The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-12-11
Manifesto of the League OF
Struggle tor Negro Rights

alarm and indignation the increased efforts of
the bosses and their agents to divide and split
the workers on the basis of race and nationality
We, the representatives of the black and white
workers here assembled for the purpose of draw
ing up joint program of action for struggle
against the brutal oppression of the Negro toll
ers, deem it urgently necessary to call the at
tention of all workers to the following facts:
In this so-called democratic United States of
America, the citadel of capitalist civilization and
culture, the white ruling classes carry out the
most shameless and barbarous oppression of
millions of Negro workers and farmers Econ
omically super exploited, socially oStracized, in
many places denied even the most elementary
human rights, the Negroes are relegated to the
lowest ranks of the social ladder and exist as a
nation of 'untouchabes' or social lepers" sub
jected to the most fragrant prosecutions and
abuses.
1t is an infamous lie perpetrated only by a
government of slave drivers and their agents to
maintain that the yoke of slavery has been
lifted from the Negroes in these United States.
The so-called proclamation of emancipation"
only sgnifed a formal abolition of slavery with
out removing its real basis-the monopoly of
the land by the plantation owners of the South,
with the conivance and support of the so-caled
friends of the Negroes, the northern capitalists
The fact is that in the South millions of Negro
workers and poor farmers still in position
in many instances worse than actual slavery.
The plantation system with its accompanying
evils, share cropping, denial of the right to sell
crops landlord supervision of crops, plantation
stores, peonage, usury convict labor, ETC., serve
to reduce the Negro poor farmers and farm
laborerS to a condition of the most abject pow
erty and dependency. Upon the basis of this
special exploitation the white ruling class has
created a whole system of social and political
inequality for the Negroes segregation, political
disfranchisement etc)-which has for its object
the retention of the Negro masses in the state
of servility and degradation, condition for
their continued enslavement This vicious sys-
tenn is backed by the brutal force and rein
forced by law and custom. The slightest pro-
test is met by the most arbitrary violence beat
ings, murders, lynchings. The entire state APP
paratuS, police, militia courts etc. are modified
in the service of the slave drivers. The Negro
has no redress. He is at the complete mercy
of the BOSSES prey to their slightest whims.
The only justice he can expect is mob Justice"
He has no rights that white man is bound to
respect" The results are grinding poverty wide
spread misery, illiteracy and disease The South
is virtual tomb in which millions of Negro
toiers lie imprisoned and suffocating, the VIC
TINS of the white slave drivers democracy.
III.
Not only in the South are Negroes subjected
to special exploitation and oppression but even
in the North. In all large cities the Negroes are
forced to live in segregated districts are the vic
TINS of high rent are jim-crowed and discrim-
mated against in public places. They are made
to feel their position social outcasts in in
Vulnerable ways. The slightest attempt to over
step the boundaries of discrimination is accom-
panied by risks of Entertainment included even
by violence. Lynching is not only feature of
the South but is becoming increasingly prac-
ticed in the North. Everywhere it is allowed to
go unpublished
AS wage workers the Negro workers are forced
the lowest, the most difficult labor. AS
rule, they receive lower wages than the whites
and in many cases do not get the same wages
as white workers for similar work They are
a rule the first to be laid off "in hard
times and the last to receive work in times
of prosperity" in addition to this, they are
barred from many unions in the A. F. of L. by
the labor bureaucrats.
Thus. the slave conditions on the plantations
follow the Negroes into the industrial centers.
The Negro poor farmers and farm workers flee
ing from misery and starvation on the planta-
tons into the cities of the North and South
do not thereby obtain freedom. Suffering from
the degrading slave conditions of the Southern
farms, they are easier victims of the wage
cutting, slave-drivng bosses in the industrial
centers. There they create source of cheap
labor. Thrown into competition with the white
workers, they unvittingly serve as . weapon in
the hands of the bosses to beat down the living
standards of the whole working class. But this
is not all. Upon the basis of the competition
thus created, the bosses and their agents, the
labor bureaucrats, Ku Klux Klan, ETC., stir up
prejudices, and race hatred among blac. and
white workers and in times of depression" di-
rectly organize race" riots and massacres OF
Negro workers. In this manner the bosses achieve
their purpose of splitting up the ranks of the
workers, isolatmg the Negro workers from the
general labor movement and thereby perpet-
rating the slave condition Of the latter even in
industries