Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 17, 1912 “Socialism and the Negro” by Hubert Harrison, Part I
From the International Socialist Review of July 1912:
[Part I of II]
1. Economic Status Of The Negro
The ten million Negroes of America form a group that is more essentially proletarian than any other American group. In the first place the ancestors of this group were brought here with the very definite understanding that they were to be ruthlessly exploited. And they were not allowed any choice in the matter. Since they were brought here as chattels their social status was fixed by that fact. In every case that we know of where a group has lived by exploiting another group, it has despised that group which it has put under subjection. And the degree of contempt has always been in direct proportion to the degree of exploitation.
Inasmuch, then, as the Negro was at one period the most thoroughly exploited of the American proletariat, he was the most thoroughly despised. That group which exploited and despised him, being the most powerful section of the ruling class, was able to diffuse its own necessary contempt of the Negro first among the other sections of the ruling class, and afterwards among all other classes of Americans. For the ruling class has always determined what the social ideals and moral ideas of society should be; and this explains how race prejudice was disseminated until all Americans are supposed to be saturated with it. Race prejudice, then, is the fruit of economic subjection and a fixed inferior economic status. It is the reflex of a social caste system. That caste system in America today is what we roughly refer to as the Race Problem, and it is thus seen that the Negro problem is essentially an economic problem with its roots in slavery past and present.
Notwithstanding the fact that it is usually kept out of public discussion, the bread-and-butter side of this problem is easily the most important. The Negro worker gets less for his work-thanks to exclusion from the craft unions-than any other worker; he works longer hours as a rule and under worse conditions than any other worker; and his rent in any large city is much higher than that which the white worker pays for the same tenement. In short, the exploitation of the Negro worker is keener than that of any group of white workers in America. Now, the mission of the Socialist Party is to free the working class from exploitation, and since the Negro is the most ruthlessly exploited working class group in America, the duty of the party to champion his cause is as clear as day. This is the crucial test of Socialism’s sincerity and therein lies the value of this point of view-Socialism and the Negro.
We respect [the IWW] as one of the
social and political movements
in modern times that draws no color line.
-WEB DuBois for The Crisis ———-
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 7, 1919
Fellow Worker Ben Fletcher, Prisoner at Leavenworth, Remembered
From The Crisis of June 1919:
I. W. W.
[by W.E.B. Du Bois]
Fellow Worker Ben Fletcher
AN editorial in the Easter CRISIS (written during the Editor’s absence) has been misunderstood and was, perhaps, itself partially misleading.
Mr. F. H. M. Murray of Washington, D. C., writes us:
In a recent editorial in your magazine the statement is made that there are no Negroes among the Industrial Workers of the World. While I am certain that the statement is erroneous, I am not at this moment able to lay my hands on anything in print to confirm my denial, except the following from an article in last Sunday’s New York Call magazine, by David Karsner, who reported the trial of the big batch of members of the I. W. W- in Chicago last summer and later the trial of the five Socialists at the same place. He is writing about Judge Kenesaw M. Landis, who presided at both trials and who imposed upon the hundred or so I. W. W., who were convicted, and the five Socialists, sentences aggregating over nine hundred years in prison and fines aggregating over two millions of dollars. Mr. Karsner says:
“There was only one defendant among the I. W. W., to my knowledge, who refused to believe in Judge Landis [during the trial]. He was Ben Fletcher, the sole Negro defendant. One day in the corridor I asked Ben what he thought of Judge Landis. Ben smiled broadly, ‘He’s a fakir. Wait until he gets a chance; then he’ll plaster it on thick.’ Ben was a sure-thing prophet, for the Judge plastered him with ten years, and his counsel said with not enough evidence to invite a reprimand.”
Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 23, 1919
W. E. B. Du Bois on “Returning Soldiers”
From The Crisis of May 1919:
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RETURNING SOLDIERS
We are returning from war! THE CRISIS and tens of thousands of black men were drafted into a great struggle. For bleeding France and what she means and has meant and will mean to us and humanity and against the threat of German race arrogance, we fought gladly and to the last drop of blood; for America and her highest ideals, we fought in far-off hope; for the dominant southern oligarchy entrenched in Washington, we fought in bitter resignation. For the America that represents and gloats in lynching, disfranchisement, caste, brutality and devilish insult—for this, in the hateful upturning and mixing of things, we were forced by vindictive fate to fight also.
