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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Politics - 23. Trends and Possibilities - 2. The Negro’s Party Allegiance
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Chapter 23. Trends and Possibilities 509
susceptible to radical propaganda. It is different in a revolutionary situation
when those groups might not only come to follow but actually constitute
the vanguard of an onslaught on society. But in peaceful, orderly develop-
ment they are apt to be conservative. Even for liberal reform movements
the poorest people have been the most difficult to organize. The trade union
movement, for instance, all over the world has had its first and most
faithful adherents in the higher strata of the working class. It has had to
push downward with difficulty and usually has not succeeded in organizing
the lower brackets before they were raised economically and culturally.’"*
The strong impact of church and religion in the Negro community should
not be forgotten.*^ This is, however, only one trait of Negro conservatism.
Negroes who care so much for society as to have any general political
opinions at all are intent upon ^^respectability” in a middle class sense.
Communism is definitely not respectable in America generally or among
Negroes specifically. The unpopularity of Communism in America
—
often reaching the pitch of actual persecution of the Communist party and
its adherents—must, furthermore, be uninviting to a group like the Ameri-
can Negroes who know so well that they are unpopular already. As one
Negro explained, ‘^It is bad enough being black without being black and
red.” James Weldon Johnson makes this point:
In the situation as it now exists, it would be positively foolhardy for us, as a
group, to take up the cause of Communistic revolution and thereby bring upon
ourselves all of the antagonisms that are directed against it in addition to those we
already have to bear. It seems to me that the wholesale allegiance of the Negro to
Communistic revolution would be second in futility only to his individual resort to
physical force.®
and again:
. . . there is no apparent possibility that a sufficient number of Negro Americans can
be won over to give the party the desired strength; and if the entire mass were won
over, the increased proscriptions against Negroes would outweigh any advantages
that might be gained. Every Negro’s dark face would be his party badge, and would
leave him an open and often solitary prey to the pack whenever the hunt might be
on. And the sign of the times is that the hunt is not yet to be abandoned.®
The strong ^ffiorse sense” of this argument does not need logical demon-
stration. It is a foregone conclusion to even the most politically ill-equipped
American Negro. Deep in the Negro mind is also a suspicion against the
social evangelism of his white Communist friends. ^^Even after a revolu-
tion the country will be full of crackers” is a reflection I have often met
when discussing Communism in the Negro community.
If the United States goes Communistic, where will the Communists come
from? They certainly will not be imported from Russia. They will be made from
the Americans here on hand. We might well pause and consider what variations
Communism in the United States might undergo.*^
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