Communism and Minorities in the U.S.

[Smaland]

"Some of those arrested in the 1922 Bridgman raid.
Back row, L-R: T.J. O'Flaherty, Charles Erickson, Cyril Lambkin, Bill Dunne, John Mihelic, Alex Bail, W.E. 'Bud' Reynolds, 'Francis Ashworth.' Seated L-R: Norman Tallentire, Caleb Harrison, Eugene Bechtold, Seth Nordling, C. E. Ruthenberg, Charles Krumbein, Max Lerner, T.R. Sullivan, Elmer McMillan. (The photo and its caption are from the Wiki article entitled " 1922 Bridgman Convention ".)"

According to the Wiki article, a gathering of the Communist Party of America (CPA) was scheduled to be held from August 17-23, 1922. The convention was to be held at the Wolfskeel Resort near the coastal town of Bridgman, Michigan.

One purpose of the convention was to close a split that had occurred within the CPA's Central Executive Committee (CEC).

In addition, Communist leader Jay " Lovestone also presented 'a brief statement of the progress and aims of the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB)' ... The entire program (of the ABB) is intended to incite the Negroes to attain by violence the ends specified. (1) "

However, law enforcement authorities were tipped off, and the convention was raided on August 22.


“ Berrien County Sheriff George Bridgman, leader of the August 22nd raid. (The photo and its caption are from the Wiki article) “

The source for the following quote is in (2) below:

" BY UNITED PRESS
LEASED WIRE TO TRIBUNE.
BRIDGEMAN, Mich., Aug. 23.--
Three prominent women radicals, including Mrs. Rose Pastor Stokes and Ella Reeves Boer, accompanied William Z. Foster, radical; Boris Reinstein and Arnold Lovoski on their flight from here yesterday, prior to the raid on a Communist party convention which netted seventeen radicals, federal authorities declared today. The third woman is unknown.

Evidence to convict hundreds of Communists throughout the United States is in the hands of authorities, it was said.

Federal agents combed hundreds of papers seized in the raids yesterday belonging to the Communist party. The papers were discovered buried in on of the hollows surrounding the Wolfskeel resort, where the convention was being held.

Lists of all communists in the country and evidence to convict every one on the list is in the hands of authorities, it was declared.

(1) Whitney, R.M. Reds in America. Belmont, Massachusetts: Western Islands, 1970, p. 31.

(2) Newspaper story entitled " 'Red' Women Fugitives with Foster ", Oakland Tribune, edition of August 23, 1922, pp. 1 and 3.

[Smaland]

In the film documentary No Place to Hide (video section 27:08-28:03), G. Edward Griffin states that

Robert F. Williams was one of the original advocates of revolutionary violence on behalf of black Americans. Wanted by the FBI in 1961 on a kidnapping charge, he fled to Cuba and began publishing a series of propaganda tracts called The Crusader, which were smuggled into the United States through Canada. The Crusader declared that black Americans constituted an oppressed colony within the United States, a nation within a nation ... (Williams) called for a violent revolutionary war of national liberation to free that colony from the oppressive yoke of racism and capitalist exploitation.

He also had a radio program beamed into the Southern United States by the powerful transmitters of Radio Havana. And in these broadcasts, he called for armed insurrection against whitey and against Yankee imperialism.

[Footage of Williams, doing a broadcast:] Prepare the razor, the switchblade, the bullet, the gas bomb and the match. Put the torch to the racist strongholds of the city.

Williams also traveled to Red China, and became the honored guest of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. In 1969, he returned to the United States. At this time, the original kidnapping charges were dropped, and he was given a teaching fellowship at the University of Michigan under a grant from the Ford Foundation.

[Smaland]

From the Wiki article about him, this is a photo of József Pogány (1886-1938). He was also known as Joseph Pogany or Joseph Pogány, was born József Schwartz, and he wrote under the nom de guerre of John Pepper. He also went under the aliases of Berger, Joseph Lang, and John Rogers.

According to the film Revolution Underway (1968), Pogány was Stalin's emissary, and he "... gave these instructions to Negro communists: 'The communist Party recognizes the tremendous revolutionary possibilities of the Negro people. ... The Negro Communist should emphasize the establishment (in America) of a Negro Soviet Republic.' " The film itself has been posted in the The Anti-communist Resource Thread, and it lasts for about 36 minutes.


