THIS~ u m p h e t prepared

, lcnder the direction of the Labor

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I N THIS SERIES OP PAMPHLETS

MWERN FARMIN-SOVIET s . 10t

WAR IN THE FAREAST, by ~ e n r y Hdl . . ., . . I &
CHEMICAL WARPARE, by Donnid Cameron . .. . r d .
WORK OR WAGES, by Grace Burnham . . .,w td . .
,THESTRUGGLE OF THE MARINE WORKERS, by N. Sfiarks . . 14
SPEEDING UP THE WORKERS, by J a m s Barnett . .
IO/ . .
YANKEE COZONIES, by - Hawy Gannef . . . . . I& . .
THE PRAME-UP SYSTEM, by Vern Smith . . . . I& . .
STEVE ~ m ,
by Josefih North and A. B. Mag3 . IO/ . .
THE HERITAGE OF GENE DEBS, by Abxander Trachtenberg I& .
SOCIAL INSURANCE, by Grace Bumham . . . . . . . 14
THE PARIS COMMUNE-A STORY IN PICTURES, by W m . Siege2 I&
YOUTH IN INDUSTRY, b y Grace Hutchins . . . . . #Yl
nhh:
THE HISTORY OF MAY DAY, by Alexander Trachtenberg to#
TKE CHURCH AND THE WORKERS, by Bennett Stevens rot
PROFTTS AND WAGES, by Anna Rochester . . . 14
SPYING ON WORKERS, by Robert W . Dunn ";u"aF6' . 104
THE AMERICAN NEGRO, by J. S. Allen . . ;*+ . . . I&.
WAR IN CHINA, by Ray Stewart . . . . . . . I& . .
SOVIET C ~ A by, M. James and R. Doonfling .
. . . 104
THE YELLOW DOG CONTRACT, by Elliot E. Cohen . . S& . .
TEE JUNCTION MENACE, by Charlotte Todes . . 54 . .
THE AMERICAN FARMER, by George Anstrom . . . I& .
THE END OF THE FORD MYTH, by Robert L. Cruden .
LYNCHING, by Harry Haywood and Milton Howard
CAN YOU HEAR THEIR VOICES?~ er Chambers

I n Preparation
WO- WHO WORK, by Grace Hutchin,
JIM-CROWZHG THE W R O , b y B. D. A d d LOU& Berg
W-D-A~N FOR NEGROES, by J. S. Alleto
I&UGERWS JOBS, b y Grace Burnhorn
@A&Z STREET, by Anna Rochester

Printed in the USA. (1932)

COMPOSED AND D
P
- BY UNION LABOR
 BY HARRYHAYWOOD
AND MILTONHOWARD

More than 500 persons stood by and looked on .while the Negro
was slowly burned to a crisp. A few women were scattered among
the crowd of Arkansas planters. ... .
Not once did the slayer beg for mercy despite the fact that he
suffered one of the most horrible deaths imaginable. With the Negro
chained to a log, members of the mob placed a small pile of leaves
around his feet. Gasoline was then poured on the leaves and the calry-
ing out of the death sentence was under way. .. .
As the flames were eating away his abdomen, a member of the mob
stepped forward and saturated the body with gasoline. It was then only
a few minutes until the Negro had been reduced to ashes. ... .
-Memphis Press, Jan. 27, 1921.
THISis how an eye witness described the lynching of Henry
Lowry-
Who was Lowry? What was his crime? Henry Lowry was a *,

Negro share-cropper in Nodena, Arkansas. For two years he had

,Y 8
been toiling steadily under the scorching sun. Yet for two years he
I . had not received one cent of his rightful wages. The landlord bad
5; . a'
advanced him less and less food for his family. Already they were k;.
close to starvation.
He w h t to the landlord's house and demanded wages. The
landlord at first looked at him queerly, a if he did not understand . -
;v,
,:I . what he had heard. B& when he understood that one of "hisv 4.
share-croppers, was actually asking for his wages, .he rose in
'
insane fury, cursing and beating Lowry with his gun. Then he
. leveled his revolver at Lowry's head, and fired,. wounding *him.
Enraged at this dog-like t,'lowy began to figkt b d**: . -.In
. ,> $; > r..

the fight the landlord was Eyed.- . ', ,

I . .- -.A b.

