The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-06-23
PRE-CONVENTION DISCUSSION
Winning the Negro Masses

asking what has become of our white comrades
in time of struggle. The following is typical
question among the new Negro workers: Don't
you think, Comrade Williams, that it is difficult
to get white workers to fight with the
Negroes? (St. Louis). Or: Your fine speakers
come to US and tell us the kind of things
Just love to hear-only you tell us about how
he Communist Party has white folks for men,
bers as we'll as black folks But where are the
whites? (St Louis) Here then we see that
the question is not, How can we keep the
Negro workers in the Communist Party?" but
How can we get the most class-conscious sec
ton of the white workers to fight with the
Negro masses against capitalist oppression
and for the Party program" A similar ques-
ton is being asked elsewhere, as in the case
of the Party anti-lynchng meeting on May 25th
in Chicago in which the Negro workers found
themselves with just a handful of white COM
rades participating In order to counter
balance the distrust on the part of the Negro
masses, our Party must wage the sharpest
struggle against manifestations of White Chau-
vinism, which is expressing itself more and
more as the Party endeavors to do mass ac-
tivity among the Negro masses.
The Seat of Opportunism.
The American Negro Labor Congress for
number of years in the Chicago district was
the seat of the most right-wing opportunism
among the few Negro Party members. There
was actually no guidance from the Party to
such an extent that there was no mass activity
in the basic industries but it was confined
primarily to collaboration with the Negro min
sters and other petty bourgeois elements. Last
November, with the establishment of a new
Negro leadership in the district, these COM
rades Qsbell, Henry, Doty, Griffin) openly re-
sisted the Party line They declared at the
District Negro Committee meeting that it was
impossible for the Communist Party to appeal
to Negroes and if we did attract them to our
meetings could not get them to join the
Party or hold them within its ranks. This was
the first time, in my opinion, that heard such
an expression from Negro workers We told
them that the Party would recruit Negroes and
would hold them in the Party. Seeing that we
were determined to carry the Party line
through, they decided to sabotage all of our
Party activity on the South Side among the
Negroes. But despite this tendency few of
US were able to isolate them and we can say
that, as a conservative figure, we have today
no less than 200 Negro workers in the Party
and the continuous Party influence among the
Negroes in the district as far south as st. Louis
indianapolis, ETC., is felt.
The line of these comrades became chronic
opposition to the Party in the course of which
the A.NL.C. was liquidated. Everything which
these comrades had done had to be undone,
and today with the recruiting of new forces
we are now building real functioning branches
Of the A.NL.C. under Party directive
History has placed upon our Party the task
of becoming the champion and defender of the
oppressed Negro masses despite the open fas-
cist terror of the bosses and their government.
The Chicago district is moving forward and
centers for the building of our Party and
auxiliaries among the Negro and white masses
for the establishment of workers dictator
ship.