REVIEW OF H L GATES BLACKS AND JEWS ON PBS ---PART 2

     A Jewish family certainly helped Louie Armstrong when he was young, and I understood, they bought him his first instrument,  An American Army band thay played jazz in Europe during WWI made a powerful impression, and more research might go into intellectuals' reaction to the new music, and that would include Jews.

     Some would contend that jazz began in the cat houses of the NO French Quarter, with musicians playing music to amuse customers and xxx.  Ragtime was popular, but with syncopation and other alterations a new name was required.  When residing in China a decade or so ago, I was surprised to see in a supermarket at the end of a counter a string of condoms; the brand Jiz Bon.  And was reminded of one of the early origins of the term jazz, and its early surroundings.  The American Black Army Band brought the new music to Europe during WWI, to immense popularity.  Also during that war, Pres. Wilson, to protect our young service men, cracked down on the cat houses (something locals would not do), which caused musicians to depart for Kansas, Memphis, Chicago, and New York.  And it was George Gershwin, a Jew, who brought the new music to classical halls.  From humble surroundings to the Stadts Oper in Berlin (where I saw Porgy and Bess).

     A pivotal point is omitted  in Chapter 2 of Gates' series.  For years now, if someone calls you a racist, especially in print, you had better defend yourself or be prepared to lose your job and your standing in most communities.  Yet, there is no law about being a racist.  When did this begin?  In spring 1931 when August Yokinen was brought up on charges of racism.  He was janitor to a Finnish social organization located in Harlem during one of the groups dances.  Two Blacks entered the hall, the band stopped, so did the dancing, and Mr. Yokinen told the two young men to leave.  Yokinen, a member of the Communist Party, USA, was brought up on charges, and a show trial in Harlem was prepared.  Well publicized, many Black newspapers covered the story and hundreds sat in for part of the trial.  Yokinen was not expelled, but had to make up for his racism before being fully restored to membership in the CP.  Meanwhile, US immigration realized that in joining the CP, Yokinenhe  had violated his oath not to try to overthrow the US government, and was deported to eastern Europe.  It was not American law that racism was a crime, but in time the communist policy became de facto law in America.

     Shortly after, the cause celebre of the decade.  Also spring 1931 on a freight train from Chattanooga south, a fight breaks out between young folk hoboing.  Some Blacks won and threw several white boys off the moving train.  They told the sheriff, and to stress their point, - some white girls remained on the train.  Authorities stopped the train, found the girls (or young women), and 9 Blacks.  The women said they were raped, the 9 Blacks quickly put on trial, and so began the Scottsboro Cases.  THE BIGGEST AMERICAN CASE OF THE 1930S.

     The NAACP, not especially interested in low-lifes that would tarnish the organization's reputation, put up a weak defense.  8 were given the death penalty, the 14-year-old got life.  Scottsboro, home of the trials, took pride that no one had been lynched.

     Then, a new kid intervenes, the International Labor Defense, a CP front group, promised to defend the boys, with a 2-pronged approach, excellent attorneys inside the court room, AND agitation, protest, mobilization of masses outside.  The ILD got intellectuals from Europe, including Einstein, Thomas Mann, Kathe Kollwitz, to protest the verdict, marches in Harlem, telegrams from South Africa, an Amerindian chief, Mme. Sun Yet Sen to denounce the Alabama verdict.  The Scottsboro newspaper ran a story that they might have to prepare for a Communist invasion from Chattanooga (presumably a Red center).  The ILD hired a top NY attorney, a non-Communist Jew Samuel Leibowitz to defend the boys.  He was a Democrat, but the other ILD attorneys may have been affiliated with other parties, but some of the were Jewish, too.  

     What were they facing in the 1930s?  Not what you think.  The Supreme Court was so conservative then that Dem. Pres. Franklin openly sought to pack the court with Dems like himself.  And what was that?  PBS had an excellent special on the battle in Wilmington, NC in 1898.  The election had been won by a fusion ticket of Populists and Republicans, and in the South Republican  meant Black.  The Democrats decided to do there what they had been doing ever since the end of the Civil War, certainly since the Republican promise to remove Yankee troops from the South after the disputed 1876 election.  One by one "civilization" was restored by the KKK and similar groups overthrowing black run communities.  By 1898 Wilmington was the last black domino standing, but white Democrats like Josephus Daniels led a physical rebellion, overthrowing the elected government, and ensuring white supremacy and the Democratic Party's Solid South.  When Dem. Woodrow Wilson is elected Pres. in 1912, he soon appoints Josephus Daniels as his Sec. of the Navy.  In some ways Daniels is progressive, opening promotions to ill-educated but intelligent poor whites.  My oncle, who finshed schooling at 5th grade learned on the job to become an engineer on ships.  Same time, Daniels closed the door to Blacks.  Pres. Wilson openly segregates the Civil Service, and  demanding photographs of applicants, and thus not hire Blacks.  As war in Europe looms, the navy grows in importance.  Daniels says America's greatest crime was allowing Blacks to vote.  And who is Undersecretary of the Navy under Daniels.  FDR.  And when FDR becomes President, he keeps the photo requirement, and retains segregation of the Civil Service, AND THE MILITARY.