But today we return! We return from the slavery of uniform which the world’s madness demanded us to don to the freedom of civil garb. We stand again to look America squarely in the face and call a spade a spade. We sing: This country of ours, despite all its better souls have done and dreamed, is yet a shameful land.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 1, 1919
News Years Greetings from The Crisis & an Editorial on “Old Desires”
From The Crisis of January 1919:
From the Editorial Page:
OLD DESIRES
“THE NEW YEAR,” sang the Persian poet, “awakens Old Desires.” Certainly at no time during the year does the realization of unfulfilled hopes weigh so heavily. Today when the whole world waits while the delegates at the Peace Table formulate the new rights of man, we are conscious that for us discrimination still lowers. All Europe rejoices in its new gifts—the British proletariat is promised a liberal labor program; the Czecho-Slovaks are tasting the joys of nationalism; France is rid of the Prussian menace; Belgium is bidden to bind up her wounds. But our men, who have helped mightily to awaken and preserve the spirit which makes these things possible, are returning to what?
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 25, 1918
“The Flight Into Egypt” by William E. Scott and W. E. B. Du Bois
From The Crisis of December 1918:
-Cover Art by William E. Scott
-The Beautiful Story by W. E. B. Du Bois
THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT
YOU remember, do you not?—the beautiful Bible story in the simple words of Matthew, telling of the departure of the Three Wise Men:
And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:
And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.
They were poor, humble, ignorant people,—albeit the blood of kings burned in their veins. They were ragged and unkempt and black. Long years they had plodded faithfully to earn their daily bread in sweat and pain; then one night, beneath the stars, came Three Strangers, crying: “Where is He that is Born?” The mother lifted Him up tenderly and they gave him gifts,—Candy and a Fairy-tale and a piece of Gold.
Joseph and Mary looked at the gold-piece in amazement. Never had they seen so much money before, and as they looked they dreamed. Egypt! the Land of Freedom; Egypt! the Haven of the Oppressed; Egypt! where there was Learning and Wages and Honor. While here? Here there brooded a Shadow and a Fear.
Stealthily they arose by night and took the old lantern and walked and ran till they crossed the river. The dawn found them wet and weary, crouching in the moss-swept under brush of the swamp; but their faces were set North—that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet,—that the fairy-tale might come true.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 4, 1918
French Mayor Bids Fond Farewell to 349th Field Artillery Regiment
Of the sojourn of yourself and your colored soldiers amongst us, we will keep the best memory and remember your regiment as a picked one. From the beginning a real brotherhood was established between your soldiers and our people who are glad to welcome the gallant Allies of our France.
From The Crises of November 1918:
Opinion by W. E. B. Du Bois:
SOLDIERS
SLOWLY but surely the effort of the Government to satisfy just Negro public opinion increases: The registration card for the selective draft omits the inexcusable discrimination attached to the first registration; a colored correspondent has been sent to the front by the Public Information Bureau; a loan to Liberia has been announced; Haiti and Liberia were prominently featured among the Allies during Liberty Loan weeks; colored colleges have been designated as official military training schools, and there will be a colored man on the War Service Commission soon to go abroad.
Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday December 26, 1917
Birmingham, Alabama – Women Convicts Sold for 15 Cents a Day
` From the Duluth Labor World of December 22, 1917:
WOMEN CONVICTS BEING SOLD
FOR 15 CENTS A DAY
—–
Vicious Practice of the Dark Ages
Still Obtains in Alabama.
—–
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Dec. 20.— Women convicts in this state are sold to contractors for 15 cents a day and are housed in filthy stockades while candidates for the governorship talk of the “gradual” removal of this glaring evil, declares the Monthly Bulletin of the Alabama state federation of labor.
This publication says:
Under a recent date line, Escambia county, state of Alabama, rises to remark that Escambia county has made a most advantageous contract with a certain employing concern, where the county has leased its women convicts for two years for the munificent sum of 15 cents per day. Such things make us wonder if we are still in the dark ages, with all the blind ignorance of human instincts, with all the intollerant cruelty of the old savage slave dealer and buyer, and this happened in the enlightened state of Alabama. Women, sold into slavery to the highest bidder, to do whatever that bidder desires; work, slave, toil through the days; rest in stockades, filthy and unfit, for the nights; truly a picture upon which every Alabamian should look with pride; and candidates for the governorship favor the “gradual” removal of convicted persons from the mines and lumber camps.
For years and years labor has fought this system of slavery in the state. Governors have promised to abolish it, legislatures have promised to abolish it; the people have demanded its abolishment, but when it comes to weighing the human soul against the almighty dollar the dollar wins every time. Poor, indeed, must be that state which has to sell its legal slaves into involuntary servitude that it may use the revenue thus obtained to pay its teachers, to pay its officers, to pay its expenses in other ways, to pay the jurors who send the unfortunates to the mines; to pay the judges who pronounce sentence.
And not a man offers for office in the state but who will wink at this inhuman traffic in human souls; not one of them will come out flatly for the abolition of this traffic.
[Photograph added of “Crime of Crimes” by Clarissa Olds Keeler.]
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