, women and children has flown forever under the bridge of history. Twentieth century history moves with seven league boots by the hour today.
The warring imperialists of Great Britain and France, after seeking for 7 months to make the so-called “phony war” into a “real” war against the Soviet Union, via Finland, are faced with the fact that German imperialism has broken the stalemate on the Western front, and let loose an inferno on the peoples of Europe. The small nations of Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium have been sacrificed on the false alter of “protection.”
Today, those who sold out the national interests of France by building up Hitler, by stabbing Spain, have signed a separate peace with Germany and Italy. The people of France now reap the bitter fruit of betrayal by the Daladiers, Blums, Petains and Weygands. Such a peace is not just. It is the kind of peace which imposes the same solution as was imposed on the German people in the Versaille Treaty.
The betrayed French people must conduct a fight on two fronts – against their own rulers who have set up a military dictatorship against them and against the invaders of Germany and Italy.
A virtual dictatorship has been set up in Great Britain. Reaction, led by the Roosevelt Administration, follows the reactionary path of France and Britain, which today vies with Germany as to degree of oppression of their peoples. Roosevelt drives America to war, with locomotive speed. “National defense” of America is being raised alarmingly at this time to prepare the ground for America’s entrance into the war. In all this development the Soviet Union stands firmly as the strongest force for peace in the world.
Only a few months ago, 500 million dollars needed to finance the American Youth Act for jobs and education for five million unemployed youth couldn’t be found, but today 4 ½ billion dollars have been found for armaments.
If soberly examined, it becomes clear that these huge sums are not for defense at all. They are calculated to speed America’s entry into war on the side of the Allies at the earliest possible moment.
From the Wall Street and Washington circles, coupled always with talk of “defense,” is talk also of these places...Dutch West Indies...British and French West Indies...Mexico...Canada...South America...Greenland...British and French possessions in the Atlantic. These are the far-flung colonial prizes, in which nearly 25 million Negroes live, which are making the yearning of United States imperialism articulate, and for which they plan to plunge America into the arena of world war.
Who will pay for this might war machine?
The people, of course; but the “cost” is said by the President to be “minor.”
Already the trade unions are being made the main targets of these burdens. And it is becoming clear that true defense demands greater safeguards if the rights of labor and the people are to be secured against the labor baiters who have now found in the phrases of “defense” the ideal mask for their labor wrecking.
Is it for the “defense” that the American people must accept the unbridled rule of the sweatshop, the start miseries of unemployment, the cruelties of profiteering, the loss and wrecking of all the social gains they have won? Is it for “defense” that the voice of Labor and the people must be gagged by police terrorism, and a whole people imprisoned in the shackles of M-Day?
Is it for “defense” that everyone who speaks of liberty and civil rights, for their own opinions, will be dubbed “Fifth Columnists” by the lynchers of American democracy, the real fifth column in America?
Anyone could be dubbed a “fifth columnist” if he or she protests the shameful sabotage of the Senate Committee against the passage of anti-lynching legislation!
True national defense is needed. But more and more it is becoming obvious that peace is America’s best defense! The real traitors to the nation’s security and national defense are the big rich people. The crime of these people is their plans to attack Latin American nations. For the real defense of the country, the American people demand that the government stay out of war. That it advance the living standards of its people, Negro and white. That it refuse all aid to the belligerents. That it feeds America and starves the war. Labor and the people have the united strength to save America from the horrors of M-Day and war.
The newest proposal of the president is for national conscription of all of America’s youth – young men and women. This is a military dragnet for America’s youth. The plan is for the development of youth as a cheap labor source for the munitions industries and for cannon fodder for Wall Street.
A necessary condition of real national defense is a free and prosperous people. This means an increase, not a decrease in the living standards of the people. This would mean the preservation and enlargement of the democratic liberties of all the people. Under such conditions, the youth of the country labor and the working people train for true defense against the enemies of the people-the monopolies, against all policies of military adventures for “protecting” the neighboring colonies, or small countries in Latin and South America.
But, national conscription of America’s youth, which is based on Roosevelt’s policies of shattered neutrality – on a policy of Yankee imperialism for Latin America – cannot but mean a betrayal of America’s youth.
This sinister proposal of the President, which should be fought against, more than ever shows the true hand of the Washington government in its plans for war, for slashing the civil liberties and rights of youth, and the working people who ask for peace, jobs, civil liberties, and education.
Peace hangs by a thread!
But you can help keep America out of war, by raising your voices high. The youth of America want jobs, not cannon!
Pass the Anti-Lynching Bill!
Keep America Out of War!