    How could anyone, much less a Red ILD save the Scottsboro boys?  Their good Jewish attorneys made better arguments up the appeals process, until the US Supreme Court ruled that in a trial with a death penalty, the defense had to have a real legal defender.  A few years later, the ILD and others got another fantastic ruling from the conservative court, Blacks have to be in the pool of possible jurors.  These were possibly the first pro-civil rights rulings by the US Supreme Court since the early days of Reconstruction, and the CP had a hand in these victories.

     The Scottsboro Case was to the 1930s what the Scopes trial, Sacco/Vanzetti, and Loeb/Leopold were to the 1920s.  And the Communists led the way.

    Happily, time is spent on Paul Robeson, probably the best known Black in the world by 1940.  In Europe he made films for African showing (half the continent was British).  He befriended some of the extras in his movies, who were attending universities in Britain.  One was Johnston Kenyatta, and he and Robeson led the Scottsboro Defence organization in Britain.  After WWII, that student became better known back in Africa as Jomo Kenyatta, and led the way to an independent nation. But anti-colonialism for Robeson in the US made him an enemy of the statte.

      I had never heard of Cafe Society and its integrated threats to the un-American activities committees.  HOWEVER, Gates misses the big point - the 1948 election.

     Harry Truman was a typical racist before being elected Pres. AND after.  Only for a short time on the changed international stage did he try to be egalitarian.

     During WWII Hitler offered to let the British continue with their empire; Hitler was aiming eastward.  Indeed, Hitler admired how small Britain had conquered India and other places.  Churchill did not trust Hitler, and thought with American, and even Soviet help, Hitler would lose.  The big 3 was to meet in Potsdam, but FDR died and it was Churchill, Truman, and Stalin.  Soon while meeting still ongoing, Churchill loses the Parliamentary elections to Labour.  Clement Atlee to be the new PM of Britain, and he wants to allow greater India to become independent.  In 1947, with millions dead in disputes of borders, India and Pakistan become independent nations.  Anti-colonialsm, a demand of the communists since the early 1920s, is a new problem to be faced by any American President.  If there are African embassys in Washington, DC, what happens when grand hotels reject their guests, or restaurants request that they go to the back door? 

     Gates discusses Cafe Society in NYC, the first integrated club where notable Blacks were closed to the CP orbit, and they would be called to testify before HUAC, the House Committee on Un-American Activities.  People who took the 5th Amendment, often lost jobs and a place in society.  HUAC helped destroy the Cafe Society and the lives of others round the nation, some of whom were indeed members of the CPUSA.

     Harold Cruse was quite critical of the many Black intellectuals who were in the orbit of the CP.   According to GoogleAI "He was famously critical of Marxism and the American Left, arguing that these ideologies failed to account for the unique "American" character of racism. He particularly targeted Jewish intellectuals in the Communist Party, claiming they had misdirected Black radical energy."  Some of the phrases he used against a Jewish Communist writer of Black history, Herbert Aptheker, made Cruse seem like Dr. Goebels.  Indeed, the issue of Black Fascism is never really mentioned on PBS.  Marcus Garvey, leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Assn. declared "we were the first fascists."  In the early 1960s, Black Muslims invidted as special guests to major BM gatherings members of the American Nazi party in their uniforms with swastika armbands.  Malcolm X spoke directly to the Nazi leader in pleasantries so the mass audience could hear.  Often whites in cartoons in Mohammad Speaks had a hooked nose. showing the evils of integration were pushed by Jews.

     One more thing, a most important one.Time to forget the Dem. propaganda of Truman as the great civil rights President.  1948 was the civil rights movement before the later more successful one.  It centered round the run for the Presidency of a former VP under FDR.  Henry Wallace was VP of the USA from Jan 1941 to Jan. 1945.  Had Franklin Roosevelt died a few months earlier, Wallace would have become Pres. of the USA.  Roosevelt, at the Dem. convention in 1944 had decided to dump Wallace in favor of Truman, and so Truman became Pres. in spring 1945 upon the death of Roosevelt.

