INFORMATION to USERS This Manuscript Has Been Reproduced from the Microfilm Master. UMI Films the Text Directly Firom the Origin

INFORMATION TO USERS

This manuscript has been reproduced from themicrofilm master. UMI films the text directly firom the originalor copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer.

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction.

In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.

Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing ffom left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book.

Photogrtq}hs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for ai^r photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order.

UMI A Bell & Howell Information Com pany 300North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346USA 313.'76l-4700 800/521-0600

EYES OFF THE PRIZE; AFRICAN-AMERICANS, THE UNITED NATIONS, AND THE STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, 1944-1952

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Carol Elaine Anderson, B.A., M.A,

*****

The Ohio State University 1995

Dissertation Committee: Approved by

Michael J. Hogan Peter L. Hahn Marshall F. Stevenson, Jr. ,Advise; Department of History UMI Number : 9544513

Copyright 1995 by Anderson, Carol Elaine All rights reserved.

DMI Microform 9544513 Copyright 1995, by OHI Company. All rights reserved.

This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Carol Elaine Anderson 1995 To My Parents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This dissertation is a testament of faith and unyielding support. For making it possible to balance each of my lives, I thank Elaine H. Hairston and E. Garrison Walters. My deepest thanks to Yolanda Comedy for providing friendship, laughter, music, and the best accommodations in Washington, D C. I also thank Sandra Hoeflich and Wendy Merchant for being my bridge over troubled waters and Ann Heiss for showing me how history is done. I am thankful to the Graduate School of The Ohio State University and the Committee on Institutional Cooperation for generous research grants. I am also honored to have the best adviser imaginable. Thank you Michael J. Hogan for your wisdom, unwavering support, incisive mind, and great sense of humor. I also thank my dissertation committee members, Peter L. Hahn, and Marshall F. Stevenson, Jr., for your advice and excellent comments. Ultimately, this dissertation is a tribute to my family. To my wonderful sons, Aaron and Drew, who helped me keep it all in perspective. To my brothers, Earl, David, and Wendell, who knew I could do it. To my mother, Beth, who cared lovingly for me and my children during my long nights of researching and writing. And to my father, George K.P. Anderson, who died shortly before I completed the dissertation. I love you.

Ill VITA

17 June 1959...... Born - Fort Meade, Maryland 1981...... B.A., Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 198 1...... B.A., Miami University, Oxford, Ohio

198 2...... M.A., Miami University Oxford, Ohio 1982-85...... Administrator, United Service Company Columbus, Ohio 1985-Present...... Administrator/ Director/ AssociateVice Chancellor, Ohio Board of Regents Columbus, Ohio

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field; History

Studies in American Diplomatic History Modern American History European Diplomatic History

IV TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION...... ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... iii

VITA...... iv

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN QUEST FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE EARLY COLD WAR PERIOD: AN OVERVIEW 1

II. AN UNPRECEDENTED OPPORTUNITY: THE FOUNDING OF THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE EMERGENCE OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN INTERNATIONALISM...... 14

III. THE STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: AFRICAN- AMERICANS PETITION THE UNITED NATIONS...... 55

IV. THE DECLINING SIGNIFICANCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS: ANTI-COMMUNISM, THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1948, AND THE DISINTEGRATION OF AFRICAN- AMERICAN UNITY ...... 105

V. AMERICAN NEGRO VS. RED NEGRO: THE DISAPPEARANCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS FROM THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN AGENDA FOR EQUALITY...... 153

VI. CONCLUSION...... 183

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 192 CHAPTER I

The African-American Quest for Human Rights in the Early Cold War: An Overview

M y soul looks back, less 1 forget'

The Civil Rights Movement collapsed because African-American leaders overemphasized political rights and neglected the black community's substantial economic needs/ Scholars of the Civil Rights Movement have overlooked the fact, however, that this fateful strategy was formulated well before the 1960's, and is one of the most tragic legacies of the Cold War. Black leaders' abandonment of economic rights reaches back to the early postwar period when African-American leaders retreated from global human rights to national civil rights; from a broad prescription for black equality to a narrow definition of black success.

For the most part, historians have ignored the impact of the Cold War on African-

Americans, or the role that African-Americans played in shaping the foreign policy of the

United States. Elaine Tyler May's work, for example, focuses on the "nuclear family in the nuclear age," but it is clear that her Cold War family does not include African-Americans.

Instead, May is concerned with the way that the Cold War reimposed traditional gender roles on white men and women.^ Similarly, Paul Boyer's study is concerned with white

1 2

America's troubled adjustment to the threat of atomic annihilation. Only in the most tangential ways does he deal with the lives of African-Americans.'* Diplomatic historians, on the other hand, have not completely igrcred the issue of race, although most of their work on this issue deals with the effect of America's racial views on the prosecution of the war against Japan, or with U.S. policies toward particular countries or regions, such as

China, the Caribbean, and Africa.^ Needed, as Melvyn P. Leffler has declared, is a better understanding of the "consequences of [U.S. foreign policy]. . .at home." This dissertation answers Leffler's call. It explores the impact of the Cold War on the development of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, as well as the efforts of

African-Americans to influence the shape of U.S. foreign policy.

Much of the literature on the Civil Rights Movement begins in 1955 in

Montgomery, Alabama and ends with Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death in 1968. Only a few historians have looked for antecedents to the Civil Rights Movement in the pre-King era.

Richard M. Dalfiume focused his attention on the critical period between 1939 and 1945, when African-Americans vigorously challenged the racial status quo, and demanded that the United States live up to its vaunted war aims. "What an opportunity the crisis has been," declared an editorial in \hQ Pittsburgh Courier, "for one to persuade, embarrass, compel and shame our government and our nation. . .into a more enlightened attitude toward a tenth of its people."^ World War 11 was indeed a "watershed," but Dalfiume's study stops at the end of the Second World War and does not follow the trail of African-

Americans into the immediate postwar period. 3

James L. Roark, relying solely upon secondary sources, explored this troubled time. He accurately depicted the early internationalist vision of the African-American leadership. He also noted how quickly global awareness reverted back to a domestic- centered agenda. Roark identified the Cold War as the major culprit responsible for the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's (NAACP) retreat to domesticity. He is less successful, however, in describing the motivations of the black

Left and is silent about the consequences that resulted from the fateful choices made by

African-American leaders during this period.® Even Mary L. Dudziak's pathbreaking study does not grapple with the African-American retreat from human rights. She is more concerned with the Truman Administration's legal efforts to end Jim Crow, handle

America's embarrassing "Negro problem," and thus silence Soviet taunts about America's flawed democracy.^

As Dudziak and Roark demonstrate, however, the Cold War was critical in the development of the Civil Rights Movement. Steven F. Lawson suggests that the Cold

War's role may be even more pronounced than originally anticipated simply because of the

"silences imposed by anticommunist crusaders," which have distorted the historiography of the Civil Rights Movement.*® Gerald Horne seeks to fill this void with his works on

W.E.B. Du Bois, the Civil Rights Congress, and Communist New York City Councilman

Benjamin J. Davis. Although each of these works is crucial for bringing to the fore the efforts of the African-American Left in the early Cold War period, each is also marred by an unbalanced presentation that glorifies the Left and vilifies the NAACP and other non­ leftist organizations.** 4

This dissertation, on the other hand, contends that both the NAACP and the

African-American Left were equally responsible for abandoning the goal of true black equality. They became consumed by the Cold War. The Left exhausted itself fighting for

Communist issues while the NAACP retreated from an initial commitment to global human rights to a more narrow focus on civil rights in the United States.

Chapter Two therefore begins with African-Americans' vision of the postwar world and their belief that the United Nations could serve as an invaluable tool in implementing that vision. In 1945, African-American leaders — unified in purpose and led by W.E.B. Du Bois and the NAACP — contended that African-Americans' struggle for political and "economic democracy" was interwoven with the struggles of colonial peoples

— mostly people of color — to gain national independence from imperial rule. They believed that war was inevitable as long as the Great Powers clung to their empires and left 750 million "colored" people politically powerless and economically dependent. They also asserted that the justification used to deny the rights of African-Americans — that they were unqualified for the responsibilities inherent in citizenship — was the same excuse used to deny people of color throughout the world the right to run their own governments.

The African-American leadership thus seized upon the proposed United Nations as an instrument to break this destructive pattern of power politics and "capitalistic exploitation." The primacy of the UN in the leadership's plans meant that the organization had to be designed with the power to end colonialism and enforce human rights. Du Bois and the NAACP therefore openly criticized the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, the Allies' plans for the overall structure for the United Nations. In those proposals, the Big Three 5

(the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union) basically ignored the fundamental issues of decolonization and human rights. The Allies' proposals placed only three percent of colonial peoples under the aegis of the United Nations; set no time frame for colonial independence; put decision-making authority solely in the hands of the imperial powers; and denied colonies the right to petition the UN or be heard before the International Court of Justice. In effect, the proposals disfranchised 750 million "colored" people. Worse yet, the UN Charter's so-called human rights clause, which celebrated equality and justice, was completely abrogated by an amendment preventing the UN from intervening in domestic affairs. This was the result of efforts by the U.S. State Department to acknowledge human rights as an important international principle without giving the UN the power to enforce those rights. Such watered-down support of human rights, particularly coming in the wake of Nazi tyranny, stunned African-Americans, who complained that the United

Nations would be powerless to stop another Holocaust, and certainly would have no authority to protect blacks from human rights abuses occurring in the United States.

In order to press their argument more effectively, African-American leaders suppressed their ideological differences and decided that the political and legal rights embedded in civil rights, although important, would be inadequate to redress 300 years of oppression. The leaders understood that human rights, which encompassed civil rights as well as economic, social, and cultural equality, contained all of the components necessary to achieve equality for African-Americans. They also understood that their struggle was

"part and parcel" of the larger issue of colonial independence and equality for people of color throughout the world. 6

The leaders were, therefore, determined to create a much more powerful and humane United Nations than the one proposed by the Allied Powers. The African-

American leaders first took their concerns to the U.S. State Department, and then to the founding conference for the United Nations, where the NAACP served as an official consultant to the U.S. delegation. Concerned that American policymakers had ignored the issues of colonialism and human rights and had aligned themselves with the imperial powers in order to contain the Soviet Union, the NAACP crafted a skillful publicity campaign and worked closely with other organizations to press for human rights and to put an effective colonial trusteeship plan in the UN Charter. The pressure, while not yielding all that the NAACP leadership desired, did result in human rights gaining a much more prominent position in the UN Charter than would otherwise have been the case.

The third chapter of this dissertation explores the efforts of the African-American leadership, especially the National Negro Congress and the NAACP, to use the UN's supposed commitment to human rights as a method for bringing about equality in the

United States. In 1946, after a wave of lynchings and riots, the National Negro Congress petitioned the United Nations to investigate human rights abuses in the U.S. But the increasingly tense international climate, fueled by the growing rift between the United

States and the Soviet Union, jeopardized any hope of success for these efforts. The FBI cast the petition of the Communist-dominated National Negro Congress as red-tainted propaganda designed to publicize America's embarrassing "Negro problem" and deflect world attention from Soviet atrocities and aggression. Under enormous pressure from 7 rabid anti-communism and the Cold War, and weakened by its slavish adherence to the

Kremlin-driven policies of the Communist Party, the National Negro Congress collapsed.

The NAACP's effort in 1947 to petition the UN was equally unsuccessful. The

Soviet delegation quickly became the champion of America's oppressed and tried to guide the NAACP's petition. An Appeal to the World, through the Commission on Human

Rights. Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, chair of the Commission and an NAACP

Board member, was appalled. She angrily denounced the Association's efforts as humiliating and virtually traitorous. Under this barrage of criticism and afraid of being labeled a "Communist front," the NAACP, the nation's largest and oldest civil rights organization, capitulated and began its headlong retreat from championing human rights.

African-Americans's global struggle for equality had become engulfed in the Cold War.

Chapter Four outlines the Cold War's disastrous impact on African-American leaders and their waning quest for human rights. The charged atmosphere of the Cold

War and anti-communism soon exposed the ideological schisms within the black community and destroyed the unity that African-Americans had exhibited in 1945. The bitterly contested 1948 presidential election served as a destructive catalyst in this fragmenting process. The NAACP and the leftist Council on African Affairs, led by suspected Communist Paul Robeson, became embroiled in the four-way contest between

Republican Thomas Dewey, Democrat Harry Truman, Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, and

Progressive Party candidate, Henry Wallace. Mainstream and leftist black organizations turned on each other, struggled to achieve ideological conformity, and quarantined their membership from political heretics. When it became evident that Wallace supporter. 8

W.E.B. Du Bois, had become a political liability to the increasingly staid and Truman- supporting Association, the NAACP fired him. Du Bois's ouster had tragic implications for the NAACP's ability to craft and articulate an enlightened foreign policy for black equality and global human rights.

Without Du Bois's expertise and comprehensive grasp of human rights and decolonization issues, the NAACP leadership floundered in the foreign policy area. It initially seemed perplexed about an amendment to insert states' rights into the UN's

Covenant on Human Rights. It had difficulty discerning any connection between the plight of colonial peoples and Aftican-Americans. It failed to send adequate representation to

State Department meetings on the draft Covenant. Unlike 1945, when the NAACP saw the importance of shaping a UN Charter that reflected the needs and aspirations of the oppressed all over the world, the Association began to lose interest in helping to craft a strong Covenant on Human Rights and only dabbled in discussions that could provide yet another legal and moral foundation for black equality.

The Left suffered from its own version of policy drift. The intimate alignment between the Council on African Affairs and the Communist Party had closed the Council off from its previous contacts in the State Department and caused a debilitating rift within the membership. Fearing the consequences of appearing on the Attorney General's list of subversive organizations. Max Yergan, executive director for the Council, launched an abortive attempt to redesign the CAA as an organization committed to American-style democracy. Council Chairman Paul Robeson refused to capitulate to the rabid anti­ communism gripping America and challenged Yergan's efforts. A bitter power struggle 9 ensued. Robeson had Yergan censured, physically ousted from Council premises, and legally stripped of his title as executive director. The Council on African Affairs would never fiilly recover.

Chapter Five recounts how African-American leaders took their eyes off the prize of human rights and set standards for success on benchmarks that were inadequate to achieve full black equality. As African-American leaders began to line up firmly behind the East or West, they lost sight of the fact that the issues confronting the black community fragmented instead on an international North/South axis.

The black Left, led by the Civil Rights Congress (CRC), crafted its policies to mesh with those of the Communist Party. The CRC consistently ignored human rights violations in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and blasted the American government for the rash of lynchings and legally sanctioned violations of the Bill of Rights. Despite this rhetorical support, the African-American Left spent its ever-dwindling resources on those issues most important to the Communist Party and neglected the causes critical to

African-Americans. When the CRC did move to expose blatant cases of Southern,

Scottsboro-style justice, it was to advance the cause of the Communist Party, embarrass the American government, and provide additional fodder for the Soviet propaganda mill.