29
+,
,*
I-

,$*
.,&
;$, ,,7$g
 soon as this became Lown, the white landlords for miles '

became obsessed with one idea-to torture and lynch this

share-cropper, to murder him, so that not another Negro
on the plantation, not one of their own starving tenants
d d dare to protest, & Lowry had done, against the brutal ex-
ploitation of the landlords.
To refuse to starve, to refuse to be robbed. These were the
terrible "crimes" for which Lowry,. Negro farm worker, was
burned at the stake-lynched by the landlords and their hench- I

men. This is how the white ruling class attempts to subdue any
opposition to its merciless exploitation of the Negro people.

The Ruling Class Takes Its Toil

In their efforts to subdue the Negro workers and peasants, the
ruling class has taken a terrible toll. Since 1882, the first year
in which any attempt was made to gather statistics on lynching,
over 4,000 Negroes have been either hanged, burned, or both. Of
these over 75 were women; some of the victims were young girls
less than 15 years of age.
Here are only a few recent cases:
George Johnson, in May, 1930, accused his landlord of falsify-
iqg debt accounts. Struggling in self-defense he killed the land.
lord. He was lynched, and his body was dragged through the
Negro quarter and b b e d in front of a Negro church.
John ~arker;unemployed and starving Negro worker of Con-.
way, Arkansas, was accused of stealing some peaches. He was
lynched by plantation owners, August, 193I.
Bill ~ a n was
e a Negro worker who refused to toil without pay.
He was lynched by a mob of merchants and planters in Septem-
ber, 1931.
Will Jones and his family of-!fivewere shot down in cold blood
by a landlord and his henchmen in October, '193 I. The landlord
said 'that in a dispute over wages, "Jones talked back."
Dave Tillis of Crockett, T e x m m d e d an.accounting from
his landlord. He was seized &d charged>th "entering the bed-
 room of a white woman." He .was lynched by bis landlord .- a- m
four neighboring landowners, April, I 932.
Every one :of these Negro workers was murdered as a direct
result of the class struggle as expressed in his demand for wages
or better conditions fiom the white landlords who exploit tke
Negro masses with evea greater &tmsity than they rob b k white
wrkers. Other lynchings result from the refusal of a militant
Negro woiker or peasant to submit to every kind of social abuse
and persecution. The lynchers themselves have admitted as some
of the reasons for lynching, the following: trying to vote, accusing
a white man of stealing, t&tifhg against white men, being too
successful, talking back to a white man.
'
Such "leaders" of the Negro pkople as Walter White, secretary
of the National Association for .the Advancement of Colored
(NAA.CP.), and 'such "friends" of the Negro people as
er class aNeducated" (as. W. E. B. DuBois calls them)
tes in the'Interracial Commission have ascribed the savagery
brutality of lynching to the drabness of Southern life, tp the '

amusement and entertainment by "poor whites who

J ,-' 'have no radios and do not go to movies." This is but a dastardly
I-

': -evasionof the real cause of lynchin): and the desertion of the fight
.'

ii
t:, ,:against lynching. It is the tritditional.pdlicyof these "race l6adersy'
9h)i:andtheir white friends to preserve the present system of capital-
i ah

ism, with its segregation and lynching, by making the Negro

iRorkers and poor farmers believe that white workers are thek.
enemies, and the "edu~ated"white men (the bosses) their friends. . ,

Brutality and savagery.mark all lynchings. Young and old,

male &d female, have ,been tortured by fire; a pregnant colored
.
woman was hanged by the a-s and. her unborn child ripped
from her abdomen. This rulhg class savagery has a purpose: to
strike terror into the hearts of the oppressed Negro people sb
that they dare not strike out for liberation.
I

What i s the Real Cause and Purpose of Lynching?

Every lynching, every degradation, every social persecution and
proscription, every Jim Crmy humiliation, which the Negro masses
4

