African-American socialism
African-American socialism is a political current that emerged in the nineteenth century. However, it became influential before coming to the forefront nationally. This is an economic and political theory of social organization that means the production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community. For African Americans socialism has represented a potential for equal class status, humane treatment as laborers, and for some ideologists a means of dismantling American capitalism. Black liberation is important when seeking socialism. Liberation refers to an individual being freed from imprisonment, slavery, or oppression. History of African-American  socialism. The history of African-American socialism is tied up with the writing of a socialist history of and by African Americans. For example, when W. E. B. Du Bois wrote "Black Reconstruction in America" he challenged the Dunning School who had dominated American historiography of the reconstruction period with a conservative viewpoint which paid scant attention to way African-Americans had played a role in the American Civil War and the subsequent reconstruction. This approach was shared also by some European socialist writers such as Algie Martin Simons who wrote in "Class Struggle in America" that the anti-slavery  character of the war was a myth and that the enslaved Africans played no role in their liberation. This viewpoint both reflected and reinforced the failure of the Socialist Party of America to do anything but accommodate itself to the white supremacist views of the time and their embodiment in Jim Crow laws. The Socialist Party of America was largely composed of European immigrants, but nevertheless this failure to engage with the reality of US race-relations contrasted sharply with that of the previous generation of migrant European radicals, such as the forty-eighters many of whom took a firm  anti-slavery stance such as during the Camp Jackson affair (1861). Earliest examples. Peter H. Clark is generally recognised as the first African-American socialist. Some of his family were part of a "phalanx", a kind of commune founded by followers of Charles Fourier. He also met Thomas and Maria Varney, founders of "The Herald of Truth", and Clark was employed to work as stereotypist on this paper and a sister journal, the "Cincinnati Herald" which was a voice for the local free soil movement. The rise of African American socialism. Explicit involvement of African Americans in socialism proceeded the  Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, as African American transitioned from the colloquial standards of enslavement to being paid laborers. African American workers experienced unfair wages and unsafe working conditions, as their class status conflated with their social status as African Americans. Socialism was adopted by African Americans as socio-political-economic platform based in equality that would provide laborers with equal opportunity and pay. Peter H. Clark is most often referred to as the first African American socialist. Clark was a well-established educator and associated with a number of political parties. In 1877 he joined the  Workingmen's Party, a socialist party that would precursor the Socialist Labor Party of America. Clark vocally supported the efforts of underrepresented African American strikers in Louisville, Kentucky during the violent Great Railroad Strike of 1877. As an established representative of the Workingmen's Party, Clark traveled from his hometown Cincinnati to Louisville in advocacy of the strikes and urged African Americans to support the socialist party to further the progression of their goals for fair wages and capitalist control of government. Local chapters of the Workingmen's Party in Louisville, refused to advocate on behalf of African American laborers ; many were exempted from labor unions and fair wages in the aftermath of the strikes. Following the Great Migration of African American's fleeing the South, and the events of World War 1 (WW1); the Harlem Renaissance acted as a catalyst for many of the radical African American socio-political movements of the early 20th century. During the 1910s the predominantly African-American populated neighborhood of Harlem, Manhattan, was home to many emerging African American activists, intellectuals, and artists that cultivated a community centered around the progression of peoples of African descent. Harlem became home to both African Americans and  immigrant Afro-Caribbean and African peoples. A. Phillip Randolph and Chandler Owens are two of the most well-known socialists of the Renaissance. Most notably they began the "Messenger," a radical literary magazine in 1917, which frequently featured articles advocating for African American support for socialism. The church and socialism. The church has emerged as a location for community organization and radicalization throughout African American history. Harlem based Reverend E. Ethelred Brown and the Los Angeles based preacher George Washington Woodbey used their churches as a stage to educate African Americans on Socialist ideology. The Unitarian Reverend Brown arrived in  Harlem from Jamaica in 1920 where he was introduced to a number of intellectual and political radicals of the time including Claude McKay and Frank Crosswaith, and indoctrinated into socialist ideology. By 1928 Brown was the Reverend of his own church, the Hubert Harrison Memorial Church, where he preached on behalf of he gave religious sermons and sermons advocating for socialism. Rev. Brown believed that socialism was a logical socio-political ideology to represent his religious philosophy, and the ideals of socialism shared the same interests of African American and Afro-Caribbean peoples to attain economic and labor equality. Rev.  