In essence, the African-American Left struggled with its dual identity of being both black and red. In the end, the red dominated.

The NAACP wrestled with its own version of "twoness" and determined that it could achieve its goals if it proved that it was an "American organization."’^ Leaders of the NAACP defined themselves as dependable, good, patriotic Negroes that had prevented 10

Communist infiltration into the black community and thus handed Soviet leader Jozef

Stalin his "greatest defeat.The NAACP leadership set out to demonstrate its loyalty during the Korean War, which the organization fully supported — despite the fact that

African-American soldiers were brutalized and subjected to abominable treatment in

Southern boot camps and in the Jim Crow army. Nonetheless, "good, patriotic Negro"

Walter White, executive secretary of the NAACP, insisted that the U.S. could count on the NAACP to defend democracy not only in the United States and Korea, but also in the

United Nations, where the State Department needed a black face to counter serious charges about America's racist society.

In 1951, the Civil Rights Congress, successor to the National Negro Congress and an organization accused of being a "Communist front," charged the American government with genocide and challenged the UN's Commission on Human Rights to take action. In a well-publicized counterattack, the NAACP, under the careful direction of the State

Department, questioned the motives of the CRC, denounced the charge of genocide as a

Communist-inspired ploy with no basis in reality, and heralded the enormous progress

American society had made in achieving civil rights. Earlier, Roy Wilkins had noted that the American people should "love. . .our NAACP" because its achievements on the civil rights front had made the U.S. less vulnerable to Communist slander and more attractive to the emerging Third World.

Yet, even as the Third World was gaining in prominence in the plans of U.S. foreign policymakers, the NAACP was quickly distancing itself from the struggle for colonial independence. Wilkins understood that "our brothers under the colonial yoke cry 11 for our aid," but, he concluded, the NAACP would only "stand beside [them],insofar as our resources permit. Walter White reinforced that policy direction when he declared that the NAACP would channel its efforts into righting the wrongs in Mississippi, not

Nigeria.*® The NAACP and its supporters therefore focused their attention on breaking the stranglehold of the Southern Democrats in Congress and challenging the legality of the nation's separate and unequal school systems. The Association saw the international arena as fraught with Soviet machinations that could only endanger the NAACP's domestic agenda. During this period, the Association was eager to make clear that it was not tied to the philosophies of communism or socialism, and it therefore diligently ignored the importance of economic democracy, global human rights, and decolonization. And the

Left, persecuted by the 1RS, bludgeoned by the House Un-American Activities

Committee, and undermined by its allegiance to the Communist Party, proved to be an ineffective counterweight to this retreat.

In short, in the immediate postwar period, African-American leaders argued that freedom for black Americans could not be separated from the search for equality for peoples of color everywhere. The onset of the Cold War led to a radical change. African-

American leaders retreated from human rights and sought only civil rights. They abandoned decolonization and fought for desegregation. And they sacrificed African-

American unity to gain ideological conformity. This is the story and the argument that unfolds in the following pages. 12

ENDNOTES

1. Dorothy Winbush Riley, éd.. My Soul Looks Back, 'less I Forget: A Collection o f Quotations by People o f Color (NY : Harper Collins, 1993).

2. For the history of the Civil Rights Movement see, William H. Chafe, "The End of One Struggle, the Beginning of Another," in The Civil Rights Movement in America, ed. Charles W. Eagles (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1986): 127-48; Adam Fairclough, To Redeem the Soul o f America: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987); Aldon Morris, The Origins o f the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change (New York: Free Press, 1984); Clayborne Carson,In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening o f the 1960s (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981); Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years Çfiçiv/Y or)am6ConàovL: Simon and Schuster, 1988); Alan B. Anderson and George W. Pickering,Confronting the Color Line: The Broken Promise o f the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987); Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981); David J. Garrow,Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1986); Doug Me Adam,Freedom Summer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); August Meier and Elliott M. Rudwick,CORE: A Study in the Civil Rights Movement, 1942-1968 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973); and Howard Zinn, SNCC, the New Abolitionists (Boston: Beacon Press, 1965).

3. Elaine Tyler May, "Cold War—Warm Hearth: Politics and the Family in Postwar America, " in Rise and Fall o f the New Deal Order, 1933-1980, Steven Fraser and Gary Gerstle, eds. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989): 153-81; and idem. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, 1988).

4. Paul S. Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light: America, Thought and Culture at the Dawn o f the Atomic Age (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985).

5. John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986); Akira Iriye, Power and Culture: The Japanese- AmericanWar, 7947-^^5 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981); Christopher Thorne, Allies o f a Kind: The United States, Britain, and the War Against Japan, 7947-7945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); Michael H. Hunt,Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University 13

Press, 1987); and Paul Gordon Lauren,The Politics and Diplomacy of Racial Discrimination (Boulder and London; Westview Press, 1988).

6. Melvyn P. Leffler, "Presidential Address: New Approaches, Old Interpretations, and Prospective Reconfigurations," Diplomatic History 19, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 195. (emphasis added).

7. Richard M. Dalfiume, "The 'Forgotten Years's of the Negro Revolution," Joiirttal of American History 55, no. 1 (June 1968): 90-106.

8. James L. Roark, "American Black Leaders: The Response to Colonialism and the Cold War, 1943-1953," African Historical Studies 4, no. 2 (1971): 253-70.

9. Mary L. Dudziak, "Desegregation as a Cold War Imperative," Stanford Law Review no. 1 (November 1988): 61-120.

10. Steven F. Lawson, "Freedom Then, Freedom Now: The Historiography of the Civil Rights Movement," American Historical Review 96, no. 2 (April 1991): 464.

11. Gerald Horne, Black and Red: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War, 1944-1963 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986); idem., Communist Front? The Civil Rights Congress, 1946-1956 (London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1988); and idem. Black Liberation/Red Scare: Ben Davis and the Communist Party (London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1994).

12. Harold Cruse,The Crisis o f the Negro Intellectual: A Historical Analysis o f the Failure o f Black Leadership, foreword by Bazel E. Allen and Ernest T. Wilson III (New York: Quill, 1984), 7.

13. Roy Wilkins, Stalm's Greatest Defeat (New York: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1951).

14. "Equality of Opportunity Everywhere: Keynote Address to 41st Annual Convention by Roy Wilkins," 20 June 1950, Part 1, Reel 12, Papers o f the NAACP: 1909-1950 (Washington, DC.: University Publications of America, 1982), microfilm, (hereafter C P/

15. Ibid. (emphasis added).

16. Walter White to Boyo Fazemi, letter, 18 July 1950, Box 4, File "Africa General, 1950-51," Group II, Series A, General Office File (1940-1955), Papers o f the National Association for the Advancement o f Colored People, Library of Congress, Washington, D C. (hereafter Papers o f the NAACP). CHAPTER II

An Unprecedented Opportunity: The Founding of the United Nations and the Emergence of African-American Internationalism

The problem o f the Iwetiiieth century is the problem o f the color line—the relation o f the darker to the lighter races o f men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands o f the seas. W.E.B. Du Bois^

The Second World War and the Cold War transformed the international system, the United States, and the African-American community. In the critical period between

1944 and 1952, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as Superpowers in a world where they once stood on the periphery; the colonial world demanded independence from a war-ravaged Europe, and the pillars of the Jim Crow South started to crack.^

These powerftil forces converged in the African-American community and gave the battle for civil rights an international dimension.

Civil rights organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of

Colored People (NAACP), the Communist-dominated National Negro Congress (NNC), and the leftist Council on African Affairs (CAA) saw an unprecedented opportunity to redefine U.S. foreign policy goals and thereby achieve human rights. Unlike the First

World War when President Woodrow Wilson tried to make the world "safe for democracy" while imposing Jim Crow on the nation's capital, the Second World War

14 15 appeared in the eyes of African-Americans to have ushered in a bold, new era in international and domestic politics.

The major reason for this optimism was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Roosevelt's New Deal, particularly after 1936, gave Aftican-Americans their first taste of political and economic power in 70 years. Blacks believed that FDR, if he could be unshackled from the restraints of the Southern-controlled Congress, would spread the benefits of the New Deal and civil liberties to them. Roosevelt's appeal went beyond his

New Deal programs, moreover, to include his wife, Eleanor, whose liberalism and support of Mary McLeod Bethune, President of the National Council of Negro Women, signaled a remarkable intimacy between America's disfranchised black population and the White

House.^

African-Americans thought that their struggle was further strengthened by the

Atlantic Charter, issued in August 1941 by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and

President Roosevelt. To black Americans, the Atlantic Charter supported the principle of self-determination for all people, committed the Allied Powers to improve the living standards of the world's inhabitants, and promised a peace that would secure for all peoples, especially people of color, freedom from fear and want. For African-Americans this was revolutionary. It appeared that the world's largest capitalist nation had joined with the greatest colonial power to develop a world order based on more than raw national power. Indeed, the Atlantic Charter, which the Soviets eventually ratified, seemed to completely reject the weltniacht of the Nazi regime.** In this sense. Hitler's 16 tyranny helped to obscure ideological differences between the Allies and forge the Big

Three into an effective war machine.

Similarly, the nightmare of a Nazi-dominated world, especially when the Grand

Alliance was offering an alternative vision based on equality and justice, helped to seal a political chasm in the African-American community. The previous decade had been filled with dissension and bitter rivalries. The NAACP and the Communists, black or otherwise, refused to cooperate with each other on many key issues.^ Indeed, the Association accused the Communist "red brain trust" of being the handmaidens of "the southern ruling class."® Similarly, in 1940, after the Nazi/Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, the National

Negro Congress, which was originally founded on the Comintern principle of a united front, ruptured along ideological lines. The resulting schism forced the ouster of Socialist president A. Philip Randolph, who, disheartened by the Congress's headlong rush into the

Communist camp, warned that the "Negro would be foolish to tie up his own interests with the foreign policy of the Soviet Union or any other nation of the world. The

NNC's turn to the Left also led to the resignation of Ralph Bunche, its co-founder and future UN diplomat.® Yet, Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union, the formation of the

Grand Alliance, and the subsequent shift in Soviet foreign policy brought about a significant change in the black community. Some lingering disagreements remained, however. Afraid that African-Americans' quest for equal employment opportunities in the defense industries would impede U.S. shipments of war matériel to the Soviet Union, the

Left refused to lend its support to their campaign. Nevertheless, the promise of a new world order was so great that the organizations buried their wartime differences in order 17 to achieve black equality after the Nazi defeat. Thus, in 1944, when 25 African-American organizations joined together to develop their vision for the post-war world, there was "a remarkable demonstration of unity. . .despite the considerable diversity o f . . . political affiliation"^ An NAACP official confided that:

To an amazing degree I have had the curious feeling in talking to Negroes everywhere, that I have been talking to ONE person. They all express in much the same language the same thoughts; they indicate that, as never before in my experience, they are tightly bound together by one desire and aspiration, to achieve equality and justice.'”

In short, because of the Atlantic Charter, the Grand Alliance, and the political appeal of the Roosevelts, African-Americans had come to believe that the Second World

War gave them an unprecedented opportunity to influence the nature of the post-war world. It was more than a war in their eyes. NAACP administrator Roy Wilkins described it as a "social revolution" to overthrow the status quo and make all colored people free." Thus, African-Americans sought to address more than "domestic" issues, such as lynching, peonage, Jim Crow and discrimination. They also sought a comprehensive solution to centuries of oppression worldwide.'^ They recognized that they were suffering not only as Negroes in the United States, but as coloreds in a white world. If human rights were denied abroad, they believed, civil rights could not exist at home. As long as Africans were subjected to white colonialism, African-Americans stood little chance of overcoming "white supremacy." This realization led the NNC to declare boldly the dawning of a "new day" in which the future of blacks and the future of the

"peoples of the world" were "inextricably linked."'’ Not only must African-Americans 18 fight for the full implementation of political democracy, blacks argued, they must bring about "economic democracy" as well. The global economy and the power of multi­ national corporations simply meant that unskilled labor in the U.S., in which African-

Americans were disproportionately represented, could be held hostage to the rock-bottom wages paid to unskilled labor in thecolonies.Nor had it gone unnoticed that the

"pseudo-science" of white racial superiority was the foundation for this "capitalistic exploitation."'^ In short, the struggles for human and civil rights were interwoven, and

African-Americans were determined to wage a two-front war against racism abroad and at home.

Moreover, their quest for a "Double Victory" went beyond the standard story of black soldiers fighting against racism overseas while civil rights organizations combatted it at home. Their strategy for achieving equality focused on a potentially powerful new organization, the United Nations, which African-Americans hoped would lead the battle against colonialism and for human rights. This hope for a crusading United Nations energized the international efforts of the African-American community. Walter White,

Executive Secretary of the NAACP, noted that colored people intended to "put an end to the old order in which men, solely because they are colored, can be worked to exhaustion, exploited, despised, spat upon and derided."'" White and others therefore demanded representation for African-Americans at the founding meeting of the United Nations. At that meeting, which was scheduled to convene in San Francisco in April 1945, the delegates would determine the extent of the UN's power to combat racism and provide human rights on a global scale. 19

In May of 1944, the Association selected Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, noted scholar and

NAACP co-founder, to champion the cause of "the American Negro and the colored peoples of the world" at the San Francisco Conference.The septuagenarian was eminently qualified for the post. Du Bois had been the first black to earn a doctoral degree from Harvard; had devoted his life to the study of race, class, and economics; and had served in 1919 as the NAACP's observer at the Paris Peace Conference.'** Now, after another world war, the NAACP called on him again. It was a strained reunion, however.

Du Bois had left the Association in 1936 during a major policy dispute with Walter White, whom Du Bois held in very low regard. Although the executive secretary personally invited Du Bois to return to the NAACP, Du Bois bypassed White and negotiated his return directly with three powerful members of the Board: President Arthur S. Spingarn,

Chairman Louis Wright, and Vice-Chair Charles E. Toney.'" Initially, Du Bois appeared to be bargaining from a position of weakness. He had just been fired from Atlanta

University, ostensibly because he had passed the mandatory retirement age, but more likely because he had aggravated President Rufus Clement. Du Bois, however, was in a much stronger position than it appeared. Even White had to admit that Du Bois knew more "than any other living human being" about the global "problems faced by colored peoples. Louis Wright agreed. In words that would eventually come back to haunt him, he called Du Bois a genius who could not be bound by the "petty considerations or rules" of a mere organization.^' In short, the NAACP wanted Du Bois and its leadership was willing to do what it took to get him. 20

Du Bois's seemingly successful contract negotiations made him the second-highest paid employee of the NAACP and provided him with a hand-picked assistant, Dr. Irene

Diggs, an expense account, office space, and clerical support to continue his work. In time, the NAACP leadership would chafe under Du Bois's extravagant contract and this would add fuel to the smoldering fire between Du Bois and White. For the moment, however, Du Bois eagerly set to work on his new assignment as the NAACP's leading voice in the field of foreign affairs.

