Robeson, Davis, and Du Bois knew: To fight racism, fight capitalism

The principled stance taken by three of the greatest Black communist leaders of the 20th century — Paul Robeson, Benjamin Davis and William E. B. Du Bois, showed through their practice that to fight racism you have to fight the bosses. They understood that racism was created by capitalism to both divide and weaken the working class as well as to net the bosses hundreds of billions in super-profits from the lower pay forced on Black and Latin workers.

These three leaders of the working class fought in different spheres and in different ways. Robeson became a world-famous actor and singer who used his fame and position to support anti-racist struggles and workers on strike. He also helped to popularize the Soviet Union, at that time led by communists. Robeson traveled the world and in practice built international working-class unity.

Benjamin Davis graduated from Harvard Law School and defended Angelo Herndon, a Black communist organizer in Georgia who was on trial for organizing Black and white workers to fight for relief payments in Jim Crow Georgia in 1932. Davis went on to become a communist community organizer in Harlem who was elected to the New York City Council as an open communist.

W.E.B. Du Bois took on the bosses across many fields as a writer, sociologist and political organizer. Du Bois used the bosses’ publications and academia to attack capitalism, fight against pseudo-scientific racism and fight for workers' power. His organizing led him to finally join the Communist Party (CP).

Black workers’ leadership, key to communist revolution
Robeson, Davis and Du Bois showed the strength and power of Black leadership in the fight for workers power. They were communists and represented both the strengths and weaknesses of the communist movement in the period of the 1920s through the reversal of workers’ power in the Soviet Union in 1953. The communist movement was the leading force in the fight against racism around the world. It also made serious errors, such as participating in the bosses’ elections, as Ben Davis did, that ultimately weakened the communist movement and led to its temporary collapse.The CP built  illusions that capitalist controlled democracy could serve the working class. Despite the weaknesses of the old movement, all three understood you can’t fight racism by following the bosses. Robeson, Davis and Du Bois never kowtowed to the big bosses. In the face of tremendous attacks they fought the racist rulers throughout their entire lives.

Robeson felt free of racism in Soviet Union
Robeson stood up for the communist-led Soviet Union during the height of Cold War anti-communist frenzy. U.S. rulers seized Robeson’s passport, fearing his revolutionary influence around the world; hauled him before HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee), cajoled Black “leaders” and the popular major league baseball player Jackie Robinson to condemn him (although Robinson later said he had made a mistake) and took away Robeson’s internationally acclaimed acting and singing career.
Throughout all these attacks Robeson never once flinched. He was maligned for vowing that Black people in the U.S. would never fight an imperialist war against the socialist Soviet Union (USSR), declaring that the USSR was the first place he had ever felt free of racism. Robeson was awarded and accepted the Stalin Peace Prize. Now, when he is long dead, the rulers and their lackeys try to “honor” him in order to allow some of his greatness to rub off on them, conveniently “forgetting” on whose side Robeson stood.

Davis, communist jailed for fighting U.S. imperiaism
Communist leader Benjamin Davis, beloved by Black and white workers alike in the 1930s and 1940s, was elected to the New York City Council from Harlem on the Communist Party ticket, garnering more votes than any other Councilman of his day. He was a leading fighter to end Metropolitan Life’s ban on Black tenants in their huge tax-supported housing development, Stuyvesant Town. He was indicted and jailed by the Cold War government of Harry Truman for his communist beliefs and support of the worldwide fight against U.S. imperialism.

He continued the fight against the racist U.S. rulers to his dying day.

Du Bois joins Communist Party “the logic of my life”
Finally, there was the great, world-respected William E. B. Dubois, a founder of the NAACP over  a century ago, who, after more than 60 years of fighting racism, joined the Communist Party in 1961. Du Bois declared that becoming a communist was “the logic of my life.”

Du Bois was a leader in the fight against racism across intellectual fields and in the mass movement. He brought a class line on racism to the NAACP’s newspaper Crisis, which under Du Bois’ editorship grew to have a circulation of over 100,000. Du Bois took on the battle against the eugenicists and popularized the understanding that race is a social construct without any scientific basis and was created by capitalism to divide the working class.

Du Bois defended the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin against anti-communist attacks during the McCarthy period. Like Robeson, Du Bois was world renowned. He wrote regularly for Foreign Affairs magazine and was a staunch critic of liberalism as perpetrating capitalist racism. Like Robeson and Davis, he was hounded by the ruling class, banned from traveling, unable to find work. Like them, he never backed down.

Today, Progressive Labor Party is here because of people like Robeson, Davis and Du Bois and millions of other workers who have fought the bosses and united the working class. We look to the lessons learned from their practice. We are focused on the fight against racism as key to uniting the working class. We see that the way to respond to the bosses’ attacks is to fight even harder. We know that we must stay focused on the fight for workers' power , and that’s a communist world.