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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