Brown was hired by the Socialist Party of America as a speaker and the Christian socialist publication "World of Tomorrow as" the office secretary. George Washington Woodbey was a Californian minister and representative delegate of the Socialist Party of America from 1904 to 1908. He believed that socialism was morally aligned with Christianity and that the problems faced by African Americans would be solved as the issues of class were solved. Unlike his predecessor Peter H. Clark, and many of those who would follow him as African Americans in socialism, he did not believe in race first ideology, rather he  believed in that class should be the primary concern of socialist and issues of race will be secondarily solved in the process of class equality. African-Americans and the American Socialist Party. During 1920s and 30s many African-American backers of predominantly white socialist parties such as the American Socialist Party felt disgruntled by the lack of consideration and respect from white counterparts within the organizations and abandoned Socialist ideology for Communism or Anarchism. Many African Americans engaging in socialist discourse during this period maintained both class-analysis and racial awareness. Due to their unique circumstances of racial segregation and  racial violence a socialist African American could not disconnect race from class issues. Hubert Harrison was hired by the American Socialist Party after criticizing its lack of African American advocacy and delegates in 1911; in 1914 he left the party due to its lack of support for peoples of color and transitioned to support the International Workers of the World. He continued to advocate as a socialist but centered his efforts around African American advocacy. W.E.B. DuBois was a practicing socialist before his brief membership with the Socialists Party of America from 1911 to 1912, he left the party in  support Woodrow Wilson over the party candidate Eugene V. Debs. After his egress from the party he continually criticized it for its lack of follow-through on claims of racial inequality, as many of its labor unions remained segregated. A number of African-Americans involved with the Socialist Party transitioned from support to of socialism, to communism, or rejected socialism as a whole due to many of its white proprietors "class first" rhetoric. Harlem radicals such as Richard B. Moore, left the party to support the more revolutionary and race-focused ideologies of communist parties. Cyril Briggs another early 1900s  Harlem radical, rejected joining in socialist parties, rather he asserted that African Americans and Afro-Caribbean's should adopt communist militancy to ensure they would not be ignored by the reformist principals of white upper-class led socialists organizations Not all African Americans left the Socialist Party of America after involvement, despite its "class first" rhetoric. 1922 Frank Crosswaith backed by the Party ran for Congressman of New York. Crosswaith was a student of the Rand School of Social Science, a school opened by the Socialist Party of America. Crosswaith was an adamant backer of the Party, and idealized its  class reformist ideologies as being ideal for African American socio-economic progression Harlem activist, unionist, and politician A. Phillip Randolph joined the Party in 1916, the party would go on to financially support his radicalized magazine "The Messenger," and would back him on a number of political ventures including running for comptroller and secretary of state in New York. They would each remain active members of the Party late into their lives, as they went on to lead and participate in various labor and union organizations. African American socialism: role during the Great Depression. The Great Depression of the 1930s  began after the stock market crash in 1929. However, it hit the Black population much harder than Whites. Black people were forced out of their already unskilled jobs. This caused them to face an unemployment rate of more that 50 percent, compared to their counterparts of about 30 percent. Black workers were already being paid 30 percent below the white workers. Black people gained no relief of their trials from the Roosevelt administration because the National Recovery Act (NRA) was later referred to, by African-Americans, as the Negro Removal Act. NRA public works rarely hired Blacks during this time , even though the stated goal was to not discriminate while hiring. Although the American Federation of Labor president, William Green, did acknowledge civil rights and asserted to oppose Jim Crow locations, there was nothing enforcing the affiliated unions to follow these allegations. Because many Black laborers were without support, they formed unions of their own, like the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Because these men sought their own support, they were often lynched in both the North and the South. This situation was turned around in 1934 during a strike wave. Labor strikes spread all over the country from Toledo  to Minneapolis to San Francisco. These events consisted of an organization among the unskilled and mass production workers, whom all were not Black. As expected during this time, racism was the center of the industrial unionism. This is a labor union organizing method in which all workers of the same industry are organized into the same union. For instance, workers in the plant industry were placed into the same labor union, nationwide, regardless of an individual's particular job. Blacks, in the most dangerous, dirty and low-paid jobs, were in the same union as better-paid Whites. Because of  these racial injustices, African-Americans remained in the lowest ends of poverty, without legal support, throughout the years of the Great Depression.