     Truman had to learn quickly, about A bombs, the new Labour govt. in Britain, Stalin and his armies in eastern Europe, AND how he might win an election in 1948.  Happily for Truman, he had Clark Clifford, an excellent political strategist, who would recast the mild racist Truman into a civil rights leader, the first President to address the NAACP.  Anti-colonialism was becoming a reality; in 1947 both India and Pakistan became independent.  What happens when an African embassy opens in segregated Washington, DC?  1948 seemed like a shoe in for Republican Tom Dewey, who supported the first civil rights law to be enacted by a state.  Many Southern Dems disliked the trend and bolted from the Truman party to establish the Dixiecrats.  Other Dems bolted from Truman to for the Henry Wallace Progressive Party, which was endorsed by the CP and its friendly trade unions.  I contend, the Wallace campaign in the South was THE civil rights movement of that decade.  Robeson was a leader of the PP.  Dem. Sen Sen. Glen Taylor of Idaho became the VP candidate.  When he went to Birmingham to address the Southern Nego Youth Congress, Police Chief Bull Conner had him arrested for entering the Black entrance to the building.  Neither Robeson, nor Wallace, nor Sen. Glen Taylor, the singing cowboy would appear before segregated audiences.  Many of their meetings had to be in the open, and former VP Wallace was the target of rotten eggs, tomatoes, etc.  There were a few stabbings.  Unlike the later CR movement, tv was too new to have an impact on seeing racism in action.  Truman dismissed the problems as due to Wallace and his communists trying to stir up trouble.  (After he was no longer Pres., Truman said if any sit-in came to his store, he would throw them out.  He also said the Civil War was caused by busy bodies in New England, i.e., the Abolitionists were the cause of the war, not slavery).  But when W E B Du Bois endorse Wallace, not Truman, Du Bois was fired by the NAACP, an organization he helped found.  Truman later had him arrested as a foreign agent.  After Truman's victory, in Feb. 1949, in the NO French Quarter some 60 people were arrested for attending a Progressive Party social that was violating the segregation laws of the state.

     But in 1950 in Washington DC and Baltimore, led my the elderly Black leader Mary Church Terrell, but also including a 4-year old Carl Bernstein, whose mom was a leader of the PP (he would gain fame later as a reporter in the Watergate scandal), they were engaged in a new tactic called sit-downs in restaurants.  These are forgotten,  Too soon. A decade later they will help change America.

EXTRA - I watched the H L Gates series on Blacks and Jews, Parts 3 and 4 on Tuesday night on my local PBS station.  I will review them both, but  in one review.  Extra busy at moment, so I will post it in a few days.  HM

FROM ANTHONY G FLOOD'S WEBSITE

 A few days ago National Public Radio's Morning Edition had a segment to remind listeners of the centennial of the birth of Malcolm Little, who became Malcolm X;  I spoke with Mr. Flood soon after on other topics, mentioned the NPR report, and complained to Flood, that as usual, the liberal radio network did not mention an important aspect of Malcolm's critique of the civil rights movement.  Mr. Flood then composed an addition to his website for the following day.  I have copied part of his site and placed it on my own blog today.  It is below -  I copied only one of the 2 letters for my blog.

Marking Malcolm X’s centennial: Hugh Murray’s probing letters from the 1990s.

I missed it by a day (sorry!). The centennial of the birth of Malcolm X and 60 years since his assassination (a few months after his Queens home was firebombed a few miles from me) warrant swiping from my old site two letters that my friend Hugh Murray got published in 1994 and 1995. Without further ado:

 

 

What about the Nation of Islam’s Historical Ties to Fascism?

The New York Times, February 23, 1994

It was widely reported when Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, suspended Khalid Abdul Muhammad, who told an audience at Kean College of New Jersey that Jews are bloodsuckers, gays are sissies, and the Pope is a cracker.

Mr. Farrakhan rebuked the manner in which Mr. Muhammad delivered his message, but Mr. Farrakhan reaffirmed the “truths” of that message! Reporters speculate if this is a repudiation of bigotry or not.  But they are silent about the history of the Nation of Islam on these subjects.

American Nazi Party Commander George Lincoln Rockwell (center) at a Nation of Islam (NOI) rally, Uline Arena, Washington, DC, June 25, 1961. During the collection, he shouted: “George Lincoln Rockwell gives $20!” (almost $135 in today’s money). Malcolm X, noting the applause, asked him: “George Lincoln Rockwell, you got the biggest hand you ever got, didn’t you?” Elijah Muhammad, NOI founder, invited Rockwell to speak at their next Savior’s Day Convention, which he did on Sunday, February 25, 1962, before 12,175 people in Chicago’s International Amphitheater. (Muhammad Speaks, April 1962, p. 3.) At the podium, in full Nazi regalia, Rockwell opined “that Elijah Muhammad is to the so-called Negro what Adolph Hitler is to the German people. He is the most powerful black man in the country. Heil Hitler!” (Black History and the Class Struggle, Spartacist League, August 1994, p. 37.)

