African American Women and the Communist Party During the Great Depression

7/25/2019 African American Women and the Communist Party During the Great Depression

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NING W ITH THE RED S:

AFRICAN AM ERICAN W OM EN

AND THE COM M UNIST PARTY

DURIN S THE GREAT D EPR ESSION

Lashawn Harris

In a 1931 article i

that African Americai

were ignorant and

1 the ailyWorker NA AC P leader Walter White proclaimed

women w ho joined the ranks of the Com munist Party (CP)

incouth victims who were being led to the slaughter by

dang erously bold rac icals . ' W hile all African Am erican leaders did not share

W hite's sentiments an i did not openly criticize Airican American participation in the

CP during the first half ofthe20th century, a significant group of black leaders and

intellectuals, including A. Philip Randolph, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and

others, voiced their pressing concerns regarding CP activists' role in the black

lreedom struggle.^ Although White's indictment of black female communists and

African American women who supported CP activists was clearly reflective of

broader confiicts bet

Am erican women in t

record reveals that th

in no way victims w

women who came from various socioeconomic backgrounds and geographical

veen NAACP and other black leaders and the CP, African

le CP challenged W hite's charges against them. The h istorical

;se black female activists were far from ignorant and were

1 were being led to the slaughter. ^ Many African American

regions and who poss

active in the CP durit

New York City and C

of the black intelligei

Brotherhood (ABB)

often working as laun

Collectively, this

ssed varying levels of political experience and education w ere

Ig the 1930s. While norithem and midwestem CP women in

licago, for exam ple, tended to be working class and mem bers

tsia and black-nationalist groups such as the African Blood

nd the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA),

many black femaleccmm unists in the South were usually w orking class and poor.

iresses, sharecroppers, and dom estics.

new vanguard of female activists emerged from a legacy of

African Am erican wor len 's activism. Like their foremothers, their social and political

activism demonstratec race, class, and gender consciousness and em phasized racial

advancement and cormmunity building. These African American women also built


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The Journal of frican merican Histor

among black women. A signiflcant group of African American women viewed th

CP as a potential vehicle for black liberation, along with gender and working-clas

advancem ent. These women were what political theorist Antonio Gramsci described

as organic intellectuals wh o embraced reform that involved working peop l

engaged in social and political contestation against capitalist exploitation. Organi

intellectuals often lacked formal recognition from society, opposed mainstream

politics through protest and agitation, employed principles that united disparate group

into effective coalitions, and represented a set of political ideologies that was differen

from those of university-trained intellectual elites. * Often dismissed, black female C

leaders and rank and flle members endorsed a racial discourse that challenged

prevailing black political strategies and embraced liberationist strategies outsid

wom en's traditional reform activities. As communists, they became local and nationa

leaders, distributed the CP's Daily Worker served as representatives at majo

intemationai conferences, ran for political office on the CP ticket, and were active

street com er orators. Through their rhetoric, protest styles, and social activism, blac

women in the CP often reconstructed the politics of respectability.

Until recently, historians have largely ignored the dynamic role of African

Am erican women within the CP. In much of

th

history and historiography of th

Am erican Left, historian Robin D. G. Kelley has observed , African Am erica

women have largely been invisible, lost in the cracks somewhere between the 'Negr

Question' and the 'wom an qu estio n.' ' Because few black female CP activists wrot

autobiographical w orks or mem oirs, their stories have often been overlooked. At th

same time, the works of Mark Naison, Robin D . G. Kelley, Mark I. Solomon, Irm

Watkins-Owen, Marika Sherwood, Erik S. McDuffie, and Glenda Gilmore hav

delineated the prominent role of black female communists such as Maude White

Esther Jackson, Louise Thompson Patterson, Audley Moore, Eula Gray, and Claudi

Jones.^ The encyclopedicBlack

omen

in America edited by Darlene Clark Hin

and others, includes biographical proflles of African A merican women in the CP and

other leftist organizations, including Lucy E. Parsons, Louise Thompson, Esthe

Jackson, and Marvel Cooke.'' More recently, Carole Boyce Davies's Left of Kar

Marx: The Political Life of Black Com munist Claudia Jonesrepresents one of th

flrst frill-length biographical accounts and analyses of a female African America

leader in the communist movement. Nonetheless, the role of African America

women in the CP and leftist politics in general warrants more attention from

historians.*

This essay examines the largely overlooked contributions, political activism


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frican merican

omen

and the Com munist Party During the Great Depression

the League of Struggles for Negro Rights, the Unemployed

Intemational Labor Defense, this essay explores black women's

levels of acti\ ism within the CP during the 1930s, and seeks to demonstrate

Louise Thom pson Patterson, W illiana Burroughs, and o thers

ites for black women's reform activities during the Great

ivities of African American women in the CP ushered in

activism that transcended the conventional image of the

blackfe;nale reformer, while offering many African American women

pt liberation strategies that addressed the socioeconomic and

1930s. Their reshaping of normative modes of respectability

expressions of protest, while giving rise to a group of female

in social and political activism that some considered too

ng of a wom an, and outside the norms of female civility.

marginalized voices and stories of African A merican wom en

;an develop a broader conceptualization of black women's

during the Great Depression.

contributed to the CP,

Councils, and the

multiple

that Bonita Williams,

engaged alternative s

Depression.

The ideas and ac

innovative forms of

respectable

space to create and

political clim ate of th

inspired new styles

ani 1

leaders who took par

masculine, unbecomi

In analyzing the often

in the CP, historians

struggle for liberation

AFRICA?

African American

variety of reasons. T

exacerbated existing

pushed some towards

many African Americi ns

conditions, low wag

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African American Women and the Communist Party During the Great Depression