5
 J.
suffer in this country is the result of the fact that the Negro
millions are in the position of an oppressed nationality. They are
subjected to a more intense, a fiercer exploitation on the land
and in the factories. While the white workers are miserably ex-
ploited by the capitalist robbers, the Negro workers are especially
exploited and persecuted. They are super-exploited. They are
given the dirtiest jobs, the longest hours, and the least pay. They
are the last to be hired and the first to be fired. They must work
under the foulest conditions. I t is an absolutely undeniable fact
that today, nearly 70 years after they were supposed to be "freed,"
the Negro masses are in slavery, prodking.super-profits for their
cap4tdist landlords and bosses.
Concentrated on the land in the Black Belt,* more than three-
quarters of the nine and a half million Negroes in the South live
in indescribable poverty, crushed by debts and starvation. Every
year, after the "settlement" with the landlord, hundreds of thou-
sands of Negro croppers, penniless and owning no land, find that
they are toiling hopelessly in peonage, chained to the landlord
by debts which no toil cah .wipe out.
The o&way that the capitalist class can preserve this extra
exploitation of the Negro masses is to keep them an isolated, de-
graded group, subject to special persecution. For this they have
created a hideous system of social persecution and Jim Crow
segregation against the Negro masses, forcing them to live in
squalid Jim Crow ghettoes. They teach the white workers and -
their children that whites are "superior" to Negroes. This is the
typical method used by a powerful capitalist country to drive a
wedge between "its own" workers and the workers of the
oppressed natiun. This serves a double purpose. I t cripples the
resistance of the oppressed nationality by isolating it. And it
blinds the "superior" workers to the fact that they are being
robbed by h e same capitalists as the "inferior" workers.
Here we come to the true origin and purpose of lynching. It is
with the aid of such methods as lynching, terrorism &nd violence
that this whole system of national oppression, super-exploitation
and 6ocia,l persecution can be enforced. And the greatest victory
* See Tke America1 Negro, by S. Allen, International Pamphlets, No. 18.
6
 d
.
for the capitalist rulers is to get white workers to be the agents
of their campaign of terrorism. Lynchings defend profits! Lynch-
ings are a warning to the Negro toilers. Lynching is one of the
weapons with which the white ruling class enforces its n a t i o d
oppression of the Negro people, and tries to maintain division
between the white workers and the Negro toilers.
b

The "Rape" Lie

TQincite the white workers against the Negroes and to further
build the myth of "white superiority," the white ruling class has
coined the poisonous and insane lie that Negroes are "rapists."
*Today, American imperialism is using this same "rape" lie
against the masses of Hawaii as it proceeds to place this impor-
tant naval base under iron rule in preparation for war against the
Chinese people and the Soviet Union. In defending the white
lynchers of Hawaii, Clarence Darrow, of the Board of Directors
of the NA.A.C.P., aided in this war preparation and in spreading
the "rape'qie.
It is only necessary to remember a few facts to see the utter
falsity of this ruling class slander.
The first fact is that of the 2,522 Negroes lynched during the
period 1889-1918, only rg%, or one in five victims, were even
charged with rape. When we remember that this charge is in-
voked whenever possible as the traditional excuse for every kind
of murder, the fact that the lynchers themselves could only charge
19% of their victims with "rape" reveals how base is the lynchers'
lie that they murder Negro workers to "protect white woman-
hood." As in the above-mestioned case of Dave Tillis, who was
lynched for demanding an accounting from his landlord, the cry
of "rape" is raised whepever any Negro worker begins to'rise from
his knees. We may be certain that of the Negro workers lynched
for "rape," practically none, if any, were guilty of a crime com-
mitted innmerable times by whites against Negro women, and
punished, #'ever at all, by a few months in jail.
The second fact even more incisively than the first, tears the
"rape" lie to pieces. Whenever the reader hears the cry of "rape"
7
 to justify the lynching of a Negro worker, let him but-call to mind
this profoundly illuminating historical fact: that Negroes have
been in this country for three hundred years; that during the
first 2 0 0 years not one was ever accused of "rape," though hun-
dreds of thousands of Negro workers lived in the closest proximity
to the whites. For 2 0 0 years, for eight generations, not the slight-
est hint about the Negroes as "rapists." The first time we hear this
lie is about the year 1830, two hundred years after the Negroes
were first unloaded from the slave ships in Virginia. W h y did itr
appear at this time? Because this year marks the beginning of the
abolition movement ifi the North, and the sharpening stmggle of
the skrves themselves for freedom. For 2 0 0 years the Negro work-
ers were not "rapists." But as soon as their position as valuable
slaves was endangered, then they suddenly became "rapists."
In the last 50 years, 76 Negro women were lynched, some with
bestial cruelty. Were they, too, "rapists"?
The Southern landlords and their henchmen consider all Negro
women as legitimate prey. Many Negroes have died for objecting
to the rape of Negro girls and women by whites. Mrs. Wise was
lynched at Frankfort, Virginia, May, 1931, for objecting to her
daughter's being taken out for "rides" by white Klansmen. Clyde
Payne was murdered in Florida, September, 1931, by the em-
ployer of his wife, when lie tried to protect her from attack. In
Georgia, an aged Negro was lynched for trying to prevent the rape
of two colored girls by two white men.
Many whites take advantage of the capitalist "rape" lie to
, protect themselves. In New Jersey, in 192 7, a man was killed
while riding in an automobile with his wife. She told the police
that two Negroes had murdered him as he tried to protect her
from rape. Under cross examination it was brought out that she
and her lover had committed the crime. In Philadelphia, in 1930,
a 17-year-old girl stayed out all night with her companions. Next
morning she reported she had been abducted and assaulted by two
.Negroes. Pressed by questioners, she confessed that she had in-
vented this story to deceive her mother: In Norfolk, Virginia,
November, 1930, a white woman, struggling with a "black" assail-
ant, tore open his shirt and discovered that he was a white man
8'
who had blackened his face h d hands. There are scores of such
ucork-face" crimes. No one can tell how many iibocent Negroes 9