James W. Ford
Jim-Crow in Uniform
Jesse Clipper, Negro Hero, 1895-1917
In the heart of the 5th Ward, center of the segregated Negro residential section in Buffalo, New York, a monument stands erected to the memory of Jesse Clipper, Negro hero who died in battle in the first World War of 1914-18.
Jesse Clipper is so honored because of his bravery and his valor. Young Jesse Clipper died believing that he had done his share “to make the world safe for democracy.” He must have died happily too, at the thought that he and his buddies had given their lives “in this war to end all wars” – that the armistice which was signed would be a permanent one. But this belief was a shocking illusion.
Twenty-three years ago, in 1917, three years after President Wilson proclaimed the neutrality of the United States and had implored the citizens to “refrain from taking sides,” America, at Wilson’s advice, took sides, and Jesse Clipper enlisted.
Jesse Clipper died in battle. He had no chance to weight the aftermath of the war. How could he know, for example, two years later, when it was all over, that the war dead of America together with the rest of the world numbered some 12 million? How could he know that the war had given birth to some 25,000 new millionaires? How could he read the same press which now blatantly confessed that many of the atrocity stories concerning the Belgians weren’t true, after all?
No, Jesse Clipper could never know, now. Even if he could come to life again, he would probably die again of disillusionment. He would see at a glance, that the very things he fought for and was promised – freedom, equality, opportunity, were still denied his people. He would see the tragedy of Natchez, Mississippi – in which over 240 Negroes died – the pyres of charred bodies which is symbolic of the half-slave, half-free Jim-Crow oppression which Negroes in America still suffer from, economically, politically and socially.
But the thing that would perhaps alarm Jesse most would be the realization that the second World War was in progress. The reaction did “break faith” with those who sleep in
Flanders Field. That already, the youth of three continents, Europe, Africa and Asia, were in trenches again. That the threat to American liberty and freedom was becoming more real every day, by the studied build-up in the press of America of prejudices, hatred against countries, all under the similar guise “to preserve democracy.”
He would hear the laughter of the Wall Street clique, while they maneuvered in Congress making loans and selling arms to belligerents, already cashing in on the blood money of the war. He would see the formation of a “national unity” among men, who only a few months ago were bitter enemies on both domestic and foreign policies. A “unity” designed to take us into war.
Whose War Is It?
The newspapers are saying in our time, some of the things they said in Jesse Clipper’s time. They are saying that this war, between two of the major imperialist powers in the world, Great Britain and Germany is a war “to preserve democracy.” They say that it is a “holy crusade” which will decide whether freedom and democracy will forever prevail, or whether force and violence will rule the world.
The newspapers ask you and me to believe this. But how can we believe this, when we are aware of the fact that democracy has been a farce to some 500,000,000 enslaved colonials under the domination of English rule? Can this was give the kind of real democracy which previous centuries did not give? We’re sorry if we cannot believe this, just because the newspapers say so. No, the colonial peoples, black and white, cannot support this war.
For it is a war that is imperialist in nature, which means that both England and Germany are out to get more territory, out to gain more influence in international affairs, are out to have a showdown as to who can exploit and enslave more peoples, small nations as well.
Colonial Folk Against the War
British imperialist “democracy” in action, besides, has in each previous war made thing worse, not better for colonial peoples.
While pretending to be fighting for the rights of small nation and for democracy, the British ruling class denies to its colonies the most elementary democratic rights.
That is why the progressive forces in the West Indies take the stand as indicated in the editorial columns of the Barbados Observer:
“We colonial workers have not forgotten the last World War, when all kinds of promises were made to us...Therefore we are determined never again to allow ourselves to be used as cannon fodder by either camp in the war.” (My emphasis-C.J.)
Some apologists for British imperialism argue that under British rule, Negro colonials have fared better as compared with their status under German rule, and for this reason, beginning with the premise that either side must win in the end, it is better for Negroes to support British imperialism in this conflict. Mr. W. A. Domingo, British export-import Negro merchant, openly supports this proposition.
This argument is fraught with danger for two reasons. First, it is a vicious acceptance of the status of Negroes as inferiors, who must be ruled, regardless. Secondly, and perhaps more important, it is a statement designed to lull the actions of Negroes, who want peace, not war, and to offset their attempts to raise their voices and act to halt the war, now.
Besides, it is also a false premise, when it is assumed that either side must win. For the ever-present desire for liberty on the part of Negro colonials will never be achieved through a change of masters, both of whom are interested not in the freedom, but in the further enslavement of them. Only through organization, education, and struggle against reaction, against war-profits, against reaction’s drive on civil liberties, under the guise of war emergencies, can this new threat to the ultimate freedom of the colonial peoples be met. Only the abolition of imperialism, of the whole system of the war makers, will guarantee peace and security for the peoples.
