The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 3, 1931, Page 8

VAIL WUNADN, NW LUA, ~. ————— “AU DMVAA, VULVDEN 3 AIDS The Black Volcano of Scottsboro By ROBERT MINOR. Deep down in the life-conditions of the Negro masses is a cause of Struggle. An enslaved people— millions of agricultural laborers and peasants living in peonage and serfdom—hundreds of thousands of Negro industrial workers exploited under special devices, confined to the poorest jobs and lowest pay—a great mass of enslaved people liv- ing as inferior “animals” in secre- gated slums where they are doubly exploited by landlords and credit sharks—there is a deep-seated vol- cano to be found in this mass. It is a live volcano. There is always the urge of this human mass to rise up and throw off the slavery n which it lives in a country whose | standing joke is “democracy” and} whose standing practice is lynching and capitalist class dictatorship at | home, and military rule over sub- | ject peoples abroad But the urge of these black masses to fight for freedom is al- |Xnown as prostitutes. ways thwarted, hemmed in, de- The investigation by the sheriff ceived, diverted by a thousand |into the fight between Negroes and shrewd devices. The Negro masses | whites on the freight train, now cannot vote except ‘men. Both of the women were The Nine Scottsboro Negro Boys. where their |centered around the question of the | voting is completely ineffective; if | two white hoboes who turned out to they organize labor unions they are |be women. Did the Negro boys} terrorized, murdered-or jailed—any- thing to keep them silent, helpless, dumb slaves. The political machinery, particu- larly of the southern states, is con- structed and maintained not only for the suppression and exploitation |fight these hoboes who were really |women in men’s clothing? The |women denied that the Negro boys jhad done anything to them at all. SAVE THESE NEGRO BOYS FROM LEGAL LYNCHING |fense of “Southern womanhood”— ithe verdict of death—the hanging— and then silence and the slow cruel pace of southern slave society would resume. e eo J But the volcano was underneath. ;The black mass that had never |moved since more than half a cen- ‘tury ago when the capitalist North made its peace with the white ruling class of the South—began to They Face the Electric Chair. Free Them! There was a rift in the silence. | to success. Among the many thou- sands of Negroes who have learned to love the Communist Party for, its fight.in this-case and otherwise on their behalf, some seem to think that “the Communists will save the Scottsboro boys.” But “the Communists” cannot save the Scottsboro boys—only the great masses of tens of thousands and millions can save the Scotts- boro boys. The Communist Party of the Negro and white workers is only the vanguard of the working class. What the Communist Party can do is to mobilize and lead the masses, The ILD and the LSNR (both of which are independent organiza- tions composed of workers and others, and some of whom are Com- munists). together with the Com-« munist Party, can succeed in saving the Scottsboro boys precisely if they succeed in mobilizing the tens of ; ‘ thousands of Negroes and black and jfused to ask the jury for an acquit- | white workers in addition to the jtal, thinking, along with the N. A. 'members of these organizations. |A. C. P. leaders, that the matter| To succeed in saving the Scotts- ; would never be heard of and all boro boys a movement ten times as would be well with no change but | big must be put under way by those |just nine fresh graves in an Ala- | who have the courage of initiative ‘bama jail yard. to lead the fight. | But only because the Interna- , Have no illusions! The sout’ ern jtional Labor Defense. and the |white ruling class and its officers jLeague of Struggle. for Negro jof the law in Alabama will proceed |Rights, at the instigation of the |with the legal murder of these in- Communist Party, took up this |nocent boys—they will burn on the electric chair—unless we fight on | But very soon an idea struck the | |s d the prosecutor. The |™0Ve- pecs ves x po il we : ain | What was done? What was itwo white women jail were ag: |there as ee be ee as he \fight and spread it around the |world—only because of the mass protest that arose in spite of them |—the NAACP leaders stepped in stubbornly, without stopping one instant, facing all dangers and overcoming.all obstacles, to mobilize of the working class generally, but lasked if the boys “didn’t do some- largely for the purpose of keeping |thing” to them. For, what sort of this mass of Negro population so | “fighting” could Negro boys be most completely hemmed in, restricted |jogically accused of in connection and terrorized as to be unable to/ with white women—if not “raping”? move. {One of the women very willingly, But the volcano is there, and it /the other one rather