have been burned and hanged as a result of such frame-ups. '

Who Organizes LyncIrings?

The impression is purposely created by ruling class propaganda,
and nurtured by "race leaders" of the N.A.A.C.P. and Kelly Miller
type, that lynchings are the deeds of "irresponsible mobs" or the.
"lawless elements." Nothing could be further from the, truth. An
examination of the facts of many hundreds of lynchings shows
what every lyncher knows full well-that every lynching is a
carefully organized and thoroughly planned murder, done with
the full cooperation of every ruling class agency, the police, the
sheriffs, the militia, the newspapers, the entire government appa-
ratus. Without the active leadership of the "best elements," that
is, the rich and powerful landlords and bosses, without the tadt or
active participation of the government and its officers, lynchings
could never take place.
Here are only a few facts taken from literally thousands of
similar cases. When George Hughes yas horribly roasted alive in
his prison cell, in 1930,at Sherman, Texas, the Governor forbade
the sheriff to fire on the lynch gang, thus guaranteeing that the
lynching would take place.
When John Hatfield, Negro worker, was seized by a lynch
. gang at Ellisville, Mississippi, the biggest newspaper in the
state, the Jackson Daily News, carried headlines announcing
the exact time and place of the coming orgy. Ten thousand
people answered the paper's invitation and they were addressed
by the District Attormy, T . W . Wilson, wi4ile the lynching was
going on.
At Marion, Indiana, in August 1930,a lynch gang announced
its intention of lynching two Negro boys who were locked up in
the jail. When the mob arrived there they found the jail and cell
doors wide open, the state prison authorities giving their fullest co-
operation to the lynchers.
When Matt Williams was seized in Salisbury, Maryland, De-
, 9$$,Ji
1-7 '4 ,
cember, 1931, from 'the nan-resisting hospital authorities, the
sheriff and district attorney suddenly left town. And while the
hideous torthe was going on in one of the most crowded sections
of the aty, the police were directing trafic so that the Zpking
would not be intem&edl

The State and Federal Governments as "Protectors"

But the state and federal government will be a much better
protection for the Negro workers, say the liberals and the Negro
bourgeois %ace leaders." Let us see.
When Raymond GUM was burned at Maryville, Missouri, in
1931, the National Guard was present during the entire lynchihg.
The .officer in charge reported that hissinstructions were to act
only upon request from the sheriff. Add since the sheriff refused
to request his services, he and his regiment watched the lynching
without lifting a finger.
In October, 1930, a National Guard unit was ordered to Darien,
Georgia, to prevent the lynching of George Grant. But the lynch
gang had no difficulty in seizing the Negro and lynching him. This
commander, Colonel Neal, made a report in which he said that
the guard had done its duty. He had sent one soldie*, to guard
the prisoner. The Negro was seized by the gang which entered thi
amguarded r e u ~door. The sheriff said, "I don't kddw who killed
the nigger and I don't give a damn." Governor Hardman 'of
Georgia would not read the report of one of the state officials who
reported these facts. He was entirely satisfied with the course
of events.
The National Guard was sent to "protect" the Scottsboro boys,
April, 1931, so that they could be legally lynched "with due
process of law." These troops gave all the boys merciless beatings
while they were "guarding" them.
When militant workers attempt to struggle against wage cuts,
speed-up and starvation, the whole police and army apparatus .
is mobilized against them. But one rarely hears of any govern-
ment action againit lynchers. Grand juries, coronerspjuries, and
 governors suddenly become strangely inactive. Hundreds of times ,
grand juries have refused to indict any lynchers .because the vic-
tim met death at the "hands of a .mob, the members of which are
unknown." The Governor of Mississippi accepted such a verdict
in the case of Jim Ivy. Yet the town newspaper, the News-
Scimitar, of Rocky Ford, Mississippi, carried photographs . in
which the faces of at least one hundred lynchers were clearly
visible.
Lynchings are not the "victory of the lawless over the law."
They take place not only with the complete cooperation, but in
hundreds of cases, with the active participation of the whole
legal and governmental machine, the sheriffs, the deputies, the
district attorneys, and so forth. And this is so because the ruling
class exploiters and the government are united in using lynching
as a weapon in the national oppression of the Negro masses.
I t is not only in the South that the Negroes are the most
oppressed sectionfof the working class. In the North, too, the
Negro worker lives in Jim Crow ghettoes, is forced into the worst
jobs, is paid frpm 2 0 to 65% less than the miserable wages of
white workers, even when he does the same work. In the North
s the Negroes are a minority of the population and suffer all the
exploitation and added oppression of a national minority. Here,
too, the bosses answer the demands of Negro workers with lynch-
ing-Matt Williams in Salisbury, Maryland; Tom Shiff and
Abe Smith in Marion, Indiana; Raymond Gunn Maryville,
Missouri.
Laurs Against L p h i n g
The' National Association for the Advancement of Colored .