Who knows that yet Ethiopia may not rise again soon in revolt against both Anglo-French imperialism and Italo-German imperialism, showing the path to all colonial peoples
of Africa to freedom and liberation from imperialism as a whole? This is the real choice!
Lindbergh – Spouse of the Morgan Fortune
Sometimes the reactionaries themselves let the cat out of the bag as to the true situation.
Take the speech made by Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh, the lawful spouse of the fortune of Morgan, decorated by, and friend of Field Marshal Goering of Germany for instance:
The speech is entitled simply “Aviation, Geography, and Race,” delivered over a national net-work and re-printed in the Readers Digest of 1939. He says:
“...Western nations are again at war, a war likely to be more prostrating than any in the past, a war in which the White race is bound to lose, and the others bound to gain, a war which may easily lead our civilization through more Dark Ages if it survives at all.”
Lindbergh then goes on to warn that his “civilization” is menaced by “the infiltration of inferior blood.”
It is clear that Mr. Lindbergh feels that the war is a white man’s war – or more correctly – a war for white supremacy. That it is a war, which, unless his Western nations win, will mean world domination by darker peoples, which will then be a civilization equivalent to the Dark Ages. Obviously, civilization as he sees it does not include the black man.
What contribution can “inferior blood” make? Ask George Washington Carver, Negro scientist and inventor of 100 or more uses of the peanut, for instance. Ask Marian Anderson, outstanding Negro contralto. Ask Paul Robeson. Ask Joe Louis, who tore down the myth of “Aryan” supremacy. Ask all the millions of heavily-pigmented people throughout the world, whose sweat and blood have been given for centuries to build up empires, profits, and wealth.
They have even contributed their “inferior blood” time and again in defense of democracy because they believed the cause was theirs, also. Ask the dead who fought with Crispus Attacks in Concord, for American independence. Or the Negro soldiers who died on the battlefields with Jackson in New Orleans. Or the War of 1812. Ask a few Negro Civil War veterans who fought with Sherman. Ask the Negro dead who lie in Flanders Field.
The False Theory of a White Man’s War
Prof. Rayford Logan of Howard University and Elmer Carter of Opportunity are bearers of a theory of ill-repute, the theory of the “white man’s war.” The fact remains that Negroes comprise a good bit of the cannon fodder for Europe’s war makers.
In our own communities, since the war, the bubble of the false theory of a “white man’s war” quickly explodes amidst the rising cost of living, the corresponding lowering of income, as a result of the Roosevelt war and hunger budget. The Negro population are delivered not only as cannon fodder, but the acute brunt of the war crisis is first felt by them. The falsification of actual fact as shown here is for one main purpose: to weaken the domestic front of Negro and white unity, to lull the Negro population against fighting the imperialist war, and to slander the white working population who want and have no part in this war. The theory must be fought against, for it is both anti-Negro and anti-working class.
The Administration Gives a War-Deal to the People
That the New Deal has become a war-deal, is an ever-conscious growing fact on the minds of everybody The few concessions of appointments of Negroes to hitherto-unheld Federal, state and city posts, the integration of Negroes into the Federal program, in theatres, labor and social service have been forsaken by Roosevelt.
Only 200,000 Negro workers are now left on the WPA rolls as a result of the Woodrum amendments and the Roosevelt war and hunger budget.
If the United States intends to keep out of war, why the huge armaments program as against social betterment for the people of America? And what kind of security can the people have, when even the temporary security of WPA, NYA, PWA is taken away from them? The President’s message offers neither peace nor security to the people of America!
The demagogic slogan of “national unity” means that Roosevelt, has been promoted to full leadership of the rulers of America and they are nationally united against the people, to make more profits, by starvation, by clamping down on the civil rights of the people, on the basis of war.
The Anti-Lynching Bill – Touchstone of American Democracy
In urging unity of the nation behind his budget message, the President ended on the note that now is the time for everyone to come together, forget past quarrls, and so establish once and for all that democracy as a system still remains unchallenged as the best way of life yet devised by man.
For whom? might be the query of the Negro. How can he forget past quarrels when Negroes in the South still remain disenfranchised? How can he forget past quarrels when in the heart of the nation’s capital prejudice against the Negro abounds?
Only recently, at the premier opening of “Abe Lincoln in Illinois,” Negro citizens in Washington picketed the theatre because Negroes are not allowed to mingle with whites in the unwritten laws of American democracy.
