The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 18, 1932, Page 5

For Unity of Negro and White Toilers boro Boys! Free the Sc aay ~ iE 4 Death to the Lynchers! IN TWO SECTIONS (SECTION TWO) (Section of the Communist International) DAILY WORKER, Daily he NEW YORK, yorker Party U.S.A. MONDAY, APRIL 18, 1932 INTO THE STREETS MAY 1ST! PROTEST THE SCOTTSBORO LYNCH VERDICTS! Growing Oppression --- Mounting Struggles N the morning of December 6, 1931, a@ Negro worker by name of Matthew Will- iams, an employee in the crate and basket factory in Salisbury, Md., stepped into the office of his em- surance, release by mass protest. Dallas, Texas——Lewis Hurst and Charles Coder, white working-class organizers, beaten into insensibility by boss-incited mob for advocating racial equality and jobless insur- ance. They are picked up and cared by Negro farmers. Chattanooga, Tenn.—Mack Coads, Negro worker and Communist can- didate for judge in municipal elec- ployer, Daniel J. tions, jailed on framed vagrancy Siliott. He had charges. come to protest Nationwide demonstrations took against a further cut in his meager § of 15 cents hour. rere > was an ‘sument, Jim ‘ott, the son of t factory owner, led a gun and 10 t Williams, ‘vnding him se- pay e This is a sample of the oil-soaked 3 Williams} nded himself ope «sed DY, bee lynchers of Mat- > the — scuffle ‘\thew Williams 2] Elliott wes in Salisbury, Md. 1 1 Zew hours later, a boss-incited ‘cular General Hospital where | Williams lay dying. The mob of big businessmen pulled this Negro worker from his bed and dragged him to the ceurt house square. There they mutilated him, poured over him 40 gallons of gasoline, and, while whiskey bottles passed from mouth to mouth, they burned | his body to a crisp. “faving previously cut off Will- | i fingers and toes, they now | inveded the Negro section of Salis- | b _ screaming curses and threats. | On the porches of Negro homes, they threw portions of Williams’ body, inviting the workers to “make nigger sandwiches of them.” ne | nind them they trailed the charred | corpse. o31—Year of Lynch Law’ This particularly brutal lynching | came at the end of a year in which | 79 lynchings were recorded in the white boss press. That many more than that number were hushed up by the local papers, is beyond ques- tion, 1931 was a year of rising lynch against Negroes. But fighting back against this waye of lynehing, is the rising | anger and unity of Negro and white Workers. ome } idea of the growing op- on of the Negro workers by | ;-ineited lynch-mobs may be aii te the fonowigs record pr cos S| s, in the workers’ revolutionary i s an@ from the investigation of, workers’ organizations, The out-/ snding struggles of the working- | s against Negro oppression are | also recounted in the following columns, s | February, 1931 Tulsa, Okla.—Police roast WHlie Ems, young Negro worker, in fire, | to make him “confess” to a crime | he did not commit. | Perth Amboy, N. J.— Ignatius Dubusson, Negro worker, is savagely beaten and-nearly lynched for hav- ing asked white girl for drink of water. Mareh, 1931 New York City.—Mass trial ot workers@votes to expel from ranks of Communist Party, August Ycoki- ueca, Finnish worker, for the crime | of race prejudice against Negroes. Liverpool, O.,—Roy Mahoney: Negro bricklayer, arrested for lead~- ing demonstration of jobless to city hall to demand: unemployment) im- | )e ce Orleans, La., and abusing a white woman. A! ech mob gathered before the Pe- | place on March 28 against depor- tations and lynchings. The record of known lynchings | for February and March includes: Rene Henry, lynched near New accused of pushing plain frame-up, George Spann, lynched at Clarks- his landlord. Wess Skipper, white farm hand lynched at Dorthan, Ala. He had fought his landlord in self-defense, and was lynched by a group of wealthy persons and landlords. Steve Wiley, accused of attempted Workers later force hisrape and murder, i dale, Miss. He was accused of killing | lynched at Iver- ness, Miss. Elie Johnson, accused of killing his landlord in self-defense. Lynch- ed at Vicksburg, Miss. Paint Rock. Ala., March 25.