In the early 1960’s, at a large gathering of the Nation of Islam, the featured speaker was Elijah Muhammad, its leader.  But the speaker just before him, addressing Elijah Muhammad’s followers, was George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party.1

In the early 1960’s Malcolm X, as a Nation of Islam spokesman, mocked the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement.  At the height of civil rights protest Malcolm traveled to the South, not to partake in civil rights protest, but to negotiate with leaders of the Ku Klux Klan on how to thwart the struggle for civil rights.  This scene is omitted from Spike Lee’s film and from the recent PBS documentary on Malcolm X.

And in the 1920’s, even before the founding of the Nation of Islam, Marcus Garvey led the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which became America’s largest black nationalist organization.  The association created the Black Cross Nurses, the African Legion, the Knights of the Nile and established the Black Star Steamship Line.  Though black liberals and socialists like A. Philip Randolph and W. E. B. Du Bois bitterly opposed Garvey, Garvey found other associates—the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan.

Garvey and Klansmen met and shook hands in the 1920’s.  Eventually, Garvey was deported and lived in Britain, where he supported the Conservative Party and hoped Britain would transfer some of its African colonies to him.  Garvey also admired some European leaders, like Mussolini.  Garvey even reminded his followers, “We were the first Fascists.”2

Thus, the problem is not a single speech by Khalid Muhammad.  Behind much of black nationalism and the Nation of Islam lurks the idea of fascism.  And black fascism, like white fascism, is still fascism.

When Jesse Jackson and the Congressional Black Caucus attempt to embrace Louis Farrakhan, they are seeking an alliance with a tradition of fascism.

Notes

1 See William H. Schmaltz’s When George Lincoln Rockwell, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X Shared the Same Stage and Rockwell’s own account.—A.G.F.

2 For the source of this quote, see the third reference note to Hugh Murray, “From the Communist Party to Affirmative Action.”—A.G.F

Hugh Murray, Milwaukee

PS--- Kanye is not the first

In January 1965 Malcolm was the featured speaker at the Militant Labor Forum in NYC.  In Feb. 1965 Malcolm was shot dead.  In August 1966 I was the featured speaker at the Militant Labor Forum in NYC.  Happily, I have not been shot. 

CRITICAL RACE THEORY: A RACIST IDEA TO OPPRESS WHITES

 Critical Race Theory contends that Blacks cannot be racists, by definition.  History indicates that not only can they be racists, they can be fascists.  I shall add more to this post soon.

Anthony G. Flood, "From Garvey to Farrakhan"

On August 13, 1920 Marcus Garvey presided at the convention of the United Negro Improvement Association held at Madison Square Garden in New York City. There he promulgated the Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World. Its 54 points comprise the farthest thing from a fascist manifesto.

And yet, as my friend Hugh Murray noted a quarter-century ago, Garvey “admired . . . leading anti-communists, such as Mussolini. Indeed, in 1937 Garvey proudly proclaimed of his Universal Negro Improvement Association, ‘We were the first fascists.’[1]

Here’s the full quote:

We were the first Fascists, when we had 100,000 disciplined men, and were training children, Mussolini was still an unknown. Mussolini copied our Fascism.[2]

He said this in 1937, after Mussolini consolidated his rape of Ethiopia.

While many liberals [Murray continues] are the first to hurl the word “fascist” at those with whom they disagree, they usually ignore the fascism of blacks, even when publicly advocated.[3]

A few years after Hugh wrote those words, King’s College Professor of American and English Literature Paul Gilroy came out with “Black Fascism” (Transition, Indiana UPress, 2000, 70-91), a scholarly monograph on Garvey’s boast, the first instance of Black public advocacy of fascism. I recommend it to students of this overlooked chapter of Black American history.

George Lincoln Rockwell, center

On June 25, 1961 American Nazi Party Commander George Lincoln Rockwell sat in the Uline Arena, Washington, DC (where the Beatles would give their first US concert a few years later). He was there at the invitation of Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Elijah Muhammad. Thousands were in attendance. During the collection, Rockwell shouted:

George Lincoln Rockwell gives $20!