High in the annals of achievements of American progress for 1939 is the passage of the Anti-Lynching Bill in the House of Representatives for the first time. But reaction in the person of Representative Rankin of Mississippi recorded the typical yearly slander when he shouted in the House:
“You are trying to placate a few nigger communists who are infesting the gallery.”
“Nigger Communists...” And in this slander, the Tory Representative Rankin paid unwilling tribute to the Negro Communists who have, together with white Communists, fought for the passage of the Anti-Lynching Bill, fought against distortions of the role of Negroes in American history, fought against every manifestation of prejudice where the Negro was concerned.
Representative Rankin rants, with the Bilbos, Ellenders, Cotton Ed Smith, because his idea of democracy is being challenged by progress.
As it was challenged by Angelo Herndon, Negro Communist, who led the fight for Negro and white unemployed workers in the heart of the deep South, in Georgia.
As it was challenged and brought to a new high by Ben Davis, young Communist editor of the Daily Worker, who, in the Senate caucus hearings upset the dignity of the “Democratic reactionaries” and “Republican hypocrites” by exposing the truth.
The President has never once raised his voice in support of the Anti-Lynching Bill. It is still the touchstone of American democracy, and it will require even greater mass support if it to become law. Current reactionary lies to the effect that lynchings no longer take place, therefore there is no need for an Anti-Lynching Bill, must also be answered. In the year 1939, 20 “silent lynchings,” the new technique of reaction, minus the mob, took place. Since 1940 already five lynchings have occurred. This – in face of the reactionaries’ lie that this is a “lynchless year.” That is why the voice of progress must be raised ever louder and clearer to Pass the Anti-Lynching Bill!
The 1940 Elections
Negroes constitute a balance of power in most of the major cities of the nation. Already there is being recorded in the press bids for their support by both the Democratic and Republican parties – twin parties of reaction. These old traditional major parties have today less of a division on real issues and political currents in American life, than in any former period of their existence. On a domestic scale both the Republican and Democratic parties fully agree to scrap all labor and social legislation as much as possible, to militarize labor, to drastically curb civil liberties, to lower the standard of living of all the people. They are both agreed on dubbing peace lovers, and fighters for democracy – “fifth columnists,” because they both want to bring about America’s entry in the present war. The real fifth columnists can be most easily recognized, because it is they who most openly sow the seeds of race prejudice, the seeds of Negro-baiting, or if they don’t do
it openly, they are in secret agreement with those who do. The leadership of both parties contains the real fifth columnists.
But Negroes cannot agree to such a program, for the Negro people want peace, want to keep America out of war. The Negro people want jobs, economic security, civil liberties, passage of social legislation, such as the Anti-Lynching Bill.
No, the answer is not in a return to support of either of these parties. The answer lies in independent political action of the people in 1940, aligned with labor, as expressed recently by Earl Browder, when he called for a People’s Platform for Jobs, Peace, Civil Liberties.
Such independent action will make the people’s answer clear against the war and hunger budget of the Roosevelt Administration, against the policies of the Republicans who in effect give support to his policies.
Such independent action can be a powerful force for support of progressive congressional candidates regardless of their party labels.
This, coupled with day to day actions against America’s entry into war, for peace, for social legislation, for an advanced standard of living, against step by step involvement policies of the Roosevelt Administration can be the means for making 1940 be symbolic of the people’s will for peace and prosperity.
The only party which fights for the interests of all the people is the Communist Party. The only party which truly fights for the interests of the Negroes is the Communist party. Vote Communist! Vote for Browder and Ford, its standard-bearers! For jobs, peace and civil liberties! Vote Communist!
Historical Comparisons of Two Presidents
In 1917, too, the people of America had to make a choice on how best to keep America out of war.
Then, as now, Wall Street’s profit-making men, under the guise of free trade, were pouring money and supplies into “Little Belgium.” Loans were followed with human security.
The recent historical analogy is “Little Finland.” Remember the headlines. For months, the typewriter generals in Helsinki issued thousands of dollars’ worth of ink, paper and type, in an eort to create the impression that here was a moral cause to be rightfully defended. Roosevelt and Hoover urged its defense with loans, with arms, with a huge “Relief” campaign.
Today there is peace in Finland. Today, the same press which threw you off your balance candidly admits its lies. Why the lies? Why the fakery?
It was because the newspapers spoke the aims of the imperialists whom Roosevelt leads, who would drag America into war. There is peace in Finland because of the peace policy of the Soviet Union, which aims to defend its own borders, which aims to limit the sphere of World War, and establish peace. There is peace because the Finnish generals have become convinced that they were being used as pawns of the Allies against Germany.
