Black and RED, untold history part III: King's Class Contradictions

Ruling-class historians have segregated the fight against racism and the fight for an egalitarian system, communism. In reality, the two were connected like flesh and bone. Many antiracist struggles were led by, initiated by, or were fought with communists and communist-influenced organizations. Many Black fighters were also dedicated communists and pro-communists of their time.
In turn, the bosses have used anti-communism as a tool to terrorize and divide antiracist fightback. Regardless of communist affiliation, anyone who fought racism was at risk of being redbaited. Why? 1) The ruling class understands the natural relationship between antiracism and communism, and 2) Multiracial unity threatens the very racist system the bosses “work so hard” to maintain.
This series aims to reunite the history of communism with antiracism. Part I explored how the fight to free Scottsboro Boys was ignited by the International Labor Defense of the Communist Party. See Robin D.G. Kelley’s book Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression to find out more.
Part II explored how the international communist movement was the imeptus of the civil rights movement. It excerpts from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in the essay, “The Civil Rights Movement” by researcher Davarian L. Baldwin at Trinity College.

The communist movement both helped inspire and was shaped by the anti-racist struggle for civil rights in the U.S. Martin Luther King Jr. and many of the leading civil rights figures were influenced by the Communist Party (CP). Rosa Parks had attended Communist Party meetings and been trained as an activist at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee which had been supported by members and friends of the CP. Bayard Rustin, Stanley Levinson and Jack O’Dell, who all played important roles in King’s organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, that grew out of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, were active at various times in the communist movement.

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Los Angeles: Suspended for Fighting Racism

LOS ANGELES, June 12—In a cowardly move meant to halt resistance, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) suspended three teachers at a high school here, including a PL teacher, one week before summer break. The teachers were associated with citywide student walkouts in protest of Trump’s inauguration over six months ago.
What began as a letter of misconduct turned into a mandatory suspension. These teachers allowed discussions in their classes around important issues, like police terror and anti-immigrant policies. Apparently, that is a suspendable offence! Waiting a week before summer break is an obvious attempt by the district to curb the ability of the staff, parents, and students to organize against these suspensions.
Our fellow teachers have shown support and fightback. Half of the faculty signed a letter protesting the suspensions and the underlying message they are sending to the teachers about discussing political issues in class. Students confronted the principal in person to demand answers.

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Fight to Change School’s Racist Name

VIRGINIA, June 8—Forty advocates for changing J.E.B. Stuart High School’s racist name rocked Virginia’s Fairfax County School Board meeting with bold anti-racist speeches amid a cheering throng of supporters.
Students Give Leadership
In this two-year fight, Black students in the high school have given leadership. Two Black Stuart high school students led off tonight’s testimonies, declaring that unless the school board changed the name, it would forever be linked with the racist segregationist school board that named the school in 1958.
“I walk into the weight room [every Tuesday and Thursday] to see a giant mural of J. E. B Stuart painted on a wall in front of me. He’s portrayed like a hero...This sends a message to me that General Stuart and what he fought for is deemed heroic…My ancestors being bought and sold like cattle is OK, because J.E.B. Stuart was a patriot,” said one student.

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Graduates Defy Racist Speakers

Throughout the months of May and June, students across the United States have been taking stands, turning their backs, and loudly protesting the racist commencement speakers their colleges and universities have invited to send them off into the “real world.”
Colleges: Ruling-Class Institutions
Established just less than 400 years ago, the U.S. university system has been a breeding ground for imperialist leaders, think tanks, and providing funding for mass murders around the world.

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Review of Yezhov vs. Stalin Dispelling Anti-Communist Myth of Red Hero, Joseph Stalin

The 1930s were a decade of raging worldwide class war. Everywhere, workers were inspired to fight back against capitalism by the example of the world’s first workers’ state, the Soviet Union. From North and South America to Europe, Africa and Asia, communist-led workers led strikes and armed insurrection as the capitalist classes prepared for what became World War II. Within the Soviet Union, the class war raged just as bitterly, but the working class there had one huge advantage over the capitalists and their allies—the workers had won and held state power.

