The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-11-11

Belt by publishing additional fig
ures, which by their mute appear
ance in the columns of the New
Leader are supposed to knock the
bottom out of the Communist posi-
ton. He shows that the Negroes in
the Black Belt form 63.1 per cent of
the Negro population of the eleven
states through which runs TIC
Black Belt "conjured up by the
Communists These figures are
supposed to speak for themselves,
for he makes no comment On them.
Presumably they are supposed to
show that the Black Belt does not
even include very high percentage
of the Negroes in the southern
states, let alone Of the country as a
whole.
THIS is the acme of bourgeois con-
L stitutionalism and legality. 1t
does not remove the fact that
100000 Negroes, the majority of
them peasants, are at present en-
shaved within a vicious system of
peonage and national oppression in
the Black Belt; that this landless
peasantry, denied every democratic
right, must carry on revolutionary
struggle for the land and for the
overthrow of the rule of the Yankee
imperialists and the big white
landowners in the Black Belt; that
in this struggle the Negro people
become powerful ally of the whole
workingclaSs in the struggle
against imperialism.
HISTORICAL
DEVELOPMENT
This socialist scholar" who can
only view the Black Belt as con
jured up by the Communists" is
of course quite incapable of think
ing dialetically In determining the
extent of the Black Belt we are
forced to accept the tabulation of
the population figures by the U. S.
Census (for there are no other fig
ures available.) The census bases
itself upon the existing state and
county borders. We use these fig
ureS as a basis, but must recognize
that our method suffers from rigid
ity and mechanical faults arising
from the use of the figures as
tabulated by capitalist statisticians..
But by going further, by making an
historical study of this territory we
find that:
/. Even from colonial days, with
the establishment of the first plan
tation using Negro slaves, the Ne
groeS were in the majority in the
plantation area.
2. That the area Of Negro major
ity travelled along with the rapid
spread of the plantation system to
the Mississippi following the inven-
ton and utilization of the cotton
gin.
8. That the Black Belt today is
the historical cotton country, the
former area of the slave plantat-
tons. "a map of the Black Belt
today contrasted with map show
ing the production of cotton, tobacco
and rise in 1860, runs almost spot
by spot with these crops.
THE Black Belt is the territory
1 which belongs historically to the
Negro people, to do with as they
please. There they developed as an
American Negro people. The vast
majority of the Negroes in other
parts of the country migrated from
the Black Belt. 1t is here, and on
the Immediately adjoining territory
(where lives another 100000 Ne
groeS forming between 30 and 35
per cent Of the population) that
Yankee Imperialism subjects the
Negro people to a vicious system of
national oppression.
The developing of agrarian strug-
giles in the Black Belt and the fight
for freedom, will, by revolutionary
struggle establish this state unity.
Supported by revolutionary AM
erican proletariat Gin and outside of
the Black Belt) the Negro people
will win the right of self determine
tion. Regardless of census figures.
or distortion Of these figures by
socialist scholars" the land will be
seized. the landlords driven off and
state unity OF the Black Belt de-
clared. The revolution will find it's
way with the help Of and under the
leadership Of the feminist revolu-
tiohary party Of the proletariat. the
Communist Party. The white work
ers must realize this in order to
forge Immediately the alliance with
the Negro people for the overthrow
Of imperialism.