REMEMBERING THE HISTORIC ROLE OF COMMUNISTS IN THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY

For Decades Civil Rights Activists Have Been Called Communists; Why?

Ever since the beginning of the Communist movement in the United States, Communist activists have been central to the struggle for racial equality. For this reason, the civil rights movement itself was often accused of being a ”Communist front”, while Communists themselves were targeted by racists and hate groups.

It wasn't just “conservatives” that have smeared and slandered the Communist Party. Many liberal academics have also – in recent years - inaccurately attempted to dismiss the Communist movement as white-driven. But as history indicates, blacks and native Americans were perhaps the earliest driving-force for socialist change in Oklahoma, where non-white organizations, such as the United Socialist Club, were militantly involved in uniting races to fight exploitation by land-lords. Later, shortly after achieving statehood, the Socialist Party of Oklahoma drew massive amounts of support, and made racial inequality a central issue.

The first, American of African descent to run for executive office in the United States was Frederick Douglas, who was nominated by the Marxist -affiliated Equality Party. Later, during the 1930s, after the Socialist Party was dissolved in Oklahoma, the Communist Party carried the struggle for black equality further than any organization ever before. In 1932 and in subsequent campaigns, the members of the CPUSA nominated James W. Ford as their candidate for Vice President of the United States – one of the first black candidates for executive office. This is only one of countless examples of how the Communist Party has played its part in the struggle for civil rights.