The working class lost a great fighter against racism and for working class power when Dr. Finley Calvin Campbell died at his home in Chicago on August 18. A fearless, committed, and uncompromising comrade, Finley was still organizing meetings from his bedside in the last days of his life.
Finley was born in Anderson, South Carolina, on September 23, 1934. At age eight, his family moved to Detroit, where he lived until 1952. He was educated at Morehouse College in Atlanta and the University of Chicago, where he earned his PhD in literature studying with renowned historian John Hope Franklin.
While in Atlanta, Finley wrote speeches for Maynard Jackson, later the city’s mayor, and was on a first-name basis with historian Howard Zinn. His PhD dissertation, mentored by Franklin, is a historical analysis of the literature of Black Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War. During a year spent studying French at the Sorbonne in Paris, he met his first wife, Liliane. After their marriage, she had to “pass as Black” for them to be able to live together legally in Georgia.
With his impressive credentials, Finley could have made a career in politics or become one of those well-known, wealthy Black intellectuals who are so highly prized by the capitalist establishment. But Finley rejected all of that. He immersed himself in the grassroots struggle against racist injustice and against the capitalist profit system.
A vivid first impression
Progressive Labor Party first encountered Finley in July, 1971, in Gary, Indiana. About fifty members of the Party and Students for a Democratic Society were picketing outside the U.S. Steel plant on the last day before the union’s contract expired. Finley was walking down the street, having just walked out of a meeting of Black politicians because of their anti-white stance. He lit up when he saw the protest, strode over, and joined the picket line. Within five minutes, Finley was giving a speech and leading chants through the bullhorn. “Who is this guy?” people said. He inspired the picket line with his booming voice and his call for working class unity against the capitalists. At the time, we didn’t know that he had organized the Malcolm X Institute at Wabash College—where he was the first Black professor, and from which he was fired for antiracist activities. We didn’t know that he’d run for governor of Indiana on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket, getting thousands of votes from white and Black workers alike.
The Party and Finley began to work together. He continued to organize activities in Indiana, including the original “Halloween against Racism” demonstration at St. Joseph’s College, complete with a powerful speech about the monsters and vampires of racism. Finley took a faculty position at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and moved there with his then wife, Vicki. During that time, with Toby Schwartz and others, he was instrumental in organizing the International Committee Against Racism. One early victory was a full-page ad in the New York Times that denounced racist IQ theories and was signed by over a hundred leading experts in the field.
Fighting racists from Chicago to Tupelo
In 1975, Finley was a leader of the INCAR/PLP Boston Summer Project to confront the gutter racists of South Boston and integrate CarsonBeach. At a historic demonstration in Chicago, Finley was on the sound truck as we led 700 Black, Latin and white workers and students through the Nazi-infested, previously “whites only” Marquette Park. At a march in Tupelo, Mississippi, he was shot and injured by a cowardly member of the Ku Klux Klan.
In the mid-1970’s, in an obvious set-up, Finley was fired by the University of Wisconsin for his antiracist activities. His field of expertise was American Literature and race in the late 1800’s. The committee that voted him down included a Black meteorologist and a Black jazz musician. Neither had any grasp of Finley’s field, but because they were members of the school’s Afro-American Studies department, the university used them to provide cover to kick him out.
A strong voice for multiracial unity
Finley embraced the Party’s line that racism was rooted in the class conflict of capitalism. He attacked the Black class traitors who allied with the capitalist bosses and deeply believed that multiracial working-class unity was essential—both to smash racism and to destroy the profit system. He had no patience for fake-left terms such as “white privilege” and “white supremacy,” which mask the class content of racism and divide Black and Latin workers from white workers. As he recently wrote: “Remember: It was our old enemies in the revisionist and so-called black nationalist movements which revived this false term [white supremacy] as a way of confusing the working class about the true nature of their exploitation and oppression – not white supremacy, but green supremacy – finance capital. We won’t be fooled again.”
From the 1990’s until very recently, Finley taught at working class colleges and organized in the Unitarian Church to help win youth and people in the community to the antiracist struggle. From organizing study groups to raising money for international work to being a powerful voice and mentor for the Party’s understanding of racism, he never stopped fighting for the working class.
A true communist to the end
Finley did not shy away from the term “communism.” In fact, he lamented how some barely mentioned Marx and Lenin as “the shoulders on which we stand to see further.” Even when he used theological language, it was always in the context of Marxism-Leninism. He was unafraid to raise questions within our organization, a practice we all need to emulate as a necessity in building a vibrant Party. But he remained a true antiracist communist to the end. Finley was a tireless fighter, building an antiracist group of more than one hundred workers in the Unitarian Church from all over the U.S. and planning meetings up until his death. One of his last requests was for the Party to continue to get CHALLENGE to workers to whom he’d been delivering it without fail.
The struggle for multiracial unity against racism and for a world free of exploitation and oppression would have been far weaker without Finley. Our Party is so much stronger because of his decades of consistent and dedicated work.
Finley leaves behind Roberta (Bobbi), his devoted wife and partner in life and political struggle; children Phillip, Paulette, David, Kathi, and Mark; grandchildren Taylor, Bryanna, Lya, Lanny, Laïssa, and Anastasia; and a grateful international working class.
He also leaves behind his wisdom and profound commitment. He directly influenced thousands of workers, who in turn will continue to influence tens and hundreds of thousands. Finley will live on as long as the fight continues for a world free of racism and exploitation.
A memorial service in Chicago will be held on Saturday, September 23, on Finley’s 89th birthday at 4 PM (Central) in person or via zoom.
Memorial Service for Finley
Saturday, September 23
4 PM CT, 5:00 pm EST, and 2:00 pm PST
In-person info:
First Unitarian
5650 S. Woodlawn, Chicago.
Zoom info: https://us02web.zoom us/j/84617168894
Meeting ID: 846 1716 8894
Dial in: 1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
Finley Campbell and the 1979 Tupelo Summer Project
Progressive Labor Party (PLP), and its allies in the International Committee Against Racism (INCAR), organized a Summer Project in Tupelo Mississippi in 1979 when the KKK claimed Tupelo as its national headquarters. Volunteers flowed in, among them Finley Campbell. Finley was an experienced fighter by then and inspired all the newer volunteers to give their best.
The Project built its base within the Black community. We canvassed the area with literature, organized meetings and study groups. By July, the Project called for a mass march starting in the Black neighborhood and leading to downtown Tupelo.
The Project organized its own security forces watching out for the KKK in white and blue. The marchers held a rally when they arrived downtown. An armed gunman appeared on the fringe of the crowd. He fired a round of birdshot at the two speakers, Finley Campbell and Carolyn Eubanks wounding them both. The gunman began to reload. Our security team rushed forward tackling him to the ground and giving him the beating he deserved. Instantly the police arrested the head of the security team. He was charged with attempted murder for stopping the shooter.
The local prosecutor convened a Grand Jury planning to indict our comrade by calling the victims, Carolyn and Finley, to testify about what happened!
The lawyer explained to Carolyn and Finley that our only chance in defending our comrade was for them to refuse to testify – to plead the 5th. Finley was extremely frustrated that he had to remain silent. He was a passionate orator who spoke in the powerful style of the preacher he was. He was electric. Silence Finley! Surely not! But silent he was in the cause of saving a comrade. He often talked in later years of the many experiences of Tupelo 1979. The most painful was not the birdshot—it was the time this mighty speaker had to remain silent. Finley set an example that day in Tupelo that lives on in our collective memories.