reluctantly, smoulders. And all who are not/were led to agree that instead of slaveholders or the agents of slave- being prisoners under charge of holders are thinking: hew to release |“hoboing” they should get out of the fighting forces of the Negro | jail and be the accusers of the Ne- masses, how to break loose and |gro boys for “raping” them. make the fight for freedom. | A thousand times things like this This Spring, as cotton prices fell |} aye happened in the long, sleepy lower and lower, things were get-'.n4q prutal, stagnant generations of ting desperate for the farming and ‘slavery and peonage in the Black working population of the South, | Belt of the South. “Horse-swapping black and white, and the small Day” was coming on, and the prose- jmasses, to break through the ob- structions and bring the hitherto |silent voice of the black giant to ;course, there is something new: the j unequalled economic crisis which is sapping the roots of American im- ;perialist. society—-and something else. The Communist Party had |been established, and already had a \slight footing in the South within |& few score miles of the little court- house where nine innocent Negro boys were to be condemned to death on Horse-swapping Day. The Com- jmunists, bent on overthrowing “American institutions,” interfered. All of the lynchers, all of the “white |supremacy” citizens, the Ku Klux |@ roar of rage and protest? Of | & mass movement with ten times the strength of the present move- ment,*which has brought only the first chance, the first hope of life \to these boys. e jafter several weeks of silence and j claimed that they would “defend” the boys. The role of the NAACP has been 'what? Precisely and only to defend jthe judge who falsely condemned , the nine innocent boys, to defend|, T€ Opportuility to do these the prosecutors whe framed them things is greater now than ever lup, to defend. the governor whe | before. The wnited front confer- lrepresents the Whole system of tor- )°C¢ to take place in all cities arid \tute and persecution of Negroes— |towns in the joint defense of the to attack the ILD, the LSNR and |S°ettsboro boys, together with that | the ‘Communist Party for “stirring \of Tom Mooney, the Harlan miners, lup” and “agitating” among the |the Imperial Valley and other pris- ;masses of persecuted Negro people. rete. Ate ae b pest and biggest |The NAACP leaders who themselves opportunity! , Bosssapmigattiee had a shameful part in the frame- | Negroes can be mobilized in every ups and verdicts of death, now city for these conferences. e « merchants who depend upon their |cutor, the leading town merchants, trade. At the little town of Scottsboro, Alabama, local merchants were on the edge of ruin, with unsold goods, . With mortgages unpaid and banks in a bad way. It was in March, 1931. The village merchants were look- | ing forward wistfully to April 6, the date of a sort of county fair, which is called in Scottsboro “horse- Swapping day,” as a chance to stimulate trade. > On March 25, nine Negro boys, plain farm boys, from 13 to 20 years of age, were arrested on a freight train near Scottsboro for “hoboing” and for fighting with some’ white hoboes. Most of the whites and Ne- groes who had been on the freight train had jumped off and run away, while nine Negro boys and three white hoboes were pwt into jail. Then it was found that two of the white hoboes were women, dressed in men’s clothes, who had been travelling with a crowd of white ithe sheriff and all of the lawyers Kian, the sheriffs, the lynching jof the town (some of whom would judges—all agreed that “the Com- claim that “because they were in-| 1 #ddition, a mass campaign for terested only in saving the lives of the boys,” they wanted no mass ‘have to represent the “niggers’) agreed that a big crowd could be gotten to a trial of nine Negro boys for “rape.” By general agreement, jin consultation with the judge and local merchants of the town, the date of April 6—‘Horse-swapping Day’—was selected as the date of ithe trial of the nine Negro boys for rape. The penalty for rape is death. A big crowd would come from the |mountains. “Horse-swapping Day” would be a success; there would be isome trade at the stores. The man- agers of the local textile mill were interviewed and persuaded to allow ithe use of the brass band of the mill to play for the crowd that would come. Almost all of this has happened (before, countless times. And it was to be assumed that this would go the harrangues to the jury—the de- The November issue of the the Soviet Union workers), will toe organize, meet and strike! _ GIVE YOUR VOTE! SEND YOUR GREBTINGS! NAME I am sending $.............. to November Labor Defender. I want to subscribe to the Labor a half year), HHO Dee eee ewe e er eepene NOVEMBER LABOR DEFENDER | X | 1 VOTE FOR THE FIVE-YEAR PLAN | year of the Russian Revolution. To greet the Five-Year Plan’ in the Labor