In the mid-1930s, Burnham became involved with widespread Harlem protests against Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, and with the injustice being done to the teenage Scottsboro Boys, condemned to death on a false accusation of raping two white women. During this period, he joined the Young Communist League and the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA). CPUSA had become widely known for opposing racism and racial segregation, especially following its organizing the Scottsboro Boys' legal defense. (Burnham had ideological commitments equal to Communism's Marxism and Leninism. He was as much influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the international anti-colonial struggle, for instance suggesting in 1944 the formation of a Black political party of "Non-Violence and Non-Cooperation.") In 1939, Burnham joined the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC), becoming its organizational secretary in 1941.