In 1957 testimony before a Louisiana legislative committee, former Communist Joseph Z. Kornfeder said that

... Stalin directed that an attempt be made to gain support from Southern Negroes by organization of a Negro republic. He said the idea came straight from Stalin.
...
(Kornfeder) said the Communists planned to attempt to instill in Southern Negroes the idea of Negro nationalism, and testified this would serve their purposes by splitting the whites and the Negroes and would also tend to draw the allegiance of the Negro from the U.S. to ... Negro (nationalism).

'We would have created a black republic', he said, 'which would have actually been a Communistic government.'

[Smaland]

Image from marxistleninist.files.wordpress.com.


From the documentary film Anarchy U.S.A. (video section 35:05 - 36:07):

In 1934, the Communist writers James W. Ford and James S. Allen further defined the Soviet Negro Republic.

[A second narrator now begins to quote from the book The Negroes in a Soviet America, authored by Ford and Allen:]

The actual extent of this new republic would in all probability be approximately the present area in which the Negroes constitute the majority of the population. In other words, it would be approximately the present plantation area.

It would be certain to include such cities as

Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia;
Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina;
Atlanta, Augusta, Savannah and Macon, Georgia;
Montgomery, Alabama;
New Orleans and Shreveport, Louisiana;
Little Rock, Arkansas and
Memphis, Tennessee.

[end of reading by second narrator]

These cities and the cities which lie within their spheres of influence became known in Communist writings as the Black Belt of the South and were to constitute the nucleus of a future Soviet Republic.

[Smaland]

Photo of Imari Obadele (seated), born Richard Henry (1930-2010); the photo is from moguldom.com.

The Wiki article about Obadele states that "After the murder of Malcolm X, (Obadele and his brother) helped form the Malcolm X Society and, dissatisfied by the progress achieved by nonviolent approaches to (the) civil rights movement, came to embrace black separatism."


According to the film documentary Revolution Underway (video section 27:01-28:28),

Esquire magazine, in its March 1968 issue, carried (an article with the title "The Second Civil War", ) further warning of the true nature of the mobilizing black power revolution ...

(Pictured in the film) is one of the revolutionaries identified in the Esquire article: Imari (Obadele), ... a black power advocate who argues that the doctrine of "One more chance, honky" is outdated.

His revolutionary plans include a mass black migration to enclaves in the South where, with protection of Red Chinese submarines in the Gulf of Mexico, the fighting could begin in earnest.

Doubters should be aware that (Obadele), a Detroit ghetto leader, admits there was advance planning in the Motown (Detroit) riot (of 1967). Genocide, he believes, is just around the corner.

(The Malcolm X Society, ) headquartered in Detroit, ... spearheads a movement to demand that five states in the South; Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina be given over in their entirety to the black power forces.

A separate government for Negroes would be set up. All whites would be evicted. This is the first step development for which Communism has agitated since Stalin sent his personal envoy József Pogány ... to begin recruiting Negroes into the Communist apparatus.

[Smaland]

Photo of Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty (1909-1998); this image was originally published by the Los Angeles Times.

In the video documentary Revolution Underway (1968) (video section 21:03-22:05), Mayor Yorty is quoted regarding the 1967 riots:

Video Narrator: ... Mayor Sam Yorty was questioned on Meet the Press (a news analysis media program, abbreviated here as MTP):

MTP Interviewer: ... the President's report here ... says that it found no evidence of a conspiracy behind the riots of this last year. When you testified in Congress, I believe, you said that you thought there (was) evidence of (a) conspiracy of Communist groups infiltrating, and so forth ...

Yorty: I didn't say 'I thought', I know there are. I think every mayor of a big city has intelligence services ... we know that there are protest-type demonstrations, sometimes coordinated all over the world on the same day, and their intentions are to try and cause riots. Many organizations are openly in the field and Communist-backed; they're trying to take advantage of the situation that exists, to worsen it rather than try to solve it.

MTP Interviewer: what (is the name) of one of those, Mr. Yorty?

Yorty: Well, R.A.M., (the) Revolutionary Action Movement ... there's no question about some of their connections, and they certainly don't disguise what their intentions are ... we are very concerned about the type of armament that they may have now.