Du Bois's first task was to evaluate proposals drawn up by the Allied powers at the

Dumbarton Oaks Conference of October 1944 outlining the basic structure of a world security organization. The Conference was divided into two phases. The first, in which all of the important decisions were made, involved the Americans, the British, and the

Soviets. The second phase served two purposes. It was designed to acknowledge

Roosevelt's concept of the "Four Policemen" — the U.S., Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China — as the major peacekeepers in the postwar world while also bowing to the

Soviet Union's refusal to accord China world power status. The second meeting, therefore, involved only the British, the Americans, and the Chinese.

During pre-conference planning for Dumbarton Oaks, the British were livid because the American State Department had drafted a plan for a trusteeship program that would place all colonies under international control, greatly expanding the League of

Nations limited mandate system. Alarmed by this threat to their empire, the British moved quickly to replace the American plan with one that confined the trusteeship system to a small number of colonies controlled by the Axis nations.^^ This was a successful strategy. 21

The British rightly assumed that the U.S. needed a trusteeship system to "camouflage" its annexation of the Pacific islands, which it had wrested from the Japanese." As they saw it, the Americans did not have the courage to take the political heat for wanting to become a full-fledged colonial power and thus sought to cover their true intentions by subjecting the British Empire to even greater international scrutiny."

The British fought hard to avoid any discussion of the State Department's trusteeship plan at Dumbarton Oaks and found an unlikely ally in the U.S. military, which considered any scheme to put U.S. trust territory under international control "naive,"

"idealistic," and antithetical to national security. As the conference starting date approached, an "incendiary" inter-agency battle raged between the U.S. State and War

Departments. Afraid that it would have to repudiate any of its plans if it lost this struggle, the State Department decided to withdraw its proposal for a trusteeship system from the

Dumbarton Oaks agenda. The Soviets, hoping to mask their own territorial gains in

Eastern Europe and elsewhere, thought it a "pity" that the issue of trusteeship had not been broached at the conference, but decided not to challenge the decision."

Although the question of human rights fared only slightly better, it was at least discussed at the conference. Several weeks after the conference began, Benjamin Cohen,

President Roosevelt's personal liaison, registered great concern that the issue of human rights had not been included in the draft Charter for a United Nations. Given the

Congressional power of the Southern Democrats and the pervasiveness of Jim Crow throughout America, Cohen was well aware that the U.S. could not be overly strident about human rights. But he also recognized that without at least an acknowledgement of 22 human rights, the proposed United Nations would appear to be nothing more than a façade for power politics as usual. The solution to this dilemma, the American delegation believed, was to accord human rights status as an "important international principle" while leaving its enforcement to individual states. Even this mild proposal was too strong for the British, who believed that it would render them vulnerable to interference in their rule of India and the rest of the Empire. Although the Soviets initially described the human rights issue as completely irrelevant, the Allies concluded after much debate that they had to address human rights somewhere in the UN proposals. They conceded that "it would be farcical to give the public [the] impression that the delegates could not agree on the need to safeguard human rights." The Allies finally concurred that the most innocuous place to insert language on the subject was in the section on the responsibilities of the

Economic and Social Council. The Council would "promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms" but have no power to enforce them. The British were concerned that even this mild language would permit international meddling in the domestic affairs of member states. They therefore included an additional clause that prevented the UN from involving itself in the internal matters of member states, unless the violations of the UN

Charter presented a direct threat to world peace.“ The Soviet and American delegations agreed that this was a good, sound compromise and accepted it. The Allies' decision to severely limit the UN's power in human rights and colonial affairs dimmed the hopes raised by the Atlantic Charter's declaration of self-determination and equality. The Chinese phase of Dumbarton Oaks did nothing to improve the outlook. 23

Under the two-phase structure of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, China's delegation had to wait until the Allies had made all of the substantive decisions before it could participate in the deliberations. Once at the table, however, the Chinese gingerly suggested several human rights and international law revisions to strengthen the draft UN

Charter they were handed. The British and Americans were in no mood to renegotiate any of the clauses with the Soviets — especially to accommodate China's "extremely idealistic" suggestions.^’ The West eventually decided, however, that it was important to let the

Chinese "save face" and agreed to incorporate into the draft UN Charter three "harmless" proposals on cultural cooperation and international law.’*

Du Bois noticed the disrespectful way in which the Allies treated China and saw that treatment as indicative of Western contempt for non-whites.’^ His meeting with State

Department officials about the Dumbarton Oaks proposals re-affirmed his view.

"Depressed" at the realization that the Allies had systematically and consistently disfranchised the 750 million colored people who lived in the colonial world, Du Bois described the Dumbarton Oaks proposals as "intolerable, dangerous," and irreconcilable

"with any philosophy of democracy."’" According to the proposals colonies had no rights.

Only states could join the United Nations, bring a complaint before the Security Council, or appeal to the International Court of Justice. Most importantly, the United Nations lacked the power to investigate human rights abuses; it could only consider complaints filed by member states. Provisions like these, according to Du Bois, made it clear to millions of colored people that "the only way to human equality is through the philanthropy of masters."” What else could be expected, Du Bois wondered, when the 24

Allies had chosen an old southern plantation as the conference site where the fate of the world's 750 million colored people would be decided/^

Du Bois was not alone in his concern. The Council on African Affairs, an organization founded in 1936 to carry information into America regarding the political and economic conditions in Africa, and led by black entertainer and suspected Communist Paul

Robeson and National Negro Congress President Max Yergan, concurred with Du Bois's assessment. The proposals emanating from Dumbarton Oaks were disturbing. In a letter to Walter White, Robeson and Yergan emphasized that colonial issues, especially in

Africa, had not been effectively addressed in the proposals. The Council asked for White's cooperation in working out "constructive supplementary recommendations."^^

Although initially obscured, there was a fundamental difference between the

Council's and the NAACP's assessment of the flaws in the Dumbarton Oaks proposals.

The most important element in the Council's vision was continued Allied unity. In this scenario, the Soviet Union — not the UN — would prevent the reimposition of the old imperial structure.^"* The Council stressed that "above everything else," the objective of the upcoming UN Conference was to establish a Charter that "will permanently hold together the great powers." Without that unity, the Council declared, no international problems, including that of the colonies, could besolved.Thus, the CAA condemned the "partisan and baseless" charge that the Dumbarton Oaks proposals were a "scheme" by the Allies to dominate the darker races of the world.

The Association insisted, however, that peace depended upon a strong United

Nations with the authority to rein in the Great Powers. "International collective security" 25 was critical, the NAACP asserted, because the Great Powers depended upon the continued existence of colonial empires to re-build the war-devastated economies. As long as there were colonies, there would be Great Power rivalry, and worse, continued economic and political subjugation of millions of colored people. The NAACP and Du

Bois believed that this volatile combination of rivalry and subjugation had the potential to explode into yet another war. In their eyes, the Allies were "courting disaster" by trying to

"set up an internation[al organization] with nearly half [of] mankind disfranchised and socially enslaved. The only hope for peace and the full implementation of the Atlantic

Charter, the NAACP argued, lay in a powerful United Nations.^*

Despite these important differences, the Council and the Association agreed that the colonial issue had received little or no attention in the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, and that this oversight had to be corrected. Du Bois and Arthur Spingarn signed a CAA letter to Roosevelt and Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. in which the Council asked for American leadership in supporting economic and political development on the African continent. Du Bois was not entirely satisfied with what he depicted as an unrealistic and less than effective course of action, but, he concluded, it would at least keep pressure on the U.S. government.^®

Stettinius's response to the Council's letter confirmed Du Bois's worst fears. The secretary of state thanked Robeson for his "endorsement" of the proposed UN Charter and confided that the State Department would work on a solution for dependent peoples that would "insure the greatest tangible advancementp o s s i b l e Robeson and Yergan were satisfied; Du Bois was not. He believed that the qualifier "possible" implied that colonial 26 people were intellectually and morally ill-equipped for the rigors of self-government and, even under Western tutelage, could advance only so far."*' Although Du Bois strongly believed that the unsatisfactory proposals developed at Dumbarton Oaks were

"substantially the American plan," he was also convinced that the United States had to rise above the swamp of traditional diplomacy and force the imperial powers to provide full citizenship and autonomy for the colonial people.Unlike Robeson and Yergan, however, Du Bois and the NAACP were unwilling to rely primarily upon the Soviet Union to champion the rights of colonial people at the upcoming UN Conference on International

Organization (UNCIO) at San Francisco.

In preparation for the UNCIO, Du Bois organized a colonial conference that brought together a group of scholars from Africa, Asia, and India to articulate the needs of the colonies and outline how the UN could best address them. Du Bois correctly assumed that the colonial issue was being "deliberately sidetracked" by the Allied powers, who were trying to get the Dumbarton Oaks plan approved "without touching the matter of colonies. He believed that a conference, attended by key representatives of colonized lands, would be able to point out to the Allies the disastrous "effect upon peace, security and democracy if nothing is said about colonies."'*''

Du Bois convinced W. Alpheus Hunton, Educational Director of the Council on

African Affairs, to serve on the planning committee of this NAACP-funded conference.'*^

He also asked Rayford W. Logan, a professor of history at Howard University, and L.D.

Reddick, the curator of the New York Public Library's Schomburg Collection, to serve on the committee. 27

The committee held its first meeting on 3 March 1945. Rayford Logan, who spent several years in France studying the League of Nations Mandate Commission, believed that the Commission's mandates system was inherently weak because it relied upon the benevolence of imperial powers to shepherd the colonies into independence. In Logan's estimation, the "chief evil" in the system was that the colonial powers held the keys to independence but also had a vested interest in keeping their wards weak and vulnerable to economic exploitation. He therefore believed that only an international administration — dominated by noncolonial powers — could bring about the ideal mandate system. '^ He therefore called for the UN Charter to create an eminently powerh.il International

Mandates Commission that could seize control of a colony if the imperial power abused its authority. The other members of the planning committee agreed and made the

Commission the centerpiece of the document the committee was drafting. Additional amendments championed colonial self-determination, international recognition of racial equality, and nationalization of resources and industries in colonial lands. At its 12 March

1945 Board of Directors' meeting, the NAACP adopted these resolutions as the foundation of its "program foi San Francisco" and as the starting point for the upcoming colonial conference.'*’

The 6 April 1945 colonial conference provided an additional opportunity to refine this program. Representatives from India, Puerto Rico, Indonesia, Jamaica, British

Guiana, Burma, Uganda, the Gold Coast, and several missionary societies attended the

Conference and made clear that "colonial peoples [had] no intention of relinquishing their demands and plans for complete independence at the end of World War II."'*" This 28 determination was evident when Kwame Nkrumah, a conference speaker and future Prime

Minister of Ghana, objected to Logan's use of the word "mandates." Nkrumah charged that the word had become an "opprobrium [that] implies a 'sell out' to the colonial powers." He also wanted to emphasize, more than in the initial draft, that any

"International Colonial Commission" must have "effective representation" of colonial peoples.'*^' After the day-long session, the conference participants developed a resolution that had as its initial premise that colonialism "has been and still is a repeated cause of war and oppression" and that peace could only be secured by "ending the ownership and control of all colonies and dependencies." The conference participants demanded that an

International Colonial Commission be established at the UNCIO. This Commission would not only include the permanent members of the Security Council and representatives chosen by the General Assembly, but would also have members who "represent directly the several broad groups of colonial peoples."^”

The conference participants envisioned the proposed International Colonial

Commission as a powerful agency. It would oversee the transition of peoples from colonial status to independence; establish a timetable for each colonial territory's ascendancy to independence; and control all mandate territories — and any others seized after the current war, "except as [U.S.] military necessities require." The proposed commission would also establish the economic, social, and political standards to be maintained in the administration of all colonial territories; ban any nation that practiced legally sanctioned discrimination from being a mandatory power; and secure industrialization, economic advancement, improved education, health care, transportation. 29 communication, and social services in all colonial areas. Most importantly, the commission would use the power of the United Nations to enforce these standards.^’

This vision of colonial rule diametrically opposed that of the Western Powers and failed to satisfy the Soviets' thirst for territorial aggrandizement. African-Americans believed, however, that despite the formidable opposition of the Great Powers, decolonization was essential to breaking the economic and racist stranglehold that fostered the continued violation of human and civil rights. In short, they believed they had no option but to push forward.

As a result, Du Bois lobbied the State Department to be named as a consultant to the American delegation at the San Francisco Conference. He asked both Secretary of

State Stettinius and his assistant, Leo Pasvolsky, if the department had made any arrangements for African-Americans to "advocate" for themselves and "for other peoples of African descent whom they, in a very real sense, represent?"’^ Du Bois was particularly insistent that the State Department allow the NAACP, an organization with over 400,000 members and indirectly representing 13 million African-Americans, to send two delegates to participate in the debates at San Francisco.”

State Department officials immediately saw the need for a public relations campaign that would help the UN Charter avoid a fate similar to the one that befell the

Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The State Department believed that a lack of widespread public support for the 1919 treaty, which included the Covenant of the League of Nations, had enabled the Senate to reject it and thus prohibit American participation in the League. 30

This time the State Department was determined to build a broad base of support for the forthcoming UN treaty. With this goal in mind, it eventually asked 42 national organizations, ranging from the conservative National Association of Manufacturers to the liberal NAACP, to serve as official consultants to the U.S. delegation.

To Walter White's chagrin, however, it soon became evident that the consultants were to be nothing more than "window dressing."” Stettinius and other State Department officials declared that the American delegation would not seek the consultants' advice but would, instead, keep them informed on a need-to-know basis.” The UNCIO, in their estimation, was "exclusively a conference of governmental delegations" with simply no place in its deliberations for private citizens.” In fact, while the State Department sought wide public discussion about the proposed UN Charter, it simultaneously made clear that

"aside from wording and phraseology, actual changes [in the Charter] would be few."”

Stettinius was adamant that his "job in San Francisco was to create a charter. . .not to take up subjects like. . .'the negro question'."”

Despite these warnings, Du Bois and the NAACP prepared to present a strong case for African-Americans and colonial peoples at the San Francisco meeting. Following

Stettinius's announcement that the Association would be an official consultant at the UN conference, the NAACP surveyed 151 African-American organizations for their opinions on the important issues to be addressed in San Francisco.” The groups, ranging from the

National Urban League to the Negro Ministers of New Haven, Connecticut, urged the

Association to push for an end to racial discrimination and the abolition of colonialism. 31

White combined the results of this survey with the recommendations from the colonial conference and left for San Francisco hoping that the NAACP could induce the

UNCIO participants to "face what is one of the most serious problems of the twentieth century—the question of race and color. The problem of colonial people was of particular concern, he believed, because "most of these people are colored [and] what happens to even the most exploited of these has direct bearing upon the future of Negroes in the United States. White's hopes would be dashed, however. The conference began on April 25 but as late as 1 May 1945 the U.S. delegation had not yet adopted a public position on the colonial empires, and had decided not to press for a strong human rights plank or a UN agency to monitor human rights violations.^' In a "brutally frank" exchange with Stettinius, Du Bois and White, backed by the other consultants, argued that millions had died in vain if the war had not been fought for human rights and self-determination.

