The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-05-06
"MaSs Fight Is
Way to VIM"
Says Herndon
BY ANGELO HERNDoN.


THE present struggle for the rights
Of Negroes to serve on juries-
part Of the whole fight for Negro
rights-is an historical one, We
must guard, however, against fall
ing into the trap Of legalistic illu-
sions.
This particular question must
carry with it the most simple and
thorough explanation Of its relation
to the everyday struggles Of the
Negro and white workers I can
remember during my trial, that
when the question Of exclusion Of
Negroes from jury service was
raised, many workers whom I had
the chance to talk with seemed to
be under the impression that this
fight was one that should be con-
Quoted only through the courts.
The main function of the courts
is to protect, from every angle, the
interests OF the capitalists, even
though in doing SO it may deprive
a certain group of the so-called
rights which are guaranteed in its
own constitution. Especially will
these rights be ignored when the
class struggle has developed to the
point where 1t is taken into the
courts Of the U. s. Government. The
state and city governments are
fully aware of the fact that Negroes
are denied their elementary rights,
lynched, prosecuted and forced to
live in actual slavery in the Black
Belt of the South. The Roosevelt
Hunger Government will go to the
same lengths as the Decatur and
the Atlanta lynch courts did in
denying that Negroes had been sys-
tematically excluded from jury ser
vice for no other reason than that
their skin was black, unless the
broadest struggles are conducted to
force them to yield to the demands
Of the workers. 1t is to the in
terest of U. S. imperialism, as well
as to the southern slave drivers,
to keep the Negro people chained
in slavery while they continue to
carry on their program of national
oppression and economic robbery
against the Negro toilers.
THE lynch verdict rendered in De-
L catur, rejecting the voice of the
southern slave masters, should be a
most convincing example to the Ne
gro workers that the slave masters
will not stop at anything to up
hold their system Of lynchings, po-
lice terror. And that the fight to
obtain the elementary rights for
the whole Negro people does not lie
in the channels of capitalist courts
alone but through mass struggle of
both white and Negro workers.
Never before have such mountains
Of lies, built up by the slave drivers
in the Scottsboro case, been blasted
so completely yet in spite Of the
world of evidence proving the in
nocence of Patterson, and the 9TH
er boys, he has again been con-
denned to die in the electric chair.
1t so happens that in capitalist
courts such questions as those now
connected with the Scottsboro case
dig down into the very heart of
the decaying system Of the bosses.
Thus they resort to the most brutal
and savage methods in order to
keep under their heels the whole
Negro people.
THE Scottsboro march to Wash
L ington for the release Of the
Scottsboro boys and for the immed-
late enforcement of the 18th, 18th,
and 18th amendments to the con-
stitution must be rousing signal
for greater mass struggle to the
American workers, for a fight for
the freedom Of the Scottsboro boys
and all victims Of national oppres-
sion, which will not end until rights
for Negro toi1ers have been
achieved. Garry on the fight till
the Scottsboro boys and all victims
of capitalist oppression are freed!
Garry on the fight for political,
economic and social rights for Ne
gro workers!
Fight against the Roosevelt
forced labor labor scheme!
For solid unity between white
and Negro workers.