The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-09-02
By K. BAKER.

,,loi+a+ion of the Negro masses by the white
capitalist class, especially in the South is the
economic basis out of which the entire pohtlca!
and social super structure of suppression or Jim
Crowism' arises This oppression expresses
itself in various forms of segregation, dis
crimination and denial of the most elemental
political and social rights. The political and
social oppression of the Negro masses in Amer
lea is the means used by the American bourg
eoisie to obtain a definite end, the end of ex
tracing super profits eXtra-profits from
the toll of the Negro masses. The exploitation
of the Negro toiling masses is more merciless
and brutal and more intense and far reaching
than that of the white proetariat thanks tc
the social and political subsection of the Ne
gro masses. TT, fact that the political and
social oppression of the Negro masses is en-
forced primarily by extra legal measures, such
as lynching. mob violence and other forms Of
terror only illustrates that the white ruling
class of America has found an effective sub
stitute for direct police and military subjuga-
ton which is openly and brutally utilized in
it's colonies and sem-colories.
The Negro people of America have at no
time enjoyed ordinary elementary bourgeois
democratic" rights which the American bourg
eoisie was forced to grant to the white toll
ing masses after series OF sharp struggles.
suffrage, the right to be elected to public
offices, freedom of speech, assembly and press,
the right to bear arms, the right to free public
education, the right to be considered innocent
until found guilty by jury of equals, and so on.
Needless to say the white workers are being
deprived of all these rights gradually and
Systematically until today most of them are
only formal rights on paper.
These rights, known as bourgeois democratic
rights are today denied to the oppressed ma
tional minorities, and the colonial peoples of
the entire world. The national revolutionary
movements in the colonies and of the various
national minorities are aimed against the i'm
perialists in revolutionary struggle to achieve
these rights as we'll as to end the super-ex-
ploitaton exercised by the imperialists. In
this respect the liberation movement of the
Negro people is national revolutionary move
ment.
The Negro people for over 200 years have
been the chattels and the property of small
class of Southern slave owners Although the
Negro slaves were freed during the Civil War
as a military measure against the Southern
land owners, the slave system of labor was
historically doomed to perish through the rise
to power of new class in America the CAPT.
talist class, which required a system of wage
labor as the basis of exploitation. The Civil
War was actually the completion of the bour-
geois revolution in America, the final struggle
between the capitalist system of exploitation
and the feudal system of exploitation based
on slavery.
After the Civil War the Negro people were
made citizens of the United States and were
given formal political and social equality. The
Negroes actually enjoyed these rights for
comparatively brief period, while the North
ern capitalist class used them as the social
base of their dictatorship, over the Southern
landlords, Immediately following the Civil
War. The military dictatorship of the North
ern bourgeosie over the Southern Landlords
lasted but short period of time and soon
peace was established between the Southern
landlords and the Northern bourgeoisie. The
condition for their alliance of the reunion was
the continuation of the reaping of super-prof-
its from the Negroes unmolested by the North
states. In order that the super-exploita.
ton of the Negro masses could continue to
the same degree as before the Civil War, thai
is, during slavery period, it was necessary that
the Negro people be deprived of the political
and social rights which were granted to them
by the constitutional amendment, Immediately
after the Civil War. This was accomplished
without any formal change in the legal status
of the Negro as guaranteed by the consttu-
ton
By gentlemefs agreement that constitu-
tional amendments IS, IA, Is, granting the
Negroes political and social equality were ig
nored. The Negroes were to learn that all
political and social rights contained in the con-
stitution of the white exploiters remain 50
many phrases on paper unless guaranteed by
the. armed forces of the state. Eventually
the position of the Negro toiling masses be-
came the same as before the Civil War; The
official "black snake" and the six shooter shot
gun and the blood hound were replaced by
the unofficial Ku Klux Klan, the knight
Riders, white terrorism and vicious forms of
segregation and discrimination. The fact that
during the Civil War the Negroes learned to
use the rifles of the Northern Army and tasted
for ever so short a period their brief victory
over the Southern slave drivers only made the
post war terrorism against them more vicious
and more terrible.
Today the position of the Negro farmer is
not better socially, politically, or economically
than before the Civil War. Today the Negro
farmer is tied to the soil of the white land
lord. He has no rights which the landlord
must observe.
The vicious system of segregation and OPP
preston enforced by mob violence terrorism
and lynching holds the Negro toing masses in
a vise-like grip, under the heel of the white
exploiters more effectively than the military
occupation in colonial countries
Although the economic roots of the political
and social oppression of the Negro people is
t1I -, L. Iol.,J