Herbert Hoover, Chief Egg in the Scramble of Finnish Relief
The truth about the Finnish-Soviet conflict is most clearly understood when we look at the person who raised the most noise about it. Remember Hoover of “apple a day” fame? Well, Herbert Hoover was the chief egg in the scramble of Finnish relief. Hoover, who couldn’t help the millions of Americans, Negro and white, who starved while he was President, headed the committee which raised loans and contributions for the “relief” of the Finns. What of the millions of Americans who are not in need of relief today, Mr. Hoover?
But Hoover was well interested in this cause. Hoover, together with Roosevelt and the imperialists of America and England, was responsible for egging Finland on to perform aggressive acts on the Finnish border, which resulted in the death of Red Army patrols there.
Yes, Hoover hopes to add to his fame, his humanitarian efforts for the rich of Finland. But since we’re talking of fame, let us not forget to give Hoover his due. He has one outstanding action to his credit, not often told.
Hoover may have sent your grandmother, or my aunt on
a segregated freighter which was really a cattle boat to France. You remember, the Gold Star mothers, who were Negroes, went over in a cattle boat provided by Hoover, to see the graves of their dead sons.
Wasn’t This a War for Democracy?
Thousands of sons of Negro mothers were also led to believe that joining the Army, fighting for Uncle Sam, would help to win them freedom. For after all, wasn’t this a war for democracy?
It was no wonder then, that in 1917, when an NAACP editorial called for support of Negro Americans in the newly-declared war, that Negro America, as in the past, “closed ranks” in support of American democracy.
Stories of Jim-Crow treatment of Negro men in arms seep through even the most conservative journals. No matter what their qualifications, Negroes were given the most disagreeable jobs. Negro professionals were taken out of their ratings and given jobs as laborers, while white doctors weer assigned to Negro troops.
Jim-Crow in Uniform
Did you know that Negro soldiers in uniform were stoned, jeered, and mobbed on the streets? The 8th Illinois, on way to Texas, suffered such treatment. When the 92nd Division, at Camp Funston, Texas, refused to recognize the Jim-Crow line at local theatres, the notorious Bulletin 35 was issued by the white commanding officer which read, “Don’t go where your presence is not desired. White men made the Division and they can break it just as easily if it becomes a troublemaker.”
It is a historical fact that in Houston, Texas, where the 24th Infantry was stationed, members of the provost guard had to endure the humiliation of going about their duties unarmed. Local white policemen disregarded their authority constantly. The famed “Houston Affair,” which resulted in the killing of 18 persons, is another example of Jim-Crow in uniform. Court martial proceedings, which followed this incident, without War Department review, resulted in the hanging of 13 (not even granted the usual military death by shooting), 41 got life, 4 short terms, and 5 were acquitted.
The nation-wide protests which followed this, and other “troublemaker” actions, forced the Wilson Administration to pass a statute which declared that soldiers were not to be executed without War Department review. But this was not the only verdict resulting from Houston. The people also gave one.
Significantly, many white soldiers from the North protested such treatment of their brother soldiers.
Anti-War Sentiment Among Negroes
But these protests only climaxed the great anti-war sentiments and agitation for Negro rights which punctuated the response of the Negro people to broken promises almost from the start of the war.
Most of the historical books written about the Negroes’ participation in the first World War give the impression that nowhere was there any anti-war sentiment expressed among the Negroes. This omission is designed to keep the false halo of complacency about the Negroes, wishfully expressed by reactionary historians.
Before America’s entry into war, for instance, in 1915, great protest developed around the premier of “Birth of a Nation.” Even the reactionaries argues – for their own purposes, it is true – that this play developed antagonisms between whites and Negroes. Already then, preparations for America’s entry into war were on the way. Today, “Gone with the Wind” typifies the same, though subtler, slander of the Negro people and is designed to whip up the war spirit of hysteria and race prejudice.
One of the most significant protests, recorded in the Negro Year Book of 1918-19, was the parade of some 5,000 Negroes along Fifth Avenue in New York, held on July 28, 1917, in demonstration of the indignities which Negroes suffered in this war “to make the world safe for democracy.” The parade bore such banners, with slogans:
“Make America Safe for Democracy”; “Taxation Without
Representation is Tyranny”; “America has Lynched Without Trial 2,876 Negroes in 31 Years and Not a Single Murderer Has Suffered”; “Put the Spirit of Christ in the Making and Execution of the Laws.”