After years of Nazi brutality and aggression, they said, it should be painfully clear that any international conference for world peace must take up such issues as human rights and colonialism. Neither the NAACP nor any of the other 41 organizations designated as

"official consultants" would support a UN that did nothing to address these underlying causes of war.*® That "acrimonious" barrage caught Stettinius and the U.S. delegation off­ guard and they quickly promised to submit proposals on these two issues. Indeed, the

State Department assured the consultants that this "pounding" and "pressure had not been without effect."**

The consultants were not placated by the State Department's assurances and were

"apprehensive" about the "widening gulf between the purposes of the UNCIO and the 32

"meager results" of a conference that was "pervaded by mutual fears, suspicions, and behind-the-scenes maneuvers of power politicians and ideological propagandists."^’ The consultants therefore decided on 2 May 1945 to present their own human rights proposal to the American delegation. At the ensuing meeting, White turned to Stettinius and made clear that the clause pledging equality and justice was particularly applicable to colonial and other dependent people. The secretary of state responded with a "somewhat embarrassed, cryptic smile" and followed with a bewildering request to know which planks in the proposed amendment could be jettisoned if other delegations complained. The consultants were dumbstruck. The proposal, they said, was their "minimum demand."

Instead of gutting it, and thus discrediting the moral leadership of the United States, they urged Stettinius to take the lead in the global fight for human rights. Stettinius's weak response convinced the consultants that the "diplomats [were] losing the. . .peace" while the Allies were winning the war. At all costs, the consultants believed, the secretaiy of state had to be made to see that the United Nations could not become a "screen for power politics and an idealistic bone grudgingly thrown to. . . humanity."'^* The secretary of state promised to do what he could.

What Stettinius could or would do was quite limited. With the Grand Alliance crumbling, the U.S. sought to isolate the Soviet Union and develop even stronger ties to

Europe's imperial powers. American policymakers, particularly in the Pentagon, were prepared to assuage their allies by limiting the authority of the United Nations in colonial affairs. They made sure that the conference would only establish the procedure for placing colonies under the trusteeship system and emphasized that no specific territories would be 33 discussed. The mounting tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States also meant that the U.S. military was more determined than ever to hold onto key strategic areas in the Pacific. The State, War, and Navy Coordinating Committee agreed to move authority for these colonies from the Trusteeship Council to the veto-protected Security

Council, and thereby satisfied the military's hunger for Pacific bases.™

Domestic pressures were also instrumental in derailing any "moral leadership" the

U.S. might have taken. The Senate, dominated by Southern Democrats whose inordinate power was based on racism, the poll tax, and the white primary, had to approve any UN

Charter worked out in San Francisco. Pressure by the NAACP for an unwavering commitment to human rights simply could not offset the U.S. delegation's fear that a strong human rights plank would jeopardize passage of the entire treaty.^'

It was therefore no surprise that Stettinius returned with a draft that was weak on human rights. One amendment "guaranteeing freedom from discrimination on account of race, language, religion, or sex" was completely negated by another amendment that

"nothing in the Charter shall authorize. . .intervention in matters which are essentially within the domestic Jurisdiction of the State concerned."™ Du Bois and White protested.

Under that restriction, they pointed out, the United Nations would be unable to prevent another Holocaust. Still worse, the amendment applied only to member states, not colonies where colored people were routinely the victims of discrimination and abuse.

Certainly, they argued, the clause prevented the UN from doing anything to stop the human rights abuses that blacks suffered in the United States.™ 34

Stettinius's plan for colonial trusteeships was even more troubling. The American proposal side-stepped the issue of independence as the ultimate goal of the plan and patemalistically described colonialism as a caretaking arrangement for those unable to handle the "strenuous conditions of the modern world. Du Bois was incensed. Instead of recognizing that the plight of colonial peoples was "due to oppression and exploitation" and capitalist demands for "cheap. . labor and forced servitude," the U.S. amendment

"intimated" an inherent inferiority of colonial peoples. Du Bois lashed out that this was nothing but "a covert defense of the exploiters. . .against the exploited."” Worse yet, the

American proposal would bring only three percent of the colonial world under the authority of the UN's Trusteeship Council, The U.S. plan allowed international oversight only for current mandates, colonies controlled by the Axis nations, and any dependency

"voluntarily placed under the system by states responsible for their administration."” The latter was highly unlikely but Pasvolsky quickly dismissed a more comprehensive plan as a

"wild idea."” Du Bois, on the other hand, thought it equally ridiculous for the U.S. to rush blindly into the arms of the colonial powers simply because it had allowed itself to be

"estranged from Russia by the plight of a dozen reactionary, . . .Jew-baiting Polish landlords."’* He confided to Metz Lochard, editor of the Chicago Defender, that "[w]e have conquered Germany but not [its] ideas. We still believe in white supremacy, keeping negroes in their places and lying about democracy, when [what] we mean [is] imperial control of 750 million human beings in colonies."”

The Council on African Affairs concurred in Du Bois's assessment. The Council denounced the American trusteeship plan as "unctuous rhetoric" designed to "avoid a clear 35 guarantee. . .of independence for colonial peoples."*" Prior to the San Francisco

Conference, the Council was confident of the Soviet Union's ability to prevent the re­ imposition of colonial rule. The conference, however, had quickly spiraled away from the

CAA's vision. New tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, due in large measure to the issue of Poland, threatened the CAA's concept of peace. The Council's frustration was compounded by the NAACP's refusal to support the Soviet position on key issues and attack the Western powers more aggressively. Indeed, Max Yergan had urged White to join him in an anti-U.S. press conference that would praise the vision of

Soviet Foreign Minister V I. Molotov. When White refused, Yergan grabbed the

NAACP's executive secretary by the lapels, berated him for being "obstructionist" and a

"betrayer" of his people, and demanded that White adopt a more pro-Soviet position.

Although Yergan soon regained his composure, the damage was done. White made sure that he avoided the Council's president for the rest of the conference.*'

Yergan had also managed to alienate Ralph Bunche, the highest ranking African-

American in the State Department and the U.S. delegation's expert on trusteeships. The relationship between the two men had earlier become strained when Bunche resigned from the Council on African Affairs and the National Negro Congress, charging that both organizations had been "captured" by the Communists.*^ Then, in San Francisco, Bunche saw an FBI report in which Yergan had implicated him in a plot to assure a pro-Soviet outcome of the UNCIO. Bunche was furious. He railed that Yergan was nothing but a

"phoney" and a "slicker who was milking nice old Quaker ladies for money" and who had

"abandoned his fine Negro wife and children" for an Afrikaner.*’’ Bunche quickly set up a 36 cordon sanitaire between himself and Yergan. He declined repeated invitations to meet and refused to get Yergan the security passes the Council president needed to fully participate in the conference.

Without question, the unity that characterized African-Americans' post-war plans was rapidly fracturing along the U.S./Soviet fault line. Nevertheless, Walter White shared

Yergan's disillusionment with the meager results of the conference. The executive secretary was well aware of the "difficulty of reconciling security needs with humanitarian considerations" but believed that a savvy, skillful delegation could find that balance.

Instead, White contended, the American delegation was "patently weak," with Stettinius

"completely out of his depth." Senators Tom Connally (D-TX) and Arthur Vandenburg

(R-MI) were "operating as though they were making a deal for building a Post Office," and Barnard College Dean Virginia C. Gildersleeve was in a "job much too large for her."*"* Although White was pleased that the consultants had forced the U.S. delegation to acknowledge human rights in the Charter, he was dismayed that fundamental flaws still remained. He recognized that the NAACP stood little chance of getting the "domestic

Jurisdiction" clause overturned. He also held little hope for the colonial trusteeship plans,

"all of which," in his estimation, "were ineffective." White castigated the U.S. delegation for being "timorous" and for losing "the bold moral leadership which it should have taken." He bemoaned that Russia and China had taken the high ground on colonialism while "the smart boys like [British Foreign Secretary Anthony] Eden" had "outsmarted our delegation" and positioned the U.S. as a staunch supporter of imperialism.*^ 37

Bunche, who served as the staff expert on trusteeships for U.S. delegate Harold

Stassen, agreed. "Stettinius," Bunche confided, "is a complete dud. . in a job for which he has utterly no qualifications and about which he knows nothing."*"^ Bunche was already upset that decolonization had been derailed at Dumbarton Oaks. Now, he feared that under Stettinius's inept leadership the U.S. would end up firmly in imperialism's corner.

He therefore helped orchestrate a campaign to pressure the U.S. delegation to embrace a trusteeship plan that included independence as the ultimate goal of the system. Stassen had already made "one bad blunder" by opposing independence when the governor could have easily let the British, who were strenuously arguing against it anyway, do so. To overcome this debacle, Bunche slipped his own unauthorized American trusteeship proposal to the Australian delegation, which had taken a much more liberal stance on colonialism than Britain. This sleight of hand allowed the Australian delegation to become the champion of the American version of a trusteeship plan in the deliberations.**’

Fearful that this strategy alone may not be enough, Bunche was also instrumental in helping to implement a newly-hatched NAACP plan. As Walter White prepared to leave San Francisco, he turned to his trusted aide. Assistant Secretary Roy Wilkins, who was arriving to replace him at the UNCIO. White asked for Wilkins' advice on the best way to force the U.S. delegation to strengthen the trusteeship plan. Wilkins responded that Governor Stassen was "politically ambitious" and susceptible to public pressure.

Wilkins counseled White to have the NAACP branches barrage Stassen with telegrams indicating their ire that the U.S. delegation had "dealt a body blow to colonial people."

Wilkins then suggested that this effort be followed up with a massive press campaign 38 directed out of the NAACP's New York office.** White loved the idea and immediately set the plan in motion.

As pressure from the NAACP and the press began to mount, Wilkins's strategy, for the moment, appeared to work. Bunche assured Wilkins that Stassen felt the pressure and became "much firmer" in his deliberations with Britain and France.*^ Satisfied with this assessment and pressed to deal with the other political and legal issues on the

Association's agenda, Wilkins quickly joined White and Du Bois back in New York.

Bunche warned the executive secretary, however, that the Association's absence from the conference had made it clear that there was no-one "on the job watching" the American delegation, and there was a "distinct likelihood of compromises" now that the pressure from the NAACP was off.''®

Disturbed by this turn of events. White telegrammed Stettinius. He urged the U.S. delegation to "take the highest moral and practical ground " and insist on independence as the goal for all colonial peoples.®' The secretary of state maintained that the U.S. supported independence but only for "peoples of trusteeship areas who. . .are capable of it"92 NAACP's position, however had been that independence must be forall colonial peoples, not just the three percent who came under the trusteeship plan.

Moreover, because the proposed Trusteeship Council would have "no Native representation," only the imperial powers had the authority to determine if a colony was

"capable" of independence. This proviso was unacceptable. White again urged Stettinius to rectify the flaws in the proposed UN Charter, but his pleading went unheard and there 39 emerged, instead, a "denatured 'shell' of a Trusteeship system," limited to a handful of territories.^^ Rayford Logan, who often feared that African-Americans "would be marginalized in the peace process," angrily denounced the UN Charter as a "tragic joke."®‘‘

The only one not disappointed was Ralph Bunche, who believed that the trusteeship proposals, which he helped draft, were a strong step in the right direction.

Bunche was pleased that he and Stassen were able to get a Trusteeship Chapter in the UN

Charter at all, particularly given the opposition, strength, and ability of the British delegation. Of course, the trusteeship provisions were not perfect, Bunche concluded, but they were "better than any of us expected." He knew that independence was not mentioned in the Trusteeship Chapter but felt that the "official Conference interpretation" acknowledged independence as one possible goal and he was "thrilled" at this achievement.®^ He also recognized that colonies did not officially have the right to petition the UN to complain about conditions in their homelands or seek relief from an abusive trustee, but he thought that this was not a major issue because oral petitions were implied

"in the proceedings of the [Trusteeship] committee though [this right was] not in the

Charter." All in all, Bunche concluded that the "final wording was better than the initial

May 4 American draft."®®

Bunche's assessment obviously differed from Du Bois's, White's and Yergan's, and is probably reflective of the concern in the African-American community that Bunche was struggling with his "two-ness"—being both American and Negro. Forced to develop colonial policy within the framework of U.S. foreign policy objectives, which called for 40 doser collaboration with the imperial powers, Bunche's stance was often at odds with other African-American leaders. Du Bois had earlier confided to Rayford Logan that

"Ralph Bunche is getting to be a white folks' 'nigger'." And another of Logan's colleagues observed that "there were 'bandanna-handkerchief-headed Negroes', and 'silk- handkerchief-headed' Negroes, but Ralph is a cellophane-handkerchief-headed Negro—you have to get off at a certain angle to see him."^’ The issue of "two-ness" would eventually come to plague African-Americans' attempts to bring about human rights and decolonization. But for now there was agreement among the African-American leadership, except for Bunche, that the UNCIO had been an abysmal failure.

After the disappointment at San Francisco, African-Americans needed to regroup.

Max Yergan, President of the National Negro Congress, called together the top African-

American leaders to stress the "importance of unity in action."’® Yergan's wording was very deliberate. After his assault on Walter White in San Francisco, there was a real possibility that the NAACP, the nation's largest and oldest civil rights organization, would not participate.” Anticipating trouble, Yergan convinced NAACP Board Vice-President

Mary McLeod Bethune to serve as the official convener of the Conference of Negro

Leaders. Bethune's selection could not have been more problematic for NAACP officials.

Prior to San Francisco, Bethune, relying upon her relationship with Eleanor

Roosevelt, had pressured the State Department to appoint her as the National Council of

Negro Women's official consultant to the UNCIO. Afraid to open up the floodgates to over 400 other organizations not chosen, but also wary of antagonizing the First Lady,

Assistant Secretary of State Archibald MacLeish called Walter White. MacLeish assured 41

White that the State Department would cover all of Bethune's expenses—all the

Association had to do was add her to its roster of consultants. White agreed. Shortly thereafter, though, Bethune contacted the executive secretary and asked how much the

NAACP would pay toward her hotel and travel costs. Puzzled by this request, given the

State Department's assurances, but careful not to alienate his Board member. White arranged for the Association to provide Bethune with $200 to cover her costs.

White hoped that these "petty" surprises were over, but was instead hit with a barrage of criticisms. First, "fire and brimstone" newspaper reports began to circulate that

Bethune was foisted on the NAACP consultants and, in retaliation, the Association refused to pay for any of her expenses. Then in a meeting of African-American organizations that had gathered in San Francisco, Bethune, in an unfavorable reference to

Du Bois and White, proclaimed that because she did not have a "string of degrees" behind her name and had not engaged in any international travel, she was the consultant who really "represented the Negro masses." Later, she falsely charged that she had been excluded from meetings of the consultants. In a parting shot at White, who was very pale, with straight hair and blue eyes, Bethune "pinned her credential on another brown woman so, she explained, there would be someone there to represent you who looks like you."

