The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-10-29
A. N. |. c. GIVES
entire SESSION
TO TRADE UNIONS
Recognize Only DiUi-
sion of Classes

The American Negro Labor Con
gress, the first mass organization of
class-conscious Negro labor which is
meeting this week at the Metropoli-
tan Community Center, 311S Giles ave-
nue., completed a discussion of the
Negro worker and the trade unions
with mass meeting on Monday night.
The subject of the. mass meeting was
the bar Of color prejudice raised by the
officialdom of the trade unions, with
the result that very few Negro work
ers can gain admittance to the un-
ions. The speakers discussed ways
and means Of organizing the colored
workers to fight their way into the
unions, and stressed the necessity of
united front of labor, black and
white, against the agressions of the
bosses.
Again and again the speakers point
ed out to the audience the slogan
which was stretched across the front
of the hall: Organization is the first
step to freedom"
Otto Huiswood, a colored worker
from New York and delegate to the
congress, urged the congress to take
concrete steps toward the organiza-
ton of the Negroes into labor unions.
He pointed out that when color preju-
dice works in such a way as to keep
Negroes out of various other organ
cations. they do not for this reason
remain on the outside Of these activi-
ties, but organize their own. The Ne
gro workers must take the same stand
with regard to the trade union ques-
ton, Huiswood pointed out. If they
cannot force the A. F. of L. officialdom
to admit the Negro workers, then
these workers must organize their
own unions and use these 1Urganiza-
tions not to fight the white workers
but to get into the movement of the
whole working class and fight with it
in its struggles against the owners.
c. w. Fulp, president of the local
union of the United Mine Workers of
America in Primrose, Pennsylvania,
and Norval Allen, southern organizer
OF the American Negro Labor Con-
gress, told of fights waged by Negro
workers to enter the trade unions, and
urged the delegates to adopt con-
crete measures of organization.
Negro Kept Press Is Silent.
The entire capitalist press, includ-
ing the race press owned and con-
trolled by few wealthy Negroes, has
been carrying out what Lovett Fort
Whiteman, national organizer of the
congress, characterized before the
congress as a conspiracy of silence"
Months before the congress opened.
the capitalist newspapers were carry
ing exposes" of this gathering of
Negro labor, branding it as "a tool
of Moscow, which will only fool and
betray the colored workers" One and
all, they warned" the colored work
ers to keep away from this congress
Ito boycott it. And now that their
efforts have resulted in complete fail
ure-now that these servants of the
bosses realize that in spite of their
lying attacks, the American Negro
Labor Congress is successfully work
ing out plans for the solution of the
problems of the race; now that they
see the Negro thinking of himself as
worker, with aims and interests
like the aims and interests of the
white workers of the United States
now these papers have resorted to the
expedient of ignoring the congress
Since the congress opened, only one
or two of the capitalist papers have
mentioned the gathering. The others
have dismissed it with notice, and
a lying sentence or two.
OF the two large Negro papers in
Chicago. neither has up to the pres
ent moment said word about the
congress The Chicago Defender
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