Further evidence of anti-war sentiments among the Negro people is unwittingly brought out in a letter written to George Creel, chairman of Committee on Public Information in Washington, by Trumbull White, of the Investors’ Public Service in New York, informing him that:
“...The big Negro colony in Harlem is badly infected with a series of rumors arousing great distress and disquiet....The rumors are of various kinds....One is that the Negro regiments are being terribly abused by their white officers. Another is that the Negro regiments are being discriminated against in the distribution of troops where the danger and suffering will be the greatest....Another is that the Negro regiments are being discriminated against in the distribution of troops where the danger and suffering will be the greatest....Another is that already more than 200 Negro soldiers with eyes gouged out and arms cut off, after having been captured by Germans and then turned loose by them to wander back to the American lines have been sent home to this country and are now in the Columbia Base Hospital, No. 1, in the Bronx....”
He concludes his letter by making two recommendations. One, that a permit be arranged for a Negro preacher, doctor, and “intelligent” Negro woman from Harlem be sent to the hospital for complete inspection. And the others that preferably, Irvin Cobb, lecture in Harlem on the subject of Negro troops in France since “Cobb has the Southern affection for the Negro and could do the thing right.”
It was obvious that things were not right either at home or in France the the Negroes were answering back with protest and signs of discontent.
Other outstanding examples of anti-war sentiment would include the work of William Monroe Trotter, progressive Negro editor of the Boston Guardian who, during the war, fought in his columns against America’s participation in the war and the treatment of Negroes. Among the outstanding
*”The American Negro in the War,” By Emmet J. Scott
present-day leaders who protested the injustices was James W. Ford, now an outstanding leader of the Communist Party, its present candidate for Vice-President of the United States, then with the 8th Brigade of the 92nd Division in France, in 1918. And foremost against the imperialist was Ear Browder, now general secretary of the Communist Part of United States, and its candidate for President, who went to Leavenworth Prison because he spoke against the war.
Commissioning of Officers and “High Blood Pressure” Removal
Have you ever heard of Col. Charles He. Young, highest ranking Negro West Point graduate? But, even though it was before our time, you probably didn’t hear of him, because he was suddenly retired, supposedly because of “high blood pressure” when America entered the last World War.
He was returned to active service soon after. You know, that after once having been retired, you need not necessarily be considered for promotion.
It is to be wondered if all the “high blood pressure” wasn’t that of certain super-patriotic gentlemen, which rose at the thought of a Negro officer being promoted to a high position in their army over the heads of many white officers. Equality is at a premium even for black men in most armies.
Most of the 1,200 Negro officers who were commissioned during the war were in Jim-Crow regiments. It was the pressure of the Negro and white progressives against quartering of troops in the South which led to the establishment of the first Negro officers’ training camp at Ft. Des Moines, Iowa, from which 275 Negro officers were commissioned.
Such was the treatment accorded Negro men in arms at home in this “war for democracy.” What could they expect fighting for American democracy abroad?
Men of Color Abroad
Negro troops in France numbered a small percentage of the A.E.F., but they furnished 75 per cent of the A.E.F.’s labor supply. Given stevedore jobs, in the main, they were used to do road building, loading and unloading ships, and cars, building depots, re-burying the dead, and detonating scattered explosives.
The Negro troops who fought, however, were outstanding. The 8th Illinois (part of 92nd Division), offered by Negroes received more citations and Croix de Guerres than any other regiment in France.
“Secret Information” and Slander Against Negroes in France
Carter G. Woodson, in his book “Negroes In the World War” exposes certain “Secret Information Concerning Black American Troops,” August 7, 1918, issued in a document by American reactionaries in France. He writes:
“...The Negroes were branded as a menace of degeneracy which could be escaped only by an impassable gulf established between the two races.
“This was an urgent need because of the tendency of the blacks to commit the loathsome crime of assault, as they said Negroes had already been doing in France. The French was therefore cautioned not to treat the Negroes with familiarity and indulgence, which are matters of grevious concern to Americans and an affront to their national policy. The Americans, it continued, were afraid that the blacks might thereby be inspired with undesirable aspirations, TI was carefully explained that although the black man is a citizen of the United States, he is regarded by whites as an inferior with whom relations of business and service only are possible; and that the black is noted for his want of intelligence, lack of discretion, and lack of civic and professional conscience. The French army was the advised to prevent intimacy between French officers and black officers, not to eat with them nor shake hands nor seek to talk or meet with them outside the requirements of military service.
“They were asked also not to commend too highly the black American troops in the presence of white Americans...The French were urged to restrain the native cantonment population from spoiling the Negroes, as white Americans become greatly incensed at any deep expression of intimacy between white women and black men.”
The Returned Negro Soldier
The Noble Sissles, the John Henrys, all the Negroes who returned came back to learn that the percentage of lynchings had increased during the war years. Total 96; 38 in 1917, 58 in 1918! Five were Negro women! When five Negro soldiers were lynches in uniform, the last remnant of belief faded for hundreds of returned Negro soldiers and their families.