White was stunned. His astonishment turned to anger when she presented the Association with a $716.37 bill for her expenses in San Francisco. One NAACP official charged that

"Mary has become very mercenary" and that her friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt had made her extremely "heady." But afraid of continued bad publicity, the Association paid 42 the bill. Now the NAACP was being confronted with what looked like another slippery slope.

The proposed Conference of Negro Leaders had Bethune and Yergan as two of its sponsors. Fed up with both of them, White searched for a means to avoid the conference altogether. Wilkins, who had even less patience than White, understood the executive secretary's frustration but thought that, politically, the Association could not "afford to turn down [the] invitation." White mulled it over and cautioned Wilkins to get a copy of the agenda before the NAACP committed itself. Given "Max Yergan's performance in

San Francisco," White said, Bethune might be "unwittingly playing into the hands of the

C[ommunist] P[arty]" and trying to align the NAACP with the Left. White conceded that the Association would have to "handle this situation with maximum tact and intelligence— neither [of] which, under the circumstances, [he] possess[ed] at the moment." Wilkins finally convinced White that the Association could not risk boycotting the Conference of

Negro Leaders; the NAACP had to be represented.'”'

At the 23 June 1945 meeting of 34 black organizations, which included the

NAACP, the conference participants noted that "recent international developments. .

demanded continued and strengthened unity of purpose." Rayford Logan chaired the committee on colonialism, which included Max Yergan and Walter White, and drafted a report that found that the San Francisco Charter provided "scant hope for liberation" for the 750 million people in non-self-governing areas.Mary McLeod Bethune spoke forcefully on how the UN Conference had drawn into "bold relief that "common bond" between African-Americans and the colonial peoples. If anything, Bethune remarked, the 43

UNCIO had made it very clear that the "Negro in America" held "little more than colonial status in a democracy."'®

The similarities were appallingly clear. The fight for colonial self-determination paralleled the battle to overturn the South's racist voting restrictions. The efforts to revise the UN's "domestic jurisdiction" clause matched the assault on the states' rights philosophy of the South. And the dissatisfaction with a trusteeship plan that denied colonies the right to lay their grievances before an international tribunal mirrored the opposition to

America's separate and unequal system of justice. The Conference of Negro Leaders, with organizations representing over eight million African-Americans, vowed to move on all fronts to secure civil and human rights. In the days ahead, however, this resolve would be greatly challenged, as African-American leaders began to spend an inordinate amount of energy on internecine squabbling. The "one voice" that had once sounded such a crystal clear note for equality and justice began to crack under the strain. The fragmentation was not yet complete, though, and there was still some fluidity in the international scene. This spurred African-Americans' tenuous hopes for securing human rights through the illusory power of the UN. 44

ENDNOTES

1. WEB. Du Bois,The Souls o f Black Folks, introduction by Nathan Hare and Alvin Poussaint (New York: New American Library, 1969), 54.

2. For the impact of the Second World War on changing the power structure in the South from the planter class to a business elite see. Jack M. Bloom, "Civil Rights: The Emergence of a Movement" (Ph.D. diss.. University of California, Berkeley, 1980).

3. Rayford W. Logan, diary, 17 April 1945, Papers o f Rayford W. Logan Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D C. (hereafter Logan Papers)', National Negro Congress, Untitled (Possible Draft Position on Universal Military Training), (n.d.). Part 2, Reel 21, Papers o f the National Negro Congress (Washington, DC.: University Publications of America, 1988), microfilm, (hereafterNNC)', George Marshall to Harry S Truman, letter, 13 April 1945, Part 2, Reel 20, ibid.; and Eugene M. Martin to Walter White, letter, 28 July 1944, Box 146, File "Board of Directors: Statement to Democratic and Republican Conventions, 1944," Papers o f the NAACP.

4. W.E.B. Du Bois, Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1945): 124-125.

5. See Dan T. Carter, Scottsboro: A Tragedy o f the American South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969); Wilson Record,Race and Radicalism: The NAACP and the Communist Party in Conflict (Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, 1964); and Kenneth Robert Janken, Rayford W Logan and the Dilemma o f the African-American Intellectual (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993), 108-09.

6. "Crisis Editorial Comment," The Crisis Magazine, October 1935, Box 68, File "Articles: Communism, on—1950-55," Papers o f the NAACP.

7. Ralph Bunche, "Critique of the National Negro Congress, 1940, Papers of Ralph Bunche,^QQ\ 1 (Los Angeles: UCLA, 1980), microfilm, (hereafter .8///7cAg).

8. John Baxter Streater, Jr., "The National Negro Congress, 1936-1947," Ph.D., diss. University of Cincinnati, 1981; Cicero Alvin Hughes, "Toward a Black United Front: The National Negro Congress Movement," Ph.D., diss. Ohio University, 1982; and Gunnar Myrdal, "Negro Improvement and Protest Organizations," mAn American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, Twenty Fifth Anniversary Edition (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 817-19. 45

9. Walter White to A. Philip Randolph, letter, 19 June 1944, Box 225, File "Declaration by Negro Voters—Second Meeting, June 17, 1944," Papers o f the NAACP', and Walter White to Noma Jensen, letter, 21 June 1944, Box 224, File, "Declaration by Negro Voters: General, 1944," ibid. FBI Report on Roy Wilkins, 28 April 1945, Box 28, File "FBI File (FOI Request) File A (2), 1945-57,"Papers o f Roy Wilkins, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. (hereafter Wilkins Papers). Also see "A Declaration by Negro Voters," The Crisis 51 (Januaiy 1944): 16-17. The following organizations signed the "Declaration." Greeks: Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, and Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity; Civil Rights: International Committee on African Affairs, March on Washington Movement, NAACP, the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, Inc., the National Council of Negro Women, National Negro Congress, and the People's Committee; Organized Labor: Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, International Longshoremen's Association, National CIO Committee to Abolish Racial Discrimination, National Maritime Commission, and United Automobile Workers-CIO; and Religions: Social Action Committee of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church and the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.

10. Donald Jones to Walter White, letter, 30 June 1944, Box 224, File "Declaration by Negro Voters: General, 1944," Papers o f the NAACP. (emphasis in original).

11. FBI Report on Roy Wilkins, 28 April 1945, Box 28, File "FBI File (FOI Request) File A (2), 1945-57," Wilkins Papers.

12. Walter White to NAACP Board of Directors, memo, 1 August 1944, Part 1, Reel 6,

13. National Negro Congress, "Program," ([1944]), Part 2, Reel 20, NNC.

14. Walter White to William H. Hastie, letter, 4 August 1944, Box 299, File "William H. Hastie—General, 1944-Sept. 1945," Papers o f the NAACP', and Newsletter: The League fo r Coloured People (Sept. 1944), Reel 56, Papers o f W.E.B. Du Bois (Sanford, NC : Microfilming Corporation of America, 1979), microfilm, (hereafter Du Bois).

15. Du Bois, Color and Democracy, 85, 96; and White to Hastie, Wilkins and Marshall, memo, 4 May 1944, Box 224, File "Declaration by Negro Voters: General, 1944," Papers o f the NAACP.

16. "Resolutions Adopted at the Wartime Conference: NAACP," 12-16 July 1944, Part 1, Reel 11, NAACP', and "Address by Walter White at Closing Meeting of Wartime Conference," 16 July 1944, ibid. 46

17. Walter White to W.E.B. Du Bois, letter, 17 May 1944, Reel 56, Du Bois-, and "Fragment of NAACP Minutes," May 1944, ibid.

18. David Levering Lewis, fF.T?./?. D» j9o/.sv Biography o f a Race, 7565-7979 (New York; Holt, 1993), 3-4, 561, 564-65, 568, and 577.

19. Louis T. Wright to Kendall Weisiger, letter, 20 April 1944, Box 240, File "William E. B. Du Bois: General, 1943-44," Papers o f the NAACP', Eugene M. Martin to Walter White, letter, 24 April 1944, ibid.; Minutes of the Board Meeting, 12 June 1944, ibid.; Minutes of the Meeting of the Committee on Administration, 24 April 1944, Box 127, File "Board of Directors: Committee on Administration, 1942- 1944," ibid.; Du Bois to White, letter, 5 July 1944, Reel 56, Du Bois.

20. White to William H. Hastie, letter, 21 April 1944, Box 240, File "William E.B. Du Bois: General, 1943-44," Papers o f the NAACP.

21. Louis T. Wright to Kendall Weisiger, letter, 20 April 1944, Box 240, File "William E.B. Du Bois: General, 1943-44," ibid.

22. Brian Urquhart,Ralph Butiche: An American Life (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1993), 112.

23. Robert C. Hildebrand,Dumbarton Oaks: The Origins o f the United Nations and the Search for Postwar Security (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 56.

24. Ibid., 170-71.

25. Ibid., 37, 173-76.

26. Ibid., 91-93.

27. Ibid., 231, 236-240.

28. Ibid., 240.

29. Du Bois,Color and Democracy, 7.

30. W.E.B. Du Bois, "The Negro and Imperialism," transcript of radio broadcast, 15 November 1944, Box 527, File "Speakers: W.E.B. Du Bois, 1944-48," Papers o f the NAACP.

31. Du Bois to American Friends Service, et al, letter 21 October 1944, Reel 55 Du Bois-, Du Bois,Color and Democracy, 4; and Du Bois, "The Negro and Imperialism," transcript of radio broadcast, 15 November 1944, Box 527, File "Speakers: W.E.B. Du Bois, 1944-48," Papers o f the NAACP. 47

32. D\x^o\s>, Color and Democracy, 3-4.

33. Robeson and Yergan to White, letter, 29 November 1944, Reel 55, Du Bois.

34. "The San Francisco Conference and the Colonial Issue: Statement of the Council on African Affairs," Reel 56, ibid.; "Editorial," New Africa 4, no. 3 (March 1945): 3; and "Resolutions Adopted at the War-Time Conference," 16 July 1944, Part 1, Reel \\, NAACP.

35. "The San Francisco Conference and the Colonial Issue," Reel 56, Du Bois.

36. "The Colonial Question and Plans for Lasting Peace," New Africa 3, no. 8 (September 1944): 1.

37. Du Bois, "The Negro and Imperialism," transcript of radio broadcast, 15 November 1944, Box 527, File" Speakers: W.E.B. Du Bois, 1944-48," Papers o f the NAACP.

38. "Resolutions of the Colonial Conference in New York," 6 April 1945, Reel 57, Du Bois; "Resolutions Adopted at the War-Time Conference," 12-16 July 1944, Part 1, Reel 11, NAACP', and Du Bois,Color and Democracy, 11.

39. Max Yergan to Du Bois, telegram, 11 December 1944, Reel 55, Du Bois', Du Bois to Yergan, letter, 12 December 1944, ibid.; and "Dumbarton Oaks and Africa," New Africa 3, no. 11 (December 1944): 1, 5-6.

40. Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., to Paul Robeson, letter, 5 January 1945, Reel 7,The Paul Robeson Collection (Bethesda, MD: University Publications of America, 1991), microfilm, (hereafter Robeson), (emphasis added).

41. Rayford W. Logan, The African Mandates in World Politics (Washington, DC.: Public Affairs Press, 1948); Du Bois,The World and Africa: An Incjuiry into the Part which Africa has Played in World History (New York: Viking Press, 1947); and Oliver Stanley, "Speech to Foreign Policy Association," (19 January 1945); quoted in Emory Ross to Foreign Missions Conference of North America Boards and Agencies, letter, 26 February 1945, Reel 57, Du Bois.

42. Clark Eichelberger to Organization Representatives, letter, 13 February 1945, Reel 56, ibid.; Minutes of the Board of Directors' Meeting, December 1944, Part 1, Reel 3, NAACP', and Du Bois to Clark Eichelberger, letter, 9 March 1945, Reel 56, Du Bois.

43. Minutes of the Meeting of the Committee on Administration, 27 November 1944, Box 127, File "Board of Directors: Committee on Administration, 1942-44," Papers o f the NAACP. 48

44. Ibid..

45. Hunton to Du Bois, letter, 23 January 1945, Reel 57, Du Bois; and Du Bois to Hunton, letter, 26 February 1945, ibid.

46. Janken, Rayford W. Logan, 169.

47. Logan to Du Bois, telegram, 22 February 1945, Reel 57, Du Bois; "Resolution of Board of Directors," 12 March 1945, Box 197, File "Colonial Conference, 1945," Papers o f the NAACP; Du Bois to Max Yergan, letter, 5 April 1945, Reel 56, Du Bois; "Resolution of the Colonial Conference in New York," Reel 57, ibid.; and "Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Directors," 12 March 1945, Part 1, Reel 3, NAACP.

48. "Sign-In Sheet for Colonial Conference," 6 April 1945, Reel 57, Du Bois and "Colonial Representatives Stand for Freedom Now." 12 April 1945, Box 197, File "Colonial Conference, 1945," Papers o f the NAACP. (emphasis in original).

49. Francis N. Nkrumah, "Comments on Draft," ([6 April 1945]), Reel 57, Du Bois; and "Speakers at the Colonial Conference," 6 April 1945, ibid.

50. "Resolution of the Colonial Conference in New York," 6 April 1945, Box 197, File "Colonial Conference, 1945," Papers o f the NAACP.

51. Ibid.; and L.D. Reddick to Du Bois, letter, 5 April 1945, Reel 57, Du Bois. (emphasis added).

52. Du Bois to Stettinius, letter, 10 March 1945, Reel 58, ibid.; and Du Bois to Leo Pasvolsky, telegram, 10 April 1945, ibid.

53. Du Bois to Leo Pasvolsky, telegram, 10 April 1945, ibid.

54. Dorothy B. Robins, Experiment in Democracy: The Story o f U.S. Citizen Organizations in Forging the Charter o f the United Nations (New York: The Parkside Press, 1971), 34-56 and 81-99.

55. Walter White, A Man Called White: The Autobiography o f Walter White (New York: The Viking Press, 1948), 295.

56. Stettinius to George E C. Hayes, telegram, 12 April 1945, Reel 57, Du Bois; "Minutes of the Second Meeting (Executive Session) of the United States Delegation, Held at Washington, Friday, March 23, 1945, 10 a.m.," Department of State, Foreign Relations o f the United States, Vol. 1, General: The United Nations, 1945\ 148-49 (hereafter FRUS.X); "Memorandum by Mr. Charles E. Bohlen, Assistant to the Secretary of State for White House Liaison, of a Meeting 49

at the White House, Thursday, March 29, 1945, 11:45 a.m.," ibid., 167; "Minutes of the Third Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at Washington, Friday, March 30, 1945, 11 a.m.," ibid., 171; and "Minutes of the Fourth Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at Washington, Tuesday, April 3, 1945, 10 a.m.," ibid., 187-88.

