Here's Where It Gets Interesting - 153. Momentum: The Ripples Made by Ordinary People, Part 8

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

On today’s episode of Momentum, Sharon talks about America’s push to eradicate communists during the Red Scare and Korean War. Many people working toward the goal of civil rights and liberties shared links to the Communist Party, like William Patterson and Paul Robeson. In 1951, Patterson submitted a 237-page petition to the United Nations, called We Charge Genocide. After Patterson and Robeson presented their petition, the U.S. retaliated by seizing their passports, smearing their public image, and labeling the Civil Rights Commission as a communist-front organization. Because of the country’s persecution of subversives and communists, the NAACP leaders were interested in assisting J Edgar Hoover in rooting out any “bad players” in the organization in order to protect it. In fact, Thurgood Marshall, who knew he was being spied on by Hoover, often acted as an FBI informant. He knew both the costs and benefits of cooperating. Do you think this was an effective strategy to distance the NAACP from the communist party? What about the organization’s push to rebrand themselves as an American organization? What exactly did Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King Jr. disagree about? Sharon reveals the source of their strife next time! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome. Welcome to Episode 8 of Momentum, our special series in which we are highlighting ordinary Americans who made an extraordinary difference in the struggle for freedom during the Civil Rights era. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. In the last episode, I mentioned the letter sent by a man named William Patterson to Walter White, who was the secretary of the NAACP. The letter congratulated Walter White and Thurgood Marshall on their success in front of the Supreme Court in winning Brown versus the Board of Education. Patterson was also working to secure the civil rights of all Americans, but in a different way than the NAACP, a way that often put him at odds with the leadership of the National Association for

the Advancement of Colored Persons. William Patterson was born in the 1800s and he became an attorney. He eventually went to England where he was introduced to the editor and publisher of the London Daily Times, which was the newspaper of the British Labour Party. The British Labour Party has a historical link with labour unions and advocating for workers' rights. And so after William Patterson returned to the United States in the 1920s, he opened a law practice that specialized in civil rights issues. It was during this time period that Patterson joined the Communist Party. And he eventually became the head of the International Labor Defense, or ILD, which was an organization that advocated for the legal rights of members of the Communist Party. I think it's important to note the fact that people participating in the communist movement in

the early part of the 20th century were also strong advocates of civil rights. But during the 1950s, when the Red Scare was at its prime, the United States government was trying to purge itself of communism. It was fighting the Korean War, which was largely about communism. And most Americans viewed communism in a highly unfavorable light. And this caused a particular challenge within the civil rights movement. During the 1950s, the International Labor Defense evolved into another organization called the Civil Rights Congress. And the CRC began representing high-profile civil rights cases and African Americans who had been wrongly convicted of criminal acts. William Patterson did something unheard of in 1951. He submitted a petition to the United Nations. The petition was called We Charge Genocide,

the crime of government against the Negro people. Now, after World War II, the United Nations adopted a resolution against genocide because, of course, during World War II, Hitler was focused on creating a genocide largely against the Jewish people, but also against other nationalities and groups. This petition that William Patterson created was signed by almost 100 United States intellectuals and activists. One of his partners in constructing this 237-page document, which you can actually still go on to a site like Amazon and purchase a copy of, was a man named Paul Robeson. Paul Robeson had made a name for himself as a stage actor. He had major roles in shows like Showboat in London. He was previously a lawyer by trade as well and also became active in the Communist Party and the Civil Rights Movement.

This document, We Charge Genocide, said that in the 85 years since the end of slavery, more than 10,000 African Americans were known to have been lynched. And the full number can never be known because the murders are often unreported. The document said, are often unreported. The document said, quote, the oppressed Negro citizens of the United States, segregated, discriminated against, and long the target of violence, suffer from genocide as the result of the consistent, conscious, unified policies of every branch of government, end quote. And this document received little attention in corporate media inside the United States, and it didn't receive any formal discussions by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Instead, J. Edgar Hoover labeled the Civil Rights Commission a communist front organization. And this document, We Charge Genocide, was labeled communist propaganda. In places like Europe and Africa