People prides itself on the fact that it fights lynching by collect-

ing signatures for-the Dyer Anti-Lynching Law. We are told by
both our ~ e g andb white c'friends" that lynching can be abol-
ished by simply passing laws.
Anti-lynching laws have been passed in a number.of states.
Virginia has a law for the "dispersal of mobs." The only time it
was used was to break up a picket line of textile strikers at
DasiviIle. Georgia passed an anti-lynching law in 1893. It provides
for *oneto 2 0 years imprisonment for any one guilty of "mobbing
or lynching a citizen w i t h u t . due process of law." This law
actually provides legal protection for lynchers. No one has ever
been convicted urrder this lanu, although Georgia has had at leart
600 Zychings sime the law was passed.
North Carolina has a law providing for fines against lynchers
'
who break into jails. After the law was passed lynch gangs simply
seized their victims before they could be imprisoned, and thus
evaded the -"law."
Some states, like West Virginia, Kentucky, Texas, Tennessee,
Ohio, and Nebraska have laws which provide for the payment of
damages to relatives. But since, in all these states, the grand
juries and the courts refuse to act, the laws are dead letters. State
anti-lynching laws have not prevented lynching. More than 1,000
l'hings have taken place in these states sime the laws were
passed.
By dangling the illusion that lynching can be stopped by such
Iaws-even a federal one-the N.A.A.C.P. tries to divert the .

Negro workers from an energetic struggle against lynching. It

asks them to rest their faith in those very state officials and in
the very ruling class which organizes, perpetuates and defends
lynch law.

What can be expected from the courts and the state is shown
only too clearly by the n u w r of lynchings that have taken place
under the cover of "due process of law." As in every phase of life,
so in the system of justice, too, the Negro does not even get the
chance that the white worker gets, a s little as that may be. On the
basis of the "rape" lie seven of the nine Scottsboro boys now
(July, 1932) await execution in the electric chair. Only the
worldwide mass protest of the international working class has
saved them from the electric chair lynching and forced the Supreme
Court 'of the United States to agree to review their case.
Two unemployed Negro workers, Robert Strickland and
312
Percy Irvin, are electrocuted in Alabama for stealing 50 cents.
In the North, too, the "rape" lie is used in an effort to bring
about the legal lynching of 17-ykar-old Willie Brown of Phila-
delphia, Pennsylvania.
What is behind all this legal lynching? The answer has been
given by Governor Ross Sterling of Texas. In January of 1g32,
Barney Lee Ross, Negro boy, was executed after a trial which
took l&s than two hours. In denying stay of execution the Gover-
nor said, in words which no worker, Negro or white, should
ever forget:
It may be that this boy is innocent, but it is sometimes necessary
to burn down a house in order to save a village.
This statement bazenly admits two things. First, that Negro
workers who "may be innocent" are being murdered not for any
crimes, but to "save a village." What is this "village" which the
Governor is trying to save? Obviously, it is the whole system
of robbery, starvation, Jim Crowism, and lynching-the capitalist
system.
The second thing which this southern ruler admits is that the
whole gov&rnment,including judges and governors, is a conscious
part of the terrorist campaign against the Negro masses, particu-
larly during the present general crisis.