Defender (thousands of copies of which will go to which battles against international terror of the capitalist class and for the freedom of such working class fighters as Tom Mooney, the Imperial Valley prisoners, the Harlan miner,s the Scottsboro Negro boys, the 1,200 arrested in the tri-state coal strike. a vote against boss murder, a vote for the right of the workers RUSH GREETINGS FROM YOUR ORGANIZATION! A PR Ee re prea s.. “Address Send to LAROR YD : 80 E. 11th Street, Room 439, N. ¥. C. i deeeeneehenneainentenednmmneiememmmmetimemmemmmenmnetmmenmaneaename eee Labor Defender greets the 14th help build up the fighting organ it is $100 a page, $65 a half page, ete. 25 Cents an Individual Name Defender ($1 a year, 60 cents for jmunist Party stirred up the trou- |movement against the slavery of the the release of the 14-year-old Roy Wright, whose case was the only one at Scottsboro that did nc‘ -e- through in its “orderly” process— | ble.” The roar of protest of the black mass arose—and suddenly, to the surprise of the unknowing—the roar of a new element, the revolution- ized vanguard of the white working class—arose and blended with the roar of the black giant of the South. * e e oJ The effort to impede, to hem in and to suppress and divert the pro- test had to be renewed. The white ‘ruling elass of the South recognized the revolutionary significance of a sudden volcanic eruption of protest against this most spectacular ,mar- tyrizing of the Negro people. But the old machinery was not suffi- cient. Blustering sheriffs and Ku Klux Klan could not stop it. But new machinery was found by the white ruling class to try to stop the flood of mass movement. jhad been considered enemies of white supremacy—black and white servants, .who proved to be “friends in need” to the white ruling class. ‘The National Association for the |Advancement of Colored People, ;which had always been considered \“an enemy” because it claimed to be for the “advancement of-tolored people” stepped forward in the per- son of Mr. 2. E. Spingarn, Mr Walter White and (later) Mr. Wil- | liam Pickens, to prove to the south- ern white master clas8 that they | and they alone were precisely the bosses’ best agents to suppress the rising wave of protest! : ' It Has later become Known that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People leaders had stepped in and taken a hand in the actual frame-up of the nine Negro boys at Scottsboro. It was they who employed the lawyer, they say (though their mame was not at first announced), who was put forward as the “attorney” for ‘| the’. boys, and who agreed to the ‘} whole proceeding of frame-up and ‘death verdict, tried to induce the innocent boys to plead guilty, and,- ‘when ther wowld not do this, re- | The white ruling class found that | it had new servants—servants who | sult in a death sentence, but ended in a mistrial—will arouse the masses if we go at it with proper’ energy and optimism. Let us not forget for a minute that in order to save the Scottsboro boys, it is not enough to defeat the direct forces of the state of Ala- bama, but also their hypocritical agents who pretend to “defend” the boys only for the purpose of break- ing up of ,the mass movement, so that the slave-oligarchy of the South can proceed on its old slug- gish way of lynching and peonage “good race relations” as the Ku Elux Klan and William Pickens Many who came to the defense |° it. pret giep oy adigiis of the boys were at first surprised by this sudden success in mass re- |{¢ be Possible to mobilize the masses sponse—surprised by the great mob- ilization of the masses which’start- |*®€ nine innocent ed at the very first call of the Com- | jmunist Party. But what then? The very. success in getting the and in the saving of them we will masses started into motion, the ease |find many chains which with which this was done, has |before had bound the arms of the jcaused many thousands of friends | great suffering black masses of this of the Scottsboro defense to slow | country who will be among the best down their work, There seems to |fighters for the liberation of the be an idea that somehow the move- | whole working class as well from ment will automatically move on slavery. ~ Negro people, which they claim would “arouse prejudice” against the boys who were already sen- tenced te death with their con- nivance. But the movement of protest, in spite of them, spread like a jungle fire through the North, the South, the East and the West and across the ocean to Germany, France, England and Spain and the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. . * * What is the present chance for this movement to save the lives and liberty of the nine innocent victims of the southern white ruling class? H « < White and Negro’ masses demonstrate io save the boys; marching in Harlem, N. Y. to greet the marchers. Scottsbora’ The workers jammed the streets “