and Asia, where the United States was competing against the Soviet Union and China for political influence, this document made America look bad. It weakened America's leader of the free world claims. It diminished its assertion of moral leadership on the world stage. As a result, Patterson and Robeson had their passports revoked and were unable to travel outside the country after that. They both believed they were targeted and harassed by the FBI for their communist beliefs. For example, Robeson had his recordings and films removed from public distribution when he refused to sign an affidavit, a legal document saying that he wasn't a communist. His concerts were canceled, including a performance on Eleanor Roosevelt's TV program. And the official magazine of the NAACP wrote an article denouncing them and the Communist Party. J. Edgar Hoover arranged to have that article printed and distributed in many places in Africa in order to damage the reputations

of Patterson and Robeson and to reduce their popularity and also to reduce the popularity of communism in developing countries. Remember, the United States believed that it was in a global effort to beat back the forces of communism. The United States believed that communism was evil and that it needed to be combated everywhere that it crept up. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests and lots of laughs. Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions

and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. your podcasts. One of the American United Nations delegates criticized William Patterson for attacking his own government with this document. And he replied, it's your government. It's my country. I am fighting to save my country's democratic principles. And when the IRS demanded that William Patterson hand over a list of donors' names and identifying information, he refused. And he was put in jail right around the time that the Brown v. Board of Education opinion was released.

William Patterson wrote a letter to his daughter, Mary Lou, from jail while he was released. William Patterson wrote a letter to his daughter Mary Lou from jail while he was there. And the letter said, the men who own the land and the railroads and oil wells and steel mills want to own the people as well. But there are people who truly fight for better things. Those people gave money to the organization Daddy Leads, and the men who run the courts wanted to know the name of those who support this fight. Daddy did not give their names, for they would have had those good people kicked out of their jobs and maybe jailed. Cold War, which was in large part America's ideological war against communism, put a tremendous amount of pressure on the civil rights movement. Factions within the NAACP began to grow. One faction led by Thurgood Marshall and others like the more left-leaning communist faction led by people like Paul Robeson and William Patterson. And because

the United States was so fervently anti-communist, the NAACP worried that associating with communists, even if they shared the same goal of civil rights, would spell doom for their organization. In fact, a law passed in the early 1950s by Congress called the McCarran Act specifically targeted communists and communist organizations. If you have ever flown into Las Vegas, perhaps you have visited the airport there. It's called McCarran Airport. It is named after the senator who sponsored this bill. The McCarran Act has three main parts. It created something called a Subversive Activities Control Board, which said that if the attorney general determined that an organization was communist, it would have to register with the Justice Department and submit information about its membership and finances and activities. That is exactly what William Patterson refused to comply with.

refuse to comply with. The second thing the McCarran Act did was make it a felony to take any steps that might contribute to the establishment of a totalitarian dictatorship in the United States. And lastly, it authorized the president in an emergency to arrest and detain people who might be engaged in espionage or sabotage. And remember I told you in a previous episode that an emergency actually was declared by the government during the Korean War. This made leadership of the NAACP, like Thurgood Marshall and Walter White, very concerned. And they were eager to assist J. Edgar Hoover in purging communists from their ranks. You see, Thurgood Marshall knew that he was being spied on by the FBI, and he decided to tolerate being spied on so that he could try to protect the NAACP. In order to gain this protection, Marshall began acting as an FBI informant. And he later said of J. Edgar

Hoover, he was convinced I was responsible for rooting the commies out of the NAACP. And I did. The full extent of Marshall's cooperation with the FBI was not revealed until the 1990s, when the FBI released 1,300 pages of documents detailing their relationship during the 1950s. Thurgood Marshall knew what was being said about him and the NAACP behind closed doors, and sometimes in front of closed doors. A public speech given by the Attorney General of Georgia compared the Communist Party with the objectives of the NAACP directly. This is part of the text of his speech. He said, persons of different races, abolition of all laws and public administration measures which prohibit or in practice prevent Negro children from attending general public schools or universities, full and equal admittance of Negroes to all waiting rooms, restaurants, hotels, and theaters.