One of R.A.M.'s co-founders was Communist revolutionary Robert F. Williams (1925-1996).

[Smaland]

Dr. Joseph H. Jackson (1900-1990), head of the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. The photo is from blackpast.org.

The Kerner Commission, whose report is referenced below, was established in 1967 by President Johnson to investigate the cause(s) of the 1967 race riots in the U.S.

Source of quote below:

Video documentary Revolution Underway (1968), video section 19:36 - 20:13

Transcript of Narration:

Dr. J.H. Jackson, head of the largest Negro church organization in America, the National Baptist Convention U.S.A., with nearly 7 million members, has warned constantly that Communists are directing the revolutionary activities of the radical black power element in America. Here is his statement concerning the Presidential Commission's report [what follows is a quote by the narrator from an article in the Christian News, in which Jackson is quoted:] 'In spite of the statement from the Kerner report that they had found no conspiracy in studying the riots of 1967, I am convinced with others that there is a conspiracy, deep and dangerous, designed to demoralize the nation, to divide it, and if possible, to conquer it.'

[Smaland]

Photo of Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, born Hubert Geroid Brown in 1943, also known as H. Rap Brown. The photo is from usprisonculture.com. Convicted in 2002 of the murder of Georgia county sheriff's deputy Ricky Kinchen, Brown is currently serving a sentence of life without parole.

Agitation is important to a Communist revolution. When possible, agitators use what unfortunately may be the truth; otherwise, they use bold-faced lies when those will serve their purpose. In a manner of speaking, the objective of an agitator is to convert the emotions of a listening audience into an open can of gasoline. Periodic addresses that follow are meant to keep groups of people in this emotional state. Afterward, all it takes is a particular event to provoke a manipulated group into action; a match is lit, the group "catches fire", and it becomes a riot mob burning with rage. Below are quotes from a speech with which Brown was agitating an audience.

Source for the quotes below:	Film documentary Revolution Underway (1968)
Video section 5:22-6:02:	Film narrator: H. Rap Brown, national chairman of the revolutionary (Student) Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC, confirms the reality of revolution. Here he is speaking at the height of the 1967 race riots, in film footage not hitherto seen by the American public: H. Rap Brown: We stand on the eve of a black revolution, brothers. Masses of our people are in the streets. They're fighting tit for tat, tooth for tooth, (an) eye for eye, and a life for a life. The rebellions that we see are merely dress rehearsals for the revolution that's to come. We'd better get ourselves some guns and prepare ourselves.
Video section 14:20-14:41:	H. Rap Brown:You'd better define who your enemy is, and you'd better move to destroy your enemy, (because) if America (doesn't) come (around), America should be burnt down. [applause from crowd]

[Smaland]

Photo of Brown speaking to an audience, from theroot.com.

Source for the quote below:

Film documentary Revolution Underway (1968) , video section 23:46 - 24:27.

Transcript of the Narration:

Narrator: Rap Brown ... suggests that Negroes who work in the homes of White people could aid the revolution by poisoning their food: Paraphrase of filmed remarks by Brown: People say that we're not in the majority, and we can't win. They forget that black people are in some of the most strategic places in the country; we work in their kitchens. They think that they're having trouble with the Viet Cong. They aren't even eating from what he cooks. If you let war start over here, we will teach you about guerrilla warfare.

[Smaland]

According to the news article cited below, "Members of (RAM) also were named in an alleged plot (in 1965) to blow up the Statue of Liberty and other American monuments."

Source for the quotations below:

News story entitled "Riot, Poison Plot in Phila. Exposed", the Intelligencer Journal (Lancaster, Pennsylvania), September 28, 1967, pp 1 & 22.

Text quoted from the article:

PHILADELPHIA (AP)--One man was arrested and three others sought Wednesday on charges of plotting to start a race riot and then poison hundreds of Philadelphia policemen. The plot was concocted this past summer by members of the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), a Negro extremist group, said Dist. Atty. Arlen Specter. ... 'The scheme was to incite a riot, then put ... cyanide in food distributed free to police on riot duty as well as in restaurants throughout the city where 'policemen and citizens would be taking food and drink,' said Lt. George Fencl, (head of the Philadelphia Police) civil disobedience squad ...'