—Nine Negro boys riding @ freight train are arrested on a charge of fighting with white boys. Two of the three white. “men” discovered on the train turn out to be women in men’s elothing. The familiar lying charge of “rape” is raised. The boys are arrested on a rape charge and trial is set for Scottsboro, on Fair Day, when thousands of backward white mountaineers will be in town. ing and Jim-Crow, millions of work- ers of every color and nationality, in every end of the earth, The 9 boys are: Andy Wright, Roy Wright, Charlie Weems, Olen Montgomery, Thus starts a frame up that to| | draw into a struggle against lynch- a brass band to serenade the lynch verdicts that are to be brought in. In 72 hours, without the calling of a single witness for the defense outside of the doomed boys them- selves, with no lawyer for the de- fense except the drunken Klans- man Roddy, sent by the N. A, A. C. P., who actually helped in the frame-up, eight of the boys are sentenced to die in the electric chair, The brass band greets the lynch verdicts. tions of Negro and white workers, the Communist Party, the League International Labor Defense, and many others, expose the sentence as a legal lynching and rally to the defense of the victims. The boys and their parents welcome lawyers sent by the International Willie Roberson, Ozie Powell, Hay- | wood Patterson, Eugene Williams | and Clarence Norris. April, 1931 Scottsboro, Ala., April Negro boys tried in court-room packed and surrounded by a boss- | incited lynch mob. The bosses hire | test in their behalf. Mrs. Janie Pat- _in New York and is welcomed by) | Negro and white workers. Greenville, S. C.—Ku Klux Klan | bee city officials Hall. White workers come to de- 6.—Nine | Militant working-class organiza- | of Struggle for Negro Rights, the | Labor Defense and the mass pro-! terson, mother of Haywood, arrives | raid Workers’ \ fense of Negroes whom the K. K. K. tries to beat up. More than 200,006 workers in 110 cities in the United States, east and west, north and south, demonstrate on May 1, demanding the imme- diate and unconditional release of the nine Scottsboro boys. Scottsboro conferences throughout the month in many cities unite Negro and white toilers for defense of the | Scottsboro victims, Harlem workers | hold huge parade protesting Scotts- bore frame-up. Known lynch record for April and May includes the following: George Smith, lynched on court- {house yard at Union City, Tenn. Accused of insulting a white wo- man, daughter of an undertaker, who said she had been raped, .He was later proven innocent. ° Mrs. Jane Wise, lynched at Frankfort, Va., because she objected 1 to her daughter being taken out for ‘rides” by white klansmen. Thomas Jasper, lynched at Hunts- | ville, Ala., accused of “getting fresh | with white girl.” Sheriff turned him, ; over to a committee of lynchers. Filmore Davis, chased by a gang !of 1,500 organized by sheriffs and businessmen. He was accused of A CALL TO THE TOILERS OF THE WORLD TO STRUGGLE AGAINST THE GROWING WHITE TERROR AGAINST THE NEGRO PEOPLE, AND FOR THE UNCONDITIONAL RELEASE OF THE 9 en ssi alee BOYS! HE increasing use of the boss courts to legalize the lynching of Negro workers is clearly shown in the frame-ups and lynch verdicts against the nine Scottsboro boys, Willie Brown in PHiladelphia; Orphan Jones, in Maryland, and the actual carrying out of the legal lynch- ing of Barney Lee Ross in Texas. The vicious terror which at the present time . finds its sharpest expression in the savage lynch wave has for its purpose on the one hand, the suppression of the awakening Negro masses, and on the other hand, maintaining the separation of the Negro and white workers and blocking the growing unity of Negro and white in the sharpening class struggle. The plundering and robbery of the Negro peo- ple, their mounting misery and impoverishment, is rapidly creating conditions for the develop- ment of a tremendous movement of the Negro masses against American imperialism, The in- creased Iynchings, mass unemployment, evic- tions, the cold-blooded murder of Negro work- ers who dare to demand unemployment relief, is the summons to the white workers to rally to the defense of the Negro masses in the fight against the inereased political reaction of the white bourgeoisie, The terror the Negro masses is part of the Hunger-War offensive of the imperialist bourgeoisie, directed against the entire working class. e The Scottsboro verdict comes upon the eve of the preparations of the American imperialists to plunge the Negro people and white workers into another world war (against the Soviet Union). All imperialist wars and. particularly a reactionary war of intervention against the So- viet Union, are against the interests of the work- ing masses and black and white workers, The Scottsboro case is the dramatic” focal point of the sharpening antagonisms between the Negro people and the American imperialists on the background of the present crisis and the developing class struggles. Therefore it must be understood that the op- | pression of the Negro people is a part of the development of the program of the capitalists and imperialists to pacify the Negro people by way of preparing the