He went on to say those are the identical demands being made by the NAACP. He said, on the basis of the evidence now in hand, a minute portion of which I have related to you this afternoon, no other conclusion can be drawn but that the NAACP is being used as a front and tool by subversive elements in this country. as a front and tool by subversive elements in this country. Either knowingly or unwittingly, it has allowed itself to become part and parcel of the communist conspiracy to overthrow the democratic governments of this nation and its sovereign states. Through its activities, the NAACP is fomenting strife and discord between the white and Negro races in the South, and is disrupting relations between these races, which heretofore have been, and at present are, harmonious and friendly in every respect. And one of the things I think is very interesting about this speech is that he accuses the NAACP of creating strife and division. He accuses it of being too similar to the Communist Party. And so the only conclusion one can draw is that it is a front for a communist organization that is trying to overthrow democracy. You can see many of these same themes being echoed in

the United States today, where one political party accuses the other of being divisive. One political party claims that the other is a front for some kind of larger conspiracy to do one thing or another. These are not new themes in the United States. These are not new themes amongst opposing groups. In fact, they are many, many decades old. So one of the things that became very common during this time is if you disagreed with somebody's views on desegregation, you would just accuse them of being communist. And because there was so much anti-communist sentiment in the United States, that was a little bit like a death knell. States that was a little bit like a death knell. It was nail in your coffin. If they could demonstrate that you had the same ideas as a communist, even if you had never belonged to the Communist Party, in many ways you were done for. You were done for when it came to perhaps

your career or public service. And so the NAACP began to purge members of the Communist Party from its ranks. It created a pamphlet called NAACP, an American organization, and had an American flag on the front. And it had the Pledge of Allegiance on the inside front cover. And the pamphlet said, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is an American organization. Its philosophy, its program, and its goals derive from the nation's hallowed democratic traditions. The association, as the record plainly shows, has won many battles in the long struggle for first-class citizenship for Negro Americans. These successes have aroused the anger of those who believe in the Jim Crow way of life. And in recent years, the defenders of this lost cause have sought to smear the NAACP

by falsely linking it with the Communist Party. The more reckless white supremacy spokesmen have openly charged that the NAACP is communist-dominated and is listed as subversive. The more cautious have tried to convict the NAACP of guilt by association, claiming that certain officers and members have at one time or another been affiliated with organizations subsequently listed as subversive. To be clear, Thurgood Marshall himself was a very anti-communist. He was very patriotic. And this quest to eliminate communists from the NAACP remains controversial to this day. Some people feel like everyone working for the same goal of equality of all people should be welcome. Other people feel like it was the right tactic at the right time.

feel like it was the right tactic at the right time. He had no choice but to try to make sure that people viewed the NAACP as nothing but American. This pamphlet that I mentioned has a list of other things that talks about its beliefs. It says the NAACP is not and has never been listed as subversive by any federal official or agency. Subversive in this context meant that it was working to subvert or destroy the dominant paradigm of a free democracy in the United States. It goes on to say the NAACP is not now and never has been in any measure dominated by the Communist Party. It says it was established and its basic anti-segregation program formulated before the Communist Party of the United States was organized. The bottom line is that Thurgood Marshall and Walter White rejected people like Paul Robeson and William Patterson from their ranks because in part they didn't believe in communism themselves and because in part they feared what would happen to their organization if it was viewed as communist. And so in an effort to avert the gaze of the FBI and to protect the organization and the work that the NAACP was doing, Thurgood Marshall began to secretly give information to J. Edgar Hoover

about who was actually a communist, what kind of moves they were planning. He started giving the FBI information about plans that people were making. This relationship later went in a very different direction. As Thurgood Marshall's career grew, different direction. As Thurgood Marshall's career grew, he gained access to new information about exactly what the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover had been up to, the lengths that J. Edgar Hoover went to to harm the civil rights movement, in particular, Martin Luther King. He became disgusted and he stopped cooperating with them. Thurgood Marshall was also at odds with somebody else, a minister whose name you've likely heard of, Martin Luther King Jr. I'll see you next time. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon

Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast, or maybe leave me a rating or review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. This podcast was written and researched by Sharon McMahon and Heather Jackson. It was produced by Heather Jackson, edited and mixed by our audio producer, Jenny Snyder, and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. I'll see you next time.