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Good Riddance to Zbigniew Brzezinski: Chief Architect of U.S. Imperialism’s Reign of Terror

On May 26, Zbigniew Brzezinski (89), a major architect of U.S. imperialism and servant of the U.S. bosses, finally died. While history is made by the masses and outside the sole influence of just one person, Brzezinski played a disproportionately large individual role in helping shape the capitalist reign of terror we live in today.

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Bosses’ Infighting Threatens Workers

The main wing of the U.S. ruling class has escalated its campaign to check Donald Trump and bring him into line with the bosses’ primary objective: to win mass support among U.S. workers for the next big inter-imperialist war and the fascism the bosses need to wage it.
In the wake of the firing of FBI Director James Comey, the capitalist media scandal around Trump’s possible collusion with Russia is growing by the day. Former FBI chief Robert Mueller was chosen as special counsel to prosecute “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and...any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation” (cbsnews.com, 5/17). The bosses are playing hardball. Their intensified effort to discipline their own ranks is a hallmark of rising fascism.

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Jim Crow Schools: Anti-Racism Terrifies DoE Bosses

New York City school students suffer the racist indignity of attending one of the most segregated school systems in the country. This is no accident. It is a calculated plan by the city’s ruling class to maintain exclusive enclave schools that are significantly or predominantly white—and to subject the other 90 percent of the city’s 1.1 million public school children to a racist, sub-par education.

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Still No JUSTICE FOR Laquan Courts Protect Kkkop, Attack Antiracists

CHICAGO, IL, May 23—Another pre-trial hearing was scheduled today at the Cook County courthouse for killer Chicago kkkop Jason Van Dyke, who is responsible for the murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald on October 20, 2014. Caught on dashboard camera, the 16 shots that Van Dyke pumped into Laquan’s body as he lay lifeless in the street was another stark reminder of the role the kkkops play in the defense of the racist capitalist system. The resultant cover-up by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and State Attorney Anita Alvarez further demonstrated the racism of the state, sparking mass outrage and militant fightback throughout the city and beyond. As Van Dyke’s lawyer baldly stated in court, the murder of Laquan was simply “business as usual.” (Chicago Tribune, 5/25)

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Black and RED, untold history part II: Impetus for the Civil Rights Movement

Ruling-class historians have segregated the fight against racism and the fight for an egalitarian system, communism. In reality, the two were connected like flesh and bone. Many antiracist struggles were led by, initiated by, or were fought with communists and communist-influenced organizations. Many Black fighters were also dedicated communists and pro-communists of their time.
In turn, the bosses have used anti-communism as a tool to terrorize and divide antiracist fightback. Regardless of communist affiliation, anyone who fought racism was at risk of being redbaited. Why? 1) The ruling class understands the natural relationship between antiracism and communism, and 2) Multiracial unity threatens the very racist system the bosses “work so hard” to maintain.
This series aims to reunite the history of communism with antiracism. Part I explored how the fight to free Scottsboro Boys was ignited by the International Labor Defense of the Communist Party. See Robin D.G. Kelley’s book Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression to find out more.
The following piece excerpts from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in the essay, “The Civil Rights Movement” by researcher Davarian L. Baldwin at Trinity College.   

The Civil Rights Movement was a decades-long mass uprising of Black and white workers and students against the most open forms of racism in the U.S. Its impetus was the growing international communist movement fresh off the defeat of fascism in Europe and quickly growing in China, Africa and around the world, combined with the growing resistance to racism by the Black workers in the U.S.
The U.S. ruling class tried to shut down the mass antiracist fightback by using anti-communism to divide and terrorize the movement. In the period right after World War II, the Soviet Union was admired by workers around the world, including in the U.S., for defeating the Nazi war machine. The workers-led society in the Soviet Union stood in stark contrast to the legal segregation workers faced in the U.S.

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