57. Benjamin Gerig to Du Bois, letter, 12 April 1945, Reel 58, Du Bois.

58. Irene Diggs to Walter White, memo, 6 November 1944, Box 634, File "United Nations: Bretton Woods Conference, 1944-46," Papers o f the NAACP.

59. Stettinius, diaiy. Box 29, File "Stettinius Diary, Week of 8-14 April 1945," 14, Records of Harley A. Notter, 1939-45, RG 59, National Archives, Washington, D C. (hereafter 7Vb/to').

60. Du Bois to Walter White, memo, 12 April 1945, Reel 57, Du Bois\ and Du Bois and White to National Urban League, et al, telegram, 13 April 1945, ibid.

61. "Summary of Survey", ([April 1945]), Reel 58, ibid.; and Du Bois to Walter White, 17 April 1945, ibid.

62. White to Du Bois and Mary McLeod Bethune, memo, (n.d. [May 1945]), Reel 57, ibid.; and "Report of the Secretary," May 1945, Part 1, Reel 7, NAACP.

63. Ibid.

64. "The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Caffeiy)," FRUS: 1 (1945), 67-68; "Minutes of the Fifth Meeting of the United States Delegation Held at Washington, Monday April 9, 1945, 3:15 p.m.," ibid., 221; and "Minutes of the Twenty-Eighth Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at San Francisco, Thursday, May 3, 1945, 6:20 p.m.," ibid., 581.

65. White to Du Bois and Mary McLeod Bethune, memo, (n.d. [May 1945]), Reel 57, Du Bois-, and "Report of the Secretary," May 1945, Part 1, Reel 7, NAACP

66. "Minutes of the Twenty-First Meeting (Executive Session) of the United States Delegation, Held at San Francisco, Friday, April 27, 1945, 8:55 p.m.", FRUS.\ (1945), 484; "Minutes of the Twenty-Sixth Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at San Francisco, Wednesday, May 2, 1945, 5:30 p.m.," ibid., 532-41; and "Handwritten Notes from Consultants Meeting in Room 312," (n.d ). Reel 56, Du Bois.

67. Ely Culbertson to Stettinius, letter, 4 May 1945, Reel 58, ibid.

68. Ibid. 50

69. White to Du Bois and Bethune, memo, (n.d. [ May 1945]), Reel 57, ibid.

70. For the U.S. position on trusteeship see Stettinius, diary. Box 29, File "Stettinius Diary Week of 15-23 April 6, 1945 (Section Ten)," 50-52, Notter, ibid., 92; Stettinius, diary. Box 29, File "Stettinius Diary Week of 8-14 April 1945," 14; and ibid., 40-43; "The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Caffery)", FRUS: 1 (1945), 80; "Minutes of the First Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at Washington, Tuesday, March 13, 1945, 11 a.m.," ibid., 117; "Memorandum by the Interdepartmental Committee on Dependent Areas," ibid., 135; "The Secretary of State to Mr. Leo Pasvolsky, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State," ibid., 194-95.; "Minutes of the Twelfth Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at Washington, Wednesday, April 18, 1945, 9:10 a.m.," ibid., 349; "Minutes of the Nineteenth Meeting of the United States Delegation (A), Held at San Francisco, Thursday, April 26, 1945, 8:40 p.m.," ibid., 445-52; "Draft United States proposals for Trusteeship, [San Francisco,] April 26, 1945," ibid., 459-60; "Minutes for the Twenty-Fourth Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at San Francisco, Monday April 30, 1945, 6:20 p.m.," ibid., 504; "Minutes of the Fiftieth Meeting of the United States Delegation (A), Held at San Francisco, Tuesday, May 22, 1945, 9:05 a.m.," ibid., 845; "Minutes of the Sixtieth Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at San Francisco, Friday, June 1, 1945, 9 a.m.," ibid., 1390; and "Press Release: Statement by the Honorable Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., Chairman of the American Delegation," 5 May 1945, Reel 58, Du Bois. For the U.S. military's stance on strategic areas within the trusteeship plan see "Memorandum by the Chairman of the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (Dunn) to the Secretary of State, [Washington,] 26 February 1945,",FRUS:l (1945), 93-95; "Memorandum of Conversation, by the Adviser on Caribbean Affairs (Taussig), [Washington,] March 15, 1945," ibid., 122; "Extracts from the Diary of Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., Secretary of State, December 1, 1944-July 3, 1945, 18 March-7 April 1945 (Section Eight)," ibid., 140-41; "The Secretary of the Interior (Ickes) to the Secretary of State, Washington, April 5, 1945," ibid., 198-99; "The Secretary of State to President Roosevelt," 9 April 1945, ibid., 211-213; "Memorandum by the Secretaries of State, War, and Navy to President Truman, Washington, April 18, 1945," ibid., 350-51; and "The Chairman of the United States Delegation (Stettinius) to the Acting Secretary of State, San Francisco, May 6, 1945," ibid., 614.

71. "Minutes of the Seventh Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at Washington, Wednesday, April 11, 1945, 9 a.m.", ibid., 252-53; "Minutes of the Tenth Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at Washington, Monday, April 16, 1945, 9 a.m.," ibid., 308; "Minutes of the Twelfth Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at Washington, Wednesday, April 18, 1945, 9:10 a.m.," ibid., 338-342; "Minutes of the Twenty-Fifth Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at San Francisco, Wednesday, May 2, 1945, 9 a.m.," ibid., 527; "Minutes of the Thirty-Seventh Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at 51

San Francisco, Wednesday, May 16, 1945, 6 p.m.," ibid., 765; and "Minutes of the Seventy-First Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at San Francisco, Thursday, June 14, 1945," 1301-02.

72. "Amendments Proposed by the Governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and China," 5 May 1945, United Nations Conference on International Organization San Francisco, 1945: Documents Volume 3, Dumbarton Oaks Proposals Comments and Proposed Amendments (London and New York: United Nations Information Organizations), 622-23.

73. "Report of the Secretary," May 1945, Part 1, Reel 7, NAACP\ and Walter White, et al to Stettinius, telegram, 7 May 1945, Reel 58, Du Bois.

74. "Minutes of the Fifth Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at Washington, Monday, April 9, 1945, 3:15 p.m.," FRUSA (1945), 221; "Minutes of the Forty-Fourth Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at San Francisco, Thursday, May 17, 1945, 6 p.m.," ibid., 789-90; "Minutes of the Sixtieth Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at San Francisco, Friday, June 1, 1945, 9 a.m.," ibid., 1055; "Minutes of the Sixty-Fourth Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at San Francisco, Tuesday, June 5, 1945, 9:01 a.m.," ibid., 1167-70; "Minutes of the Seventieth Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at San Francisco, June 13, 1945, 9 a.m.," ibid., 1279-80; and United Nations Conference on International Organization, "Working Paper for Chapter on Dependent Territories and Arrangements for International Trusteeship," 15 May 1945

75. Du Bois to the Delegates of the USA UNCIO, draft, (n.d. [May 1945]), Reel 58, Du Bois.

76. "Arrangements for International Trusteeship: Additional Chapter Proposed by the United States", (n.d. [May 1945]), ibid.

77. "Minutes of the Seventy-Seventh Meeting of the United States Delegation, Held at San Francisco, Wednesday, June 20, 1945," FRUS:\ (1945), 1390-91.

78. Du Bois to American Delegation—UNCIO, letter, 16 May 1945, Box 639, File, "United Nations—UNCIO—General, 1945—May 11-June," Papers o f the NAACP.

79. Du Bois to Metz L.P. Lochard, telegram, 4 May 1945, Reel 56, Du Bois.

80. Council on African Affairs, "Text and Analysis of the Colonial Provision of the United Nations Charter," (n.d ). Box 639, File "United Nations-UNCIO-General, 1945—May 11-June," Papers o f the NAACP. 52

81. White to Wilkins, memo, 14 May 1945, Reel 57, Dii Bois\ White to Bunche, letter, 3 February 1954, Reel 3, Bimche\ Yergan to White, letter, (n.d.). Box 639, File "United Nations: United Nations Conference on International Organization- General, 1945-July, 1946," Papers o f the NAACP', and "Informal Gathering at San Francisco Office, Council on African Affairs," 4 May 1945, Box 639, File "United Nations: United Nations Conference on International Organization—General, March-May 10, 1945," ibid. Also see, Robert L. Harris, Jr., "Racial Equality and the United Nations Charter," in New Directions in Civil Rights Studies, eds., Armstead L. Robinson and Patricia Sullivan, Carter G. Woodson Institute Series in Black Studies (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1991), 126-45.

82. Ralph Bunche, "Summary of Reply: Allegation 14," (n.d. [1954]), Reel 2, Bunche.

83. Ralph Bunche, "Max Yergan, Notes for Intei"ventions," (n.d. [1954]), Reel 3, ibid.

84. "Draft Minutes of Committee on Administration Meeting," 28 May 1945, Box 127, File "Board of Directors: Committee on Administration, 1945," Papers of the NAACP.

85. White to Roy Wilkins, memo, 14 May 1945, Reel 57, Du Bois. The U.S. delegation also feared that it had aligned itself to closely to the colonial powers. See "The Acting Secretary of State to the Chairman of the United States Delegation (Stettinius)," 8 May 1945, FRUS. \ (1945), 652.

86. Urquhart, 5»/7c^e, 118.

87. Ibid., 119-20.

88. Wilkins to White, telegram, 18 May 1945, Box 639, File "United Nations- UNCIO-General, 1945—May 11-June," Papers o f the NAACP; White to Wilkins, letter, 21 May 1945, ibid.; and White to Conseulo Young, letter, 18 May 1945, ibid.

89. Wilkins to White, letter, 24 May 1945, ibid.

90. White to Wilkins, memorandum, 4 June 1945, ibid.; and "Memorandum for the Files from the Secretary—RE: Long Distance Telephone Conversation with Ralph J. Bunche in San Francisco, California June 3, 1945," 4 June 1945, ibid.

91. White to Stettinius, et al, telegram, 12 June 1945, ibid.; White, et al, to Stettinius, letter, 7 May 1945, Box 639, File "United Nations: United Nations Conference on International Organization—General, March—May 10, 1945," ibid.; and White to Stettinius, telegram, 20 June 1945, Box 639, File "United Nations-UNCIO- General, 1945—May 11-June," ibid. 53

92. White to Stettinius, telegram, 18 May 1945, ibid.; and White to Stettinius, telegram, 20 June 1945, ibid.

93. White to Stettinius, telegram, 20 June 1945, ibid.; White, et al, to Stettinius, letter, 7 May 1945, Box 639, File "United Nations; United Nations Conference on International Organization—General, March—May 10, 1945," ibid.; Du Bois to Lawrence Spivak, letter, 22 May 1945, Reel 56, Du Bois-, and Urquhart,Bunche,

121.

94. Janken, Rayford Logan, 169; and Rayford W. Logan, diary, 20 June 1945, Logan Papers.

95. Urquhart,Bunche, 121-22; and Ralph Bunche, "Trusteeship and Non-Self - Governing Territories in the Charter of the United Nations: The Problem at San Francisco," 14 December 1945, Box 355, File "Leagues: American Association for the United Nations, Inc., 1945-46," Papers o f the NAACP.

96. Rayford W. Logan, diary, 25 July 1945, Logan Papers.

97. Janken, Rayford Logan, 206-07.

98. Thelma Dale to Max Yergan, letter, 3 May 1945, Part 2, Reel 26,NNC, Yergan et al to Brown, letter, 3 May 1945, ibid.; Yergan to Dale, telegram, 10 May 1945, ibid.; Yergan to Dale telegram, 22 May 1945, ibid.; Bethune to White, telegram, 22 May 1945, Box 639, File "United Nations: The United Nations Conference on International Organizations—Mary McLeod Bethune, 1945," Papers o f the NAACP', and Bethune to Wilkins, letter, 5 June 1945, ibid.

99. Thelma Dale to Ben Davis, letter, 28 May 1945, Part 2, Reel 26, NNC.

100. White to the Committee on Administration, memo, 18 April 1945, Box 639, File "United Nations: The United Nations Conference on International Organizations— Mary McLeod Bethune, \9A5," Papers o f the NAACP, Manuscript: A Washington News Letter 23 April 1945, ibid.; Minutes of the Meeting of the Committee on Administration, 23 April 1945, Box 127, File "Board of Directors: Committee on Administration, 1945," ibid.; Leslie S. Perry to Roy Wilkins, letter, 23 April 1945, Box 639, File "United Nations: The United Nations Conference on International Organizations—Mary McLeod Bethune, 1945," ibid.; Wilkins to Waring, memo, 23 April 1945, ibid.; Wilkins to Alfred E. Smith, telegram, 24 April 1945, ibid.; White to Wilkins, letter, 28 April 1945, ibid.; "Memorandum on Mrs. Bethune and the United Nations Conference on International Organization at San Francisco and Other Matters Relating to the Conference, Prepared by the Secretary," 13 June 1945, ibid.; White to Wilkins, letter, 15 June 1945, ibid.; and Daisy Lampkins to White, letter, 28 June 1945, ibid. 54

101. White to Wilkins, telegram, 24 May 1945, ibid.; Wilkins to White, telegram, 24 May 1945, ibid.; Wilkins to White, telegram, 28 May 1945, ibid.; White to Wilkins, letter, 31 May 1945, ibid.; White to Bethune, telegram, 7 June 1945, ibid.; and White to Wilkins, letter, 15 June 1945, ibid.

102. Rayford W. Logan, diary, 24 June 1945, Logan Papers', and "Conference of Negro Leaders," 23 June 1945, Part 2, Reel 26, NNC.

103. "Statement of Mrs. Mary McLeod Bethune," 23 June 1945, Box 3, Folder 17, Mary McLeod Bethune Papers, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans; and "Negro Leaders Issue New Program," Congress View 3, no. 4 (July 1945): 8. CHAPTER III

The Struggle for Human Rights: African-Americans Petition the United Nations

[We must] take our problem out o f the civil rights context and place it at the international level, o f human rights, so that the entire world can have a voice in our struggle. Malcolm A'

The immediate postwar period was far from the "promised land" that African-

Americans had hoped for. Returning black veterans were vilified, attacked, and maimed.

In one particularly disturbing case, a southern sheriff tortured and then gouged out the eyes of veteran Isaac Woodward. In Columbia, Tennessee, the sheriffs storm troopers rampaged through a black neighborhood destroying everything in their path. And in

Georgia, a frenzied mob, in retaliation for the alleged rape of a white woman, lynched and mutilated four African-Americans, including two women. Not only were African-

Americans' very lives at risk but the economic gains they had made during the war were also in serious jeopardy. From 1942 to 1944 African-American employment in the defense industries had climbed from 2.5 to 8.3 percent, but the return of white veterans and cutbacks in defense spending pushed African-Americans out of these better-paying jobs.^ Abroad, mounting tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States shattered the illusory promises of the Atlantic Charter. The Soviets and Americans blamed each other for deliberately reneging on the Yalta accords, especially concerning

Poland. They haggled over reparations, the Straits of the Dardanelles, Soviet trusteeship

55 56 of the Italian colonies, Lend-Lease, Rumania, Greece, and the German/Polish border/

Inevitably, each diplomatic thaist and parry sliced at the sinews that had bound the Allies together in wartime. Now, in peace, the Grand Alliance was collapsing.