That’s about $135 in today’s money. Malcolm X, noting the applause, asked him:

George Lincoln Rockwell, you got the biggest hand you ever got, didn’t you? [4]

This wasn’t a one-off: Muhammad invited Rockwell to speak at their next Saviour’s Day Convention, which he did on Sunday, February 25, 1962, before 12,175 people in Chicago’s International Amphitheater.

At the podium, in full Nazi regalia, Rockwell adjudged “that Elijah Muhammad is to the so-called Negro what Adolph Hitler is to the German people. He is the most powerful black man in the country.  Heil Hitler!” [5]

Louis Farrakhan, NOI’s current Führer, has not only not repudiated his outfit’s past overtures to American Nazis, but has only reinforced his image as a Black National Socialist. Of course, there isn’t an American Nazi Party worth its salt to invite to a Saviours’ Day commemoration. (Farrakhan pluralized “Saviour” in 1983.) Instead he enjoys the admiration of Black Muslim members of Congress who share his anti-Jewish Weltanschauung and can promote it on a platform wider than the Uline Arena.

Whereas Farrakhan recently joked that he’s not an anti-Semite (only “anti-termite“) it’s the considered view of Ilhan Omar (D-MN) that “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” When, under pressure from the Democratic leadership, she apologized, Farrakhan gently chided her:

Ms. Omar from Somalia—she started talking about ‘the Benjamins’ and they are trying to make her apologize. Sweetheart, don’t do that. Pardon me for calling you sweetheart, but you do have a sweet heart. You sure are using it to shake the government up, but you have nothing to apologize for. . . . Israel and AIPAC pays off senators and congressmen to do their bidding, so you’re not lying, so if you’re not lying. Stop laying down. You were sent there by the people to shake up that corrupt House.

Another Muslim congressional newbie, a 2006 guest columnist for NOI’s The Final Call, is Rashida “Impeach the motherf—–” Tlaib (D-MN). She wants the US to cut off aid to Israel because such aid “doesn’t fit the values of our country,” which “values” apparently include using an obscenity to refer to our country’s president. In front of her child.

Addressing both women, the Minister reminded his “beautiful sisters” that they “were sent there to shake that House up. Your people voted you in, but God is the overseer.”

Then-Senator Obama with Farrakhan and members of the Congressional Black Caucus, 2005

America’s most notable Black Muslims, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, fell out with the NOI: Malcolm in 1964, Ali in 1975.[6] Farrakhan, perhaps the lone survivor of that generation, remains Farrakhan. His 1984 description of “Adolf Hitler [as] a very great man” didn’t socially restrict him from appearing in a photo op with one president or sharing the stage with another.

He was almost certainly at those “ecumenical” NOI events in 1961 and 1962. I would appreciate hearing from any reader who can eliminate the “almost.”

Farrakhan, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Bill Clinton, funeral service for Aretha Franklin, Greater Grace Temple, Detroit, MI, Aug. 31, 2018

[1] See J. A. Rogers, World’s Great Men of Color (New York: J. A. Rogers, 1947), Vol. II, pp. 602, 605.”

[2] 1937 interview reported by Joel A. Rogers, “Marcus Garvey,” in Negroes of New York series, New York Writers Program, 1939, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York. This remark seems to have been dropped from later editions of Rogers’s book.

[3] See Murray’s “White Liberals, Black Racists,” in Chronicles (August, 1994), pp. 43-46.

[4] Muhammad Speaks, April 1962, p. 3.

[5] See Black History and the Class Struggle, Spartacist League, August 1994, p. 37. Those interested in researching this fascinating (if also disturbing) chapter of American history should start with William H. Schmaltz, Hate: George Lincoln Rockwell & the American Nazi Party, Washington,DC: Brassey’s, 1999. For the June 25, 1961 event, see Chapter 6, “1961: This Time the World,” 119-21; for February 25, 1962, see Chapter 7, “1962: A World Union of National Socialists,” 133-35. I’ve posted the text of these chapters here. See also Tristan Hopper, “The weird time Nazis made common cause with black nationalists,” National Post, August 24, 2017. Also useful is Mark Jones, “Malcolm X’s Unlikely Washington Connections,” Boundary Stones, February 21, 2015.  The most comprehensive article I’ve seen is Sam McPheeters, “When Malcolm X Met the Nazis,” Vice, April 15, 2015. See also Hugh Murray’s 1994 letter to The New York Times and 1995 letter to The Chronicles of Higher Education. You can read them here.

[6] It probably got Malcolm killed. After he had called out Elijah Muhammad for serially impregnating his underage secretaries, Farrakhan (then “Louis X”) announced that “such a man is worthy of death.” He later regretted that his words may have led to Malcolm’s murder on February 25, 1965—two months after he uttered them.