The post-war crisis, causing race riots, because reaction played Negro against white, native against foreign-born, lynched the returned Negro soldier economically.
To his great surprise, after fighting “for democracy abroad” the returned Negro soldier found it still had to be fought for at home. Democracy had to be won for Negroes too. Bitter, yet undaunted, he began to learn that it could only be won with the help of other workers. Negro and white workers began to organize while rebuilding the wastes of the war here at home.
Just and Unjust Wars
Today, with the Second Imperialist War raging in Europe and Asia, Negro youth face almost a similar situation as that preceding America’s entry into the last World War.
However, unlike Jesse Clipper, we have a chance to contrast the experiences of Negroes during the First World War, and also in wars since then.
All wars, for example, are not fought for a false democracy as was the first World War for empire, or the present war between Germany and England. Didn’t we support Ethiopia? It was because they were genuinely fighting for democracy, for their independence, against the intervention and brutal aggression of Fascist Italy. At that time the governments of France and England and the United States did nothing to stop Mussolini’s brutal aggression.
Another such genuinely democratic war was the war of the Spanish people against the fascist Franco and his cronies, Hitler and Mussolini.
That is why the returned Negro and white youth speak only with pride of their service across in Spain. Ask such men as Walter Garland, who rose to the rank of lieutenant in that army. Ask the brave young Ethiopian fighter who fought in
Spain “to get the murderer, Mussolini, in his lair.” Ask Sterling Rochester, Negro machine-gunner and hero.
Today in China, Chinese people for over two and one-half years have been heroically fighting a genuine war for democracy, against Japanese imperialism, back by 80 per cent of American products.
These are wars of national liberation. These wars are modern versions of the type of wars that T’Oussaint L’Ouverature fought for the independence of the black thousands in Haiti.
Enemies of Peace
There are many enemies of peace. There are those who cry peace and simultaneously stir up racial hatred and intolerance. There are those who cry “civil liberties for all” and proceed to deny to Communists and others, their civil rights. Where was Dies in the case of Angelo Herndon? Or the Scottsboro boys? He has been a Congressman for some twenty-two years now.
We can record many instances of the rise of anti-Negro violence, to a higher pitch today. Only recently from South Carolina came reports of several vicious attacks on Negro citizens exercising their constitutional right to vote.
Yes, the K.K.K. Rides Again with “Gone With the Wind” in the Saddle.
But anti-Negro violence is limited not alone to the South. For over two years, John Williams, 23-year-old Brooklyn Negro youth, was confined to prison on a trumped-up charge of rape, despite the fact that the decision was twice set aside by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court.
The jury which did not have a single Negro on it found John Williams guilty and he was sentenced to from 7 ½ to 15 years.
At the second trial the presiding judge was the anti-Negro, anti-labor Justice Peter J. Brancato. In passing sentence, the judge declared: “I would give him 20 years if I could. Remember she is a white woman.”
On June 17, as a result of the mass fight against this northern “Scottsboro Case,” John Williams was released.
This is a major victory for civil liberties of Negroes and for that matter, for all progressives today, in face of reaction’s drive to war, led by the Rosevelt Administration.
That is why the reactionary District Attorney O’Dwyer of Brooklyn met the delegation of the Communist Party and Young Communist League, who brought, 10,000 signatures to him, demanding the release of Williams, with the words:
“Millions of American boys will shed their blood before this war is over, and there will be plenty of ‘black boys’ too.
It is clear that the fight for civil liberties is inherently connected with the fight to keep America out of the imperialist war.
Just imagine what such action would mean on a national scale against the war. Remember reaction wants a divided people in order to drive more quickly to war!
Fight the War Every Inch of the Way!
We don’t want to wait until the war is upon us. This was the mistake which the youth made in 1914. Whether it is a question of the high cost of living, whether it is a question of sale of arms and planes, whether it is a question of loans to the belligerents, to foreign registry, or attempts of British propagandists, on “visits” to America who are trying to sell us their cause. whether it is the apologists who speak for British imperialism while invoking the good name of the colonial people, whether it is the newspapers who would feed us a blind pro-Ally allegiance, we must fight the war-makers every inch of the way!
The Young dead that lie in Flanders Field are telling us every day, “Don’t Raise Another Generation of Poppy Sellers!” “Fight the War Every Inch of the Way.” Young Jesse Clipper is telling us “Keep alive to get a job, to marry, to raise a family!” “Keep alive to demand passage of the American Youth Act, which would bring permanent federal aid to youth!” “Keep alive to free the four Scottsboro boys!” “Keep alive by fighting the war profiteers!” “Keep alive to get the Anti-Lynching and Geyer Poll Tax Repeal Bills passed!”