Walter White feared that the emerging Cold War would freeze the world in place and stunt the political and economic development of peoples of color.'’ His assessment was right on target. Many scholars have described the devastating impact of the Cold War on Africa, Asia, and Central and South America. They have not focused the same attention on African-Americans, even though the results were just as disastrous.^

The Cold War forced African-American leaders to abandon their "non-aligned" course, put their own international goals aside, and take sides in the East/West conflict.

As a result, in the years 1946 and 1947, one African-American organization disintegrated under the weight of the Cold War; another, once strong and visionary, began a headlong retreat from international issues, and African-American leaders in general began to reorient their efforts from human rights on a global scale to civil rights at home.

After the war — just as Du Bois, White, and others had feared — the European powers, ravaged by war and in need of hard currency, clung desperately to their mineral- rich, cash-producing colonies. British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, attempting to cloak the Empire's true intentions, deftly called for a colonial commonwealth that just coincidentally would allow England unparalleled access to Mideast oil. The Netherlands was afraid that without Indonesia it would be reduced to the status of a Denmark.

Desperately in need of the profits from the archipelago's abundant resources, the Hague plotted a "police action" to reimpose its colonial rule. France was determined to regain 57 possession of Indochina, its "richest and most prestigious" colonial possession. To that end, the French shelled the Haiphong Harbor, killed 6,000 civilians, and embarked upon a brutal war against the nationalist Vietminh.^

All of these developments fueled White's anxiety that the Atlantic Charter and the promises it held for people of color would be crushed by the reassertion of colonialism and the dissolution of the Allies into "armed camps." Adding to this disillusionment was

White's conviction that the struggle to achieve equality in the United States could not be won in "isolation" from the formidable challenges to decolonization and human rights.^

The "race question in the United States," White said, "was part and parcel of the problems of other colored peoples in the [world]." If the current peace was to be "more than an armistice," he argued, the U.S. had to come to grips with the issue of race. If it did not, the postwar world would be wracked with violence. White warned that African-

Americans, who had seen the promise of democracy dangled before them throughout the war, would not sit idly by as their wartime gains slipped away. They would "rather die on

[their] feet than live on [their] knees." Similarly, he asserted, people of color everywhere were "determined once and for all. . . to end white exploitation and imperialism" and were convinced that Japan's stunning successes in the early stages of the war had "destroyed forever. . the illusion of white omniscience and omnipotence."**

The NAACP therefore took a strong stand against former British Prime Minister

Winston Churchill's pleas for a more formalized alliance between Great Britain and the

United States. In his famous 5 March 1946 speech in Fulton, Missouri, Churchill described how an "iron curtain" was descending upon Europe and severing the continent 58 into free and unfree spheres. The former prime minister emphasized that atomic weaponry, the Red Army, and Stalin's ambition meant the world could no longer rely upon traditional balance-of-power politics to maintain the peace. He asserted that only an invincible Anglo-American alliance, based upon Britain's and the United States' "special relationship," could counter the spread of communism and Soviet power.’

White immediately recognized Churchill's speech as a paean to white racial superiority and angrily denounced it as "dangerous and cynical." The proposed Anglo-

American bloc, he said, would destroy the United Nations, "plunge the world" into another war, put American power behind the British Empire, and thereby "insure the continuation of imperialism."” In White's estimation, Churchill's speech was nothing but the latest in a long line of ideological rantings and "national antagonisms" that would

"divide the world once again into armed camps." If the demagogues and ideologues prevailed. White feared, there would be "little hope for civilization."”

Max Yergan, President of the National Negro Congress and Executive Director of the Council on African Affairs, and Paul Robeson, Chairman of the Council, echoed

White's sentiment. Their concern, however, was centered more on the Soviet Union's growing ostracism. Yergan charged that Churchill, intent on gaining American help in propping up Britain's teetering Empire, had maliciously "slandered" the Soviets and ignored their peaceful intentions. The speech, according to Yergan, was nothing but a

"warmongering" distortion designed to "sow dissension" among the former allies.

Robeson denounced Churchill's call for a "special relationship" as a sordid "scheme for

Anglo-Saxon world domination" and the continued oppression of peoples of color. 59

Robeson and Yergan pleaded with President Truman to ignore Churchill’s clumsy attempt to maneuver the U.S. into bankrolling the British Empire while jettisoning its other wartime ally, the Soviet U n io n .T h ey had little hope that this would occur, however.

President Harry Truman, whom some African-Americans believed was in the process of making "another Missouri compromise," had already chosen South Carolina

Governor James Byrnes as his secretary of state.B yrnes, a staunch Dixiecrat who believed that African-Americans should have "neither political equality nor social equality," could hardly be an effective standard bearer for a foreign policy based on decolonization and human rights.''* Instead, Byrnes and Truman were using rhetoric about bringing democracy to Eastern Europe while turning their backs on human rights violations against African-Americans in the United States. Du Bois angrily declared that

Byrnes would suffer "eternal damnation" for his overwrought concern about "oppressed minorities" in Bulgaria, Rumania, and Poland while steadfastly ignoring the plight of

African-Americans in the secretary of state's "own backyard. "*’

The last hope appeared to be the United Nations. The American justice system's continued silence on the lynching, torture, and police brutality that blacks endured in the immediate post-war period not only troubled the NAACP but convinced the National

Negro Congress that the American government at all levels was unable or unwilling to apply the Bill of Rights to African-Americans.'*’ On 17 May 1946, just weeks prior to the

NNC's Tenth Annual Convention, the Congress's leadership decided to appeal for justice to a higher authority, the United Nations.'’ At the NNC's request, historian Herbert

Aptheker drafted an eight-page report to the UN that outlined African-Americans' 60 economic, political, and social oppression. Aptheker began by stating that ten million of

12.5 million African-Americans lived in the South and were subjected to a range of inhumane conditions. Moreover, more than 90 percent of the almost 4.5 million African-

Americans in the workforce, were employed as either domestic servants, agricultural hands, or in "other service [non-professional] work." Because they were limited to manual labor occupations, over 40 percent of African-Americans had an annual household income of less than $200, more than 70 percent lived in housing with no electricity or indoor plumbing, and the infant mortality rate among African-Americans was almost double that of white Southerners.'*

This "wholesale oppression," despite the "prattle about 'separate but equal' facilities," carried over into education. South Carolina, which had almost the same number of African-American as white children, spent a total of $1.2 million to bus white students to school and less than $7,000 on its black students. The same pattern of abuse and neglect obtained throughout the South and led to over 40 percent of African-

Americans completing less than four years of formal education. If, as was often said, a democracy required an educated populace to make informed electoral decisions, the South had seen to it that democracy could not succeed.’®

On the contrary. Southern politicians were intent on restricting the right to vote and perpetuating an unconstitutional oligarchy. Sen. Walter F. George (D-GA) said

"Why apologize or evade? We have been very careful to obey the letter of the Federal constitution [while] violating the spirit of the [14th and 15th] amendments. . .And we shall continue to conduct ourselves in that way." As a result, Aptheker noted in a report 61 to the NNC, only 27,9 percent of the potential electorate in the South actually voted in the

1944 Presidential election, compared to almost 62 percent of the electorate in the rest of the nation. The figures were even worse for poll-tax states like Mississippi, Georgia, and

South Carolina, where only 19 percent of the potential voters turned out on election day.

This was not just a Southern problem, as Du Bois had noted earlier, but one that had major implications for democracy in the United States. The poll-tax, the white primary, and election day terrorism had successfully managed to limit the number of voters and give the South, through the congressional seniority rules, "four times the political power of the

Midwest." Given the South's stranglehold on Congress, it was highly unlikely that there would be any federal action on anti-lynching legislation and certainly none to destroy the peonage system. Aptheker concluded that "the cancer of racism ha[d] spread its poison throughout the life of America. . .throttling and killing. . .the entire nation."^"

The National Negro Congress prefaced Aptheker's searing report with a brief rationale that laid out the UN's authority to investigate and "end the oppression of the

American Negro. The Congress merged these two documents into a petition that it planned to present to the United Nations. On 1 June 1946, NNC Executive Director

Revels Cayton presented the petition to the 1,000 delegates at the Congress's national convention. As he read it, the delegates gave Cayton a "universal storm of applause" and authorization to forward the petition to the United Nations.^" On 6 June 1946, the

National Negro Congress presented its concise petition on the plight of black Americans to the UN Secretary General. The NNC’s leaders expressed their "profound regret" that they had to bring the oppression of 13 million African-Americans to the UN's attention. 62

But, after exhausting all constitutional avenues in the United States, they were "forced" to appeal their case to "the highest court of mankind—the United Nations." This court, unlike any in the U.S., would understand that blacks had been "bound to the soil in semi- feudal serfdom," "lynched," "terrorized," and "segregated like pariahs.

Once again, however, the promise of the UN would go unfulfilled. After receiving the petition, the United Nations hesitated. Before the petition could be reviewed, explained officials in the UN Secretariat, the National Negro Congress had to prove that the rights of African-Americans were, indeed, being violated. UN officials also made it quite clear that, according to the Charter, the United Nations had little, if any, authority to receive petitions from non-governmental organizations and no power to "intervene in domestic affairs" to investigate human rights abuses. After that sobering message, Petrus

Schmidt, Secretary of the UN Commission on Human Rights, remarked that if the

National Negro Congress still felt compelled to provide any additional evidence to buttress its complaint against the U.S., it was free to do so.'"*

The emerging Cold War and the rise in anti-Communist hysteria made it impossible for the NNC to respond to the challenge. The National Negro Congress had been founded ten years earlier as a confederation of organizations dedicated to improving the quality of life for African-Americans. Not all organizations participated, however. The NAACP held back, in part to safeguard its own autonomy, and in part because of the growing influence of the Communist Party within the NNC. That influence led Walter White to the conclusion that the NNC would eventually be "sold down the river [by the] reds."^^ The

NAACP had already tangled with the Communists in the infamous Scottsboro Case and 63 later in the Angelo Herndon legal morass and now had no intention of linking its agenda, as the Association saw it, to the Kremlin's.

The NNC's behavior, of course, did nothing to dispel White's opinion. From 1936 through 1939, the NNC had followed Comintern policy and had actively sought a United

Front with all liberal groups, especially organized labor. After the Nazi/Soviet Non-

Aggression Pact, however, the NNC closed ranks and ousted all non-Communists from its membership, including its president, A. Philip Randolph, a Socialist. Randolph warned that the "Negro would be foolish to tie up his own interests with the foreign policy of the

Soviet Union or any other nation of the world. Unfortunately, the NNC leadership had ignored his warning and, after the German invasion of Russia, was forced into yet another policy gyration.

The war, along with the policy gyrations, had enervated the NNC. The draft had sent most of the Congress's national leadership into the military and the lure of high-paying defense industry jobs had enticed many local NNC organizers to abandon their work with the Congress. The final blow came when Max Yergan, motivated by personal ambition and ideological zeal, facilitated the resignation of John P. Davis, the power behind the throne and engineer of Randolph's ouster. Held together by bale and hitching wire and the sheer will and determination of acting Executive Secretary Thelma Dale, the NNC had begun to show new life only toward the end of the war. But just as the Congress was reinvigorating its local branches, the NNC leadership, again following the Communist

Party line, decided to centralize authority and let the locals atrophy. This proved to be a disastrous move.^’ 64

The UN Secretariat's request for proof of human rights abuses in the United States effectively required the NNC to have local organizations in place to document the allegations in the Congress's petition; thanks to CP policy, the NNC did not.

Nevertheless, the NNC gamely tried to deliver. It set up "People's Tribunals" in Los

Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Birmingham, New Orleans, New York, and

Washington, D C. in order to get direct testimony about "Negro oppression.""'* The

Tribunals met with moderate success. The NNC collected several thousand signatures in support of its UN petition, at which point its drive began to stall. An NNC informant complained that he "had no faith" that the UN petition campaign would succeed because the Congress simply did not have the organizational structure to maintain the momentum.^® For example, when the national office pressed one local organizer to turn in his signed petition, he confessed that his children had "ransacked" his papers, his wife could not find the petition, and he did not have any signatures on it anyway.^" This fairly typical response led one NNC official to bemoan how difficult it was to have a successful signature drive "without [the] dramatics" of an overall UN campaign. Indeed, the

Congress leadership feared that generating any additional support would be "comparable to reviving a corpse."^'

Hoping for a resurrection miracle, the NNC turned to a variety of black organizations for support, including the black churches. The Congress's leadership complained that the UN's Commission on Human Rights had taken "no action" on the petition and would continue to ignore the plight of America's black population until the black churches and other organizations forced it to investigate. The NNC stressed, in 65 particular, the "urgent need" for black churches to "give leadership." They should help

"overcome the dry rot of racist injustice," according to NNC officials, who were keenly disappointed when the churches proved unresponsive.^^ Nor was Max Yergan successful when he reached out to Mary McLeod Bethune, whom he had earlier cajoled into hosting the Conference of Negro Leaders after the UNCIO. Although Bethune had previously remarked how San Francisco had "drawn into bold relief the "common bond" between

African-Americans and colonial peoples, she now saw no linkage between the two and believed that the plight of blacks was a "national" problem that the NNC had inappropriately dropped on the UN's doorstep.A ccording to the NNC leadership,

Bethune had been blinded by her close association with the Truman Administration and therefore failed to realize that "all problems of oppression [were] international." The

NNC now attempted to press that point with another leader in the African-American community.^"*

The Congress next tried to arrange a meeting where Metz Lochard, editor of the influentialChicago Defender, would present UN officials with additional evidence about the "degradation" of African-Americans. Max Yergan planned for Lochard to tell UN officials that their request for proof of human rights abuses was "superfluous." It was self- evident that African-American ghettos were nothing more than "semi-concentration camps," just as it was self-evident that the U.S. economy was fueled by the exploitation of

Negro labor and that violence and Jim Crow were the principal means of subjugation for

13 million African-Americans. These factors added up to a perverse "system of oppression" that Aptheker had painstakingly described in the NNC's petition. Like 6 6

Bethune, however, Lochard balked at the Congress's plans. He found other pressing engagements that would keep him out of New York and refused to lend his prestige and influence, or even his name, to the UN petition.^’

Bethune's and Lochard's refusal was not the worst of it, however. FBI informants had already alerted the Bureau that the Communist Party and its "front groups" intended to "exploit all possibilities" to embarrass the U.S. on "the Negro question." The FBI was convinced that the NNC's attempts to bring the "plight of 13 million underprivileged

Negroes" before the UN was nothing but a "move to detract attention from the Soviet setback in Greece," where British and Royalist forces were battling a Communist insurgency. In short, affiliation with the NNC was beginning to carry a hint of treason.