home’ front of the Amer- ican impetialists for a new war. The Southern capitalists and landlords, in their frantic attempts to crush the struggles of Negre people, will endeavor to carry through * directed against | unless the Negro people and the white workers throughout the world sound a thunderous pro- test and show a steely determination to smash the Southern slave drivers’ “democracy” and | force the robber scoundrels to give freedom to | the boys, The strength and power of the united working class, black and white, leading all of those who are ready to struggle for the elemen- tary democratic rights, forged together in iron ties of solidarity, determined to make the great- est sacrifice, resolved to fight. against ali obsta< cles, is the determining factor as to whether the nine boys shall be given their lives and lib- erty or whether they shall languish in the ‘black dungeons of capitalism or burn in the electric chair. The Negro reformists have revealed by their treacherous acts in the Scottsboro case that they are the social bulwarks of the imperialist Jim- Crow reaction among the Negro people. Their white liberal allies (Darrow type) are the fore- most defenders of the American lynchers. To every man, women and child, Negro and white, native and foreign born, who lives by the sweat of his brow, who is tired of the heavy yoke of boss oppression, who desires to fight | against the increasing terror against the Negro } people, we call upon you to rally together and ; build up a powerful united front mass defense ;} movement to continue the mass protest, to take the streets and demonstrate against the ruling | Officials, to show your mass anger and indigna- tion and declare that we, the exploited and op- pressed people of the world, will not tolerate see- ing the American hangmen exact their vengeance upon the Negro masses by snuffing out the lives of the seven innocent boys. The Scottsboro boys must not die because the powerful mass movement of the international working class, black and white, together with the Negro peoples of the world, will not allow the Southern executioners to shoot the death |-current into the bodies of the seven Scottsboro boys. This movement will force uncondi- | tional release for these victims of American cap- j italist rule. « May First must be the rallying point for all organizations, individuals and agitators to go before the American toiling masses, armed with the facts on this page, and draw them into the mighty mass defense movement. © EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE LIBERATOR. | | | { H the mass murder of the seven boys on May 13@ shooting a sheriff. The mob stopped - || suddenly, which indicated that he | was murdered. His body was thrown | into a river. | Charles Addison, Negro hotel | porter, of Helena, Ark., aroused from | hotel at 3 a, m., shot. and killeq by { white man. Murderer freed three ii hours later. it ' i Evidence brought out in report of ‘ity officials at Clearwater, Fla., ; show that bosses can hire lynchers |, and floggers at low prices. Raymond George, Negro worker, | sentenced to die in Newark, N. J.. | for defending himself against at- | tacks of- motorcycle police 1} June, 1931 Negro and white miners in Penn- sylvania and Ohio strike against | starvation and Jim Crow. Negro | miners have leading part in strike | committees. Attorneys hired by the Interna- | tional Labor Defense to defend Scottsboro boys, appear in Scotts- | boro to demand new trial and are | rushed by boss-incited mob or- | ganized by Roddy and the local | prosecutor. Judge Hawkins refuses to grant new trial in spite of con- elusive proof of innocence. N. A. A. C. P. officials denounce defense | committee for Scottsboro boys for | attacking the Alabama courts, and | ask Negro and white workers not to | protest legal lynchings, Mass meet- | ings in United States, demanding | release of boys continue. American | consulate in Dresden, Germany, | | stoned by workers protesting the Scottsboro frame-up. Thirty-two thousand workers of Putilov fac- tory, Moscow, protest frame-up, The campaign for boys sweeps the Soviet Union, July, 1931 July 9 is day of protest against | Scottsboro lynch verdict in hundreds of cities. Workers of Cuba meet to protest Scottsboro frame-up. Work- ers of Berlin, Germany, smash win- dows of American consulate as pro- etst. Camp Hill, Ala.—Negro {enant farmers organized into Croppers Union, demand continuation of food allowance and right to sell own crops. They are hunted by the big. white jiandowners. Ralph Gray, heroic Negro leader of the union, is killed in cold blood. August, 1931 Til.—Police _ acting Chicago, for (Cr vtinued on Page a)