The Fight Against Lynching

In the "race riots" after the last World-War-when Negro
soldiers returned from a jim-crowed army demanding those equal
rights promised them by President Wilson and W. E. B. DuBois-
the ruling cla& whipped up lynch law on a mass scale in the
North to keep the Negro "where he belonged." They were race
riots, and not mass lynchings, only because .the Negroes defended
themselves and fought back.
Today, in the midst of a crisis which spreads starvation and
mass suffering among all workers, and when a new world war is
being prepared, the unity of black and white workers grows rap-
=3
 idly. It is this unity of black and white workers, struggling against
their common enemy-the white bosses and their "Uncle Toms"
-which will in the end sweep away all Jim Crow lines and de-
stroy the system of class and national oppression. The militant
fight for Negro rights, participated in by growing sections of the
white workers, is giving the lie to the slander of the "race leaders'"
that the white workers are the enemies of the Negroes.
Already on one-sixth of the world, in the Soviet Union, the
workers and peasants have established their own government.
They have liberated all the oppressed nationalities which groaned
under the capitalist lash of the tsars. Today in the Soviet Union
132'peoples which formerly were taught to hate or mistrust one
another are now cooperating in full social' and political equality
in the building of a socialist society. The workers there have
destroyed the capitalist lie of "race hatred" and "race inferiority."
Any worker who shows any trace of this capitalist poison is ex-
peU@ from the factories, as two American engineers only recently
learned. *TheSoviet workers have shown the American workers, '
Negro and white, a glorious example and the true road.
And because the Soviet Union points the road to the wiping
away of all oppr.ession a d "racen lies, the whole ruling class is
today preparing a gigantic war against it. When the Negro sol-
diers returned from the last war, they returned to the same old
persecution and Jim Crow insult. Some Negro soldiers were
lynched in their uniforms. Today the ruling class is trying to
make-the Negroes "safe" for the next war. American imperialism
does not want a dangerous "back door," such as Ireland was for
the British Empire in the last war. Only the organized efforts of
the working class in fighting unity-Negro and whit-an de-
fend the Soviet Union and struggle against imperialist war. Only
this unity can destroy lynching and the system which causes it.
The white workers, led to a proper understanding by the Com-
munist Party, are beginning to realize that any attack upon the
Negroes, any denial of rights to them, is also an attack upon the
white workers, also a denial of the rights of the white workers.
Militant white workers are actually taking the lead in fighting
for Negro rights arid against lynching.
I4
 As is shown iti the Scottsboro case and in other similar struggIes
the revolutionary white workers are the first to demand the right
of Negro workers to sit on juries, the wiping away of all Jim Crow .
and segregation lines. James W. Ford, a Negro worker born in
Alabama, whose was the victim of a lynch mob, is the
Communist Party candidate for United States vice-president in
the 1932 elections, showing, as on numerous other occasions, that
the Party's fight for full economic, social and political equality
for the Negro people is one of its most important struggles.
.
Revolutionary white and Negro workers demand the death pen-
aZty fw lynchers. They organize white'and Negro workers together
in the struggle against lynching and for Negro rights. They call
for defense groups of white and Negro workers to beat off lynch
mobs and combat such terrorist organizations as the KIu Klux
Klan,' the Night Riders, etc. Southern white workers, under the.
leadership of the International Labor Defense, were among the
most active in building the defense of the Scottsboro boys.
At ~ridgebort,Ohio, June 13, I&, white and Negro work-
ers saved Alex Dorsey, a Negro organizer of the National Miners7
Union, from lynching a t the hands of a mob led by the organizer'
of the United Mine Workers, the officials of which, like.those of
the Anierican Federation of Labor, are supporters of lynch law.
While fighting for equal rights for the Negro in all parts of the
country, the Communist Party strikes at the very basis of the
'oppression of the Negro people by demanding and fighting for the
right of self-determination in the Black Belt of the South, where
the Negroes form the majority of the population. This is the right
of the Negro people in the Black Belt to exercise governmental
authority over this land on which they have toiled for years, and
the right to separate from the United States government if they
so desire. Then, and then only, will the Negro people have
achieved equal rights with all the other peoples of the earth,
wiping out, through the militant alliance with the white workers,
the abominable national oppression which is part and parcel of the
capitalist system.