This led its major financial supporter, organized labor, to join Bethune, Lochard, and the black churches in distancing itself from the Congress.

The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) tried to steer clear of "the

Communist taint" by ordering 267 affiliated unions to "drop all association with the

National Negro Congress. Several unions vigorously protested the order. They were especially incensed that the CIO leadership had summarily declared that it would now focus its resources on the NAACP, which many viewed as indifferent to labor's demands.

One union president declared that while the Congress had consistently been on the front lines fighting for labor's rights, the "NAACP [did] nothing [and even] refused to take a stand.But Philip Murray, President of the CIO and a member of the NAACP Board of

Directors, had "no damn use for American Communists meddling in [union] affairs" and fully supported the directive.^’ The result was financial disaster. The NNC, which had 67 seen the UN petition as a marketing tool to increase membership and replenish its coffers, was now so short of cash that its fledgling local councils had to "shoulder the responsibility" for developing all "promotional material."'"’ The central office did not even have the resources to create posters, and certainly lacked the funding and personnel to develop the "dramatics" of an overarching UN campaign.

The "dramatics" came, instead, from an unexpected source. On 22 June 1946,

India, incensed by South Africa's discriminatory treatment of Indian laborers in the Union of South Africa, lodged a complaint before the United Nations. The South Africans, the

Indians charged, had violated a series of treaties whereby India would provide South

Africa with laborers and the South African government would, in turn, ensure that the

Indian workers enjoyed all "the rights and privileges of citizenship."*'^ The Indians contended that South Africa had passed a series of discriminatory laws that violated the treaties. The South African government countered that there was no treaty and that this was strictly a domestic matter outside the jurisdiction of the United Nations. The Indian laborers, the South Africans explained, were moving into white areas and showing

"growing commercial success." This success disturbed the whits South Africans, "who saw their whole future menaced by an alien civilization." The government therefore passed the Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Act of 1946, which prohibited

Indians from buying land in "whites only" areas. The South Africans vigorously contended that this was strictly a domestic matter. The South African government also concluded it could not have violated anyone's human rights because no "internationally recognized. . . rights [existed], and the [UN] Charter. . did not define them."**^ 68

While making its plea, the South African delegation turned to the U. S. for support/'* Alluding to the fact that it was not the only country that practiced discrimination, the South Africans declared that their nation was tired of getting

"crucif[ied]" for codifying its racial beliefs and "being the guinea pig" for UN challenges to racial discrimination. The South Africans also made it very clear that they were not

"fighting the domestic jurisdictional battle. . .only for themselves" because, as they were quick to point out, other nations, especially the United States, had "racial and minority problems.

The U.S. delegation understood the full import of the South Africans' message. In a series of meetings, members of the U.S. delegation wrestled with how to fend off the

Indians' assault. UN Ambassador Warren Austin noted that the Indian complaint took on enormous "importance" if the delegation "simply imagined" what would happen if the

UN's investigatory powers "were applied against the United States." This was particularly troubling to Senator Vandenburg, who confessed that he had great difficulty discerning the difference between "Indians in South Africa and negroes in Alabama." And because the differences were "not very great," Eleanor Roosevelt worried that an "oppressed" minority "could get its case before the United Nations in spite of its own government.'""’

The delegation, therefore, struggled to understand what level of protection the

"domestic jurisdiction" clause provided. Texan Tom Connally was convinced that it overrode everything else in the UN's charter and would shield the United States from unwanted intrusions. John Foster Dulles, the clause's chief architect, admitted that he had designed it to function just that way because he feared that the United Nations would 69 otherwise engage in "promiscuous international action." Dulles further asserted that it was "debatable" whether the UN meddling in domestic affairs would be any more productive than the federal government inserting itself in Mississippi, and decided that the

U.S. must sidetrack the Indians' complaint. Vandenburg then suggested throwing the issue into several committees, blurring lines of jurisdiction, and bogging the complaint down in the UN bureaucracy. Although Roosevelt voiced some discomfort that this strategy might undermine the UN's credibility, she agreed that the Indians' complaint could not come before the General Assembly and decided to go along with whatever her colleagues decided. Dulles, therefore, proposed that the U.S. keep the General Assembly focused on the question of the treaties between India and South Africa, not on the human rights issue.

That way, he concluded, the Americans could limit the discussion, keep the UN from expanding its query beyond the original issue, and, most importantly, escape international scrutiny of the "negro problem." Connally, however, worried that "the debate could not be limited" and that there would be "no stopping" the UN once it "was turned loose.

Frightened by the prospect of a precedent-setting vote that would allow the UN to investigate racially discriminatory practices, the U.S. tried to move the Indians' complaint out of the UN's jurisdiction altogether and into the International Court of Justice where the court could focus only on the nature of the treaties and completely ignore the issues of human rights and domestic jurisdiction.

To the consternation of the U.S. delegation, the emerging Third World and the

Soviet bloc banded together, rejected the Americans' proposal, dismissed South Africa's rationalizations, and censured South Africa. The General Assembly discounted the 70

"domestic jurisdiction" argument and declared that every nation that signed the UN

Charter had "made a certain renunciation of their sovereignty." The Assembly further asserted that the "Charter imposed upon each member an obligation to refrain from policies based upon race discrimination." The General Assembly's January 1947 resolution therefore condemned South Africa's racist policies as a violation of human rights and

"contrary to the Charter," and strongly advised South Africa to bring its policies into

"conformity with the principles and purposes of the Charter."'^

A jubilant Yergan believed this was just the opening the NNC needed to garner not only national backing but international support as well.®“ He contended that the problem stalling UN action on the Congress's petition was "the barrier of national sovereignty," which, as he saw it, was "the equivalent of the 'states rights' obstacle to federal action in the United States."®* Yet, the recent UN action seemingly set an outstanding precedent.

If the emerging system of apartheid was a violation of human rights, then certainly Jim

Crow had to be as well. If the Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Act was contrary to the principles of the UN Charter, then America's well-worn restrictive covenants had to be equally unacceptable. TheNew York Amsterdam News declared that

"American arrogance, English chicanery, and [America's] bootlicking stooges" had just lost an important battle in the United Nations, and this could only give "new impetus" to the Congress's petition.®^

Yergan agreed. "The time is ripe," Yergan euphorically declared, to get the United

Nations to act. The NNC therefore made one last gesture to broaden the financial and

organizational support for its UN petition. Yergan quickly invited representatives from 71

200 organizations to meet together to "map. . .out joint plans" that would force the UN to investigate the "conditions of oppression. . .experienced by the Negro in the United

States.This required, as the NNC well knew, a carefully crafted protest that could demonstrate how American racism projected itself into the international arena. At the 8

February 1947 strategic planning meeting, 75 representatives from a range of labor, fraternal, and civil rights organizations decided to draft a supplement to the original NNC petition that would expand the original focus from Aft ican-Americans alone to all peoples of color under U.S. jurisdiction. The proposed supplement would first outline the legal basis of oppression in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Panama Canal Zone, and the prized Pacific Islands that the military had wrested from Japan. Second, the supplement would describe how America's Jim Crow laws discriminated against Third World UN delegates. That way, "the problem is not only domestic in character, but is of direct concern to the governments from which these nationals come." Third, the supplement would emphasize the patently racist nature of America's immigration laws, which were heavily biased against Indonesians, Japanese, and other peoples of color. Finally, the supplement would conclude that these patterns of abuse were symptomatic of and emanated directly from the "basic pattern of Negro discrimination in the United States."

As a result, America's "Negro question" was "far more than an internal problem." It had critical "international implications" that had to be addressed by the world community.^'*

The next stage in this plan was to produce the kind of international and national support that would place the issue of African-Americans squarely on the UN's agenda. A small subcommittee suggested visiting Latin America and Europe "to organize such 72 support." That required money, however, and the Congress had none. The NNC leadership therefore asked each organization at the conference to (1) become an official sponsor of the UN campaign; (2) name a permanent representative to work with the NNC on the petition; (3) use its own national and local organizational structures to distribute information about the campaign and garner support; (4) provide financial backing to assist in the campaign; and (5) organize "People's Tribunals" throughout the U.S.” In short, the NNC asked the other organizations to carry out the tasks that its own financially and structurally weak organization could not.

For all intents and purposes, that February UN strategy session was the NNC's last big hurrah. The Congress was rapidly disintegrating and the leadership had to focus all of its efforts on trying to save the organization. The major problems were money and membership. Not only had labor withdrawn its financial support, but the national office was having difficulty collecting the pledges made both at the Tenth National Convention and in the UN signature campaign. The Chicago Council of the NNC had managed to deliver only $669 of its $2,500 pledge. The Washington, D C Council, which, along with

Detroit and Chicago, was supposed to be one of the strongest locals, had stopped reporting altogether about its UN membership drive. The Washington and Chicago

Councils, in fact, were on the verge of having their telephones disconnected and being evicted from their offices. Other financial worries also plagued the Congress. Bertha

Tipton, Executive Secretary of the Chicago Council, had allegedly embezzled NNC funds and then disappeared. The national office could not even meet its payroll. Edward

Strong, a senior staff member, demanded to know, "WHERE IS MY MONEY?" Fiscal 73 insolvency also put an abrupt halt to plans to move the NNC's headquarters from New

York to the United Auto Workers' Detroit stronghold.^® In short, the lack of adequate financial resources made it impossible for the NNC to carry out the broad agenda it had set for itself. At the same time, the rising tide of anti-Communist hysteria kept potential supporters away. Membership drives were abysmal "failures" and there was a "severe lack of participation" in NNC activities even by its own card-canning members. To give one example, although the Washington, D C. Council boasted more than 3,000 members, only

"a dozen or so ever appeared" at meetings.”

The Communist Party of the USA (CP) had seen enough. The CP had hoped that the Congress would be the Party's entree into the African-American community. But a series of doctrinal blunders made this impossible. It was evident that the CP consistently put the Party ahead of the concerns of African-Americans This was particularly evident in the war years when the CP wanted nothing to stand in the way of Allied aid to the Soviet

Union, and refused to support African-American agitation for equal employment opportunities in the defense industries and the military.” Of course, the Party leadership did not believe that its problems in the African-American community could be directly traced to the Congress's slavish adherence to the Party line. Instead, the CP openly derided the rudderless direction of the National Negro Congress and concluded that the

NNC desperately needed "political leadership by the Communist Party." Angered at being

"stalemated by the National Office," the Party leadership cavalierly discussed letting the

NNC "die" and allowing the more pliant Civil Rights Congress to "carry on [the NNC's] work in the Negro field."” 74

Sparked by the Communist Party's open disapproval, financial insolvency, dwindling membership, and plummeting staff morale, the National Board of the National

Negro Congress met on 22 June 1947 to decide the organization's fate/’" The major issue was what kind of organization the NNC would be. The executive director. Revels

Cayton, argued that the Board had to be realistic. Time was running out and the NNC did not have the resources for grandiose plans that stood little chance of success. Cayton was adamant that the NNC must focus its remaining resources on Detroit and Chicago, where it could "operate on a local basis" and "evolve" into a national organization again. He certainly did not want to waste very limited resources on cities in "Indiana where victory is impossible." Cayton denounced as completely "illogical" the Board's suggestion for maintaining some kind of "holding operation" until the NNC was stronger."'

Board member James Jackson expanded upon Cayton's arguments. Jackson decried the entire notion of a "holding operation." It would force the NNC into a "twilight zone," he averred, and that could only lead to "stagnation." In his estimation, if the NNC was to be a "dynamic" catalyst for change, it had to become a mass membership organization. Although his solution was contrary to CP policy, Jackson continued with his analysis of what went wrong. The 1945 decision to centralize authority in New York was what was killing the NNC, and the Congress's intimate affiliation with the left-wing had made the NNC "unacceptable" to other organizations. Being a pariah not only limited membership but severely impeded any kind of unity with other organizations on issues affecting African-Americans. By other organizations, Jackson specifically meant the

NAACP. He acknowledged that the Congress saw itself "competing" with the 75

Association for members, but argued that the Congress did not have to "dissolve" just because the NAACP had more members. Jackson contended that the NNC's programs served as a "stimulus" to the NAACP's activities and clearly demonstrated that the

Association, while "fulfilling certain" needs, did not have the breadth of vision to provide

"real leadership to the Negro masses." In short, there was a critical and viable role for the

NNC to play in the struggle for equality, and that role was as a mass membership organization.^

The Board listened attentively to Jackson's arguments and then voted against his position by a vote of 10 to 1. The Board opted instead for a "holding operation" that maintained the Congress as a national organization with a centralized office. This decision resolved nothing. The NNC had so many intricately woven problems that the National

Board was finally compelled to appoint a subcommittee to do an "exhaustive" study of the organization and report back to the full Board.The subcommittee examined issues surrounding personnel, finances, program, strength of local councils, and the UN supplementary petition.^"* Its recommendations, submitted to the National Board on 7 July

1947, ensured that the organization's drift and decline would continue. The subcommittee

"reaffirmed" the National Board's 22 June resolution, recommended keeping the NNC headquartered in New York City, and suggested reducing the executive staff to two. The last recommendation was borne of sheer necessity. Sensing the inevitable end of the

NNC, Cayton and Edward Strong had already submitted their resignations. The subcommittee was at a loss about how to fix the Congress's financial woes. The financial statement showed only $104 in the bank, but over $3,200 in bills. The Communist Party 76 finally decided that its grand experiment had failed and agreed to "gradually dissolve" the

Congress and focus on infiltrating the N A A C P.D eclaring that the Communist Party had "sabotaged" the National Negro Congress, Yergan began an agonizing reappraisal of his own and his organizations' alignment with the CP and, as a result, abandoned the

National Negro Congress in its death throes.^

With the resignations of Cayton, Yergan, and Strong, Thelma Dale was left

"with pretty much everything on her hands." She began to negotiate the transfer of remaining assets from the NNC to the Civil Rights Congress.According to the 23

November 1947 Agreement, which Dale and others signed on 4 December 1947, the

National Negro Congress merged into the CRC. The prized New York office now became the Harlem local of the Civil Rights Congress and the NNC's paid members automatically became CRC members. Because there was already a rich cross-fertilization between the CRC and NNC National Boards, those who had not already done so were formally invited to sit on the Executive Board of the Civil Rights Congress.'’* Thus, 11 short years after its inception, the National Negro Congress ceased to exist. The NNC's blind loyalty to the Communist Party, its weak organizational structure, and financial problems meant that its most innovative program, the petition to the United Nations, was destined to fail.

The NAACP, however, believed that the Congress had stumbled on a great idea.

Walter White, became convinced that the petition was more than a leftist "publicity stunt," and came to recognize that the NNC had "captured the imagination" of African-Americans by "lifting the struggle of the