Young People Against the War
As a matter of fact young people are already doing some of these things. All the major youth organizations have gone on record against the war as an imperialist war. The American Youth Congress, the American Student Union, the United Student Peace Committee and the Southern Negro Youth Congress have taken such a stand in their resolutions.
These anti-war resolutions of youth and of the Negro people are but reflections of the broad anti-war sentiments among the whole American people.
In Harlem, South Side of Chicago, and other communities, young Negro people have been active in declaring that they want no part of the European war. They have specifically pointed to the need for conducting a fight for civil rights, for jobs, democracy and peace. This is the only war that they are interested in, as was so ably demonstrated in the historical Third National Negro Congress when they rejected the path of the former progressive, A. Phillip Randolph to choose support – of reaction by supporting the Roosevelt Administration, by supporting anti-Soviet schemes by preaching segregation for the Negro – and chose instead the path toward working with labor, through Labor’s Non-Partisan League, who has now agreed to make passage of the Anti-Lynching Bill the first job of labor!
What You Can Do
You can help spread the truth as to what kind of a war is being fought today. You can help to educate young people to the fact that the Roosevelt Administration, and the Republican Parties, twin parties of reaction are dragging America to war. You can help keep America out of war.
You will find that you are not alone in doing this, for right in your own community, you will find an organization, willing and ready to help you achieve this.
This organization is the Young Communist League, an organization of and for American young people, who look forward to a better future. There is no future in Flanders Field. All youth, regardless of race, creed, or color, belong to and are equals in this organization.
The Young Communist League fights for the interests of the toiling youth and the working class. It fights against imperialist war. It fights against the discrimination of Negro youth. It fights for the economic betterment of Negro youth for jobs and security.
The League opposes all measures aimed at the militarization of the youth. It opposes the militarization of the C.C.C. camps, the extension of the R.O.T.C., especially on a compulsory basis: the proposed increase in the Army and National Guard, the M-Day plan. Its guiding slogan is:
“Not a Man, Not a Cent, Not a Gun for Imperialist War Preparations!”
We believe that our ideals can best be achieved by socialism, by establishing a new social order in which the working people will own and control all the vast natural resources and means of production, and use them for the benefit of all the people, instead of the few.
The Soviet Union – Home of Free Peoples
Look here, fellows and girls, this system called capitalism, with all of its talk of free enterprise is free, all right, but for the bankers and Wall Street, for the German bankers, for the Bank of England, for the French bankers. Can you dream what it would mean to have the worry of a job eliminated? What if it was the law that your security, your job, was guaranteed? Then you could finish high school, college. Then you could marry, raise a family, get that coat, that radio, that library you always wanted. This is what the youth of the Soviet Union have because they live in a socialist society. That is why the bankers what to take it away from them
All roads are open to youth of the Soviet Union.
There is no national or racial oppression in the Soviet Union and in the U.S.S.R. people of all nationalities, all colors, live as free and equal peoples.
All young people are guaranteed free education in the U.S.S.R. to the age of 18. Equal opportunity exists for all.
For millions of us darker peoples, for oppressed peoples
throughout the world, the Soviet Union stands as a beacon of light, hope, truth!
While the majority of people in America today are not for socialism, they are willing to work in common with those who similarly desire such things as jobs, security, democracy and peace. That is why we Young Communists stand together with the majority of American youth – Negro and white, who desire above all PEACE, so that they can pursue the American dream of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Negro America remembers the false promises of the last war. They are saying The Yanks Are Not Coming.
The dream we mentioned earlier, can become a reality. In the course of the struggle for these thing, we will learn that these can only be achieved and kept in a more permanent society – Socialism.
We support no dreams of war abroad. We go to the wars at home. For jobs and civil liberties. For democracy and freedom!
Jesse Clipper, Negro hero, died believing he was doing his share to make the world safe for democracy. If Jesse Clipper were alive today, he would again fight for democracy. He would do it, however, not by following the loans of Wall Street to another Flanders Field, but by fighting for jobs, for relief, better housing, better health conditions – security for the people. We must make the world safe for democracy by making democracy safe for America. This is Jesse Clipper’s dream now. We, the living, take our stand today on the side of Life and Peace!
Published by
New Age Publishers
P.O. Box 28, Sta. D
New York, N.Y.
July, 1940
Citation
Jones, Claudia, “"Jim Crow in Uniform",” GLAM Center for Collaborative Teaching and Learning - Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library, accessed November 22, 2024, https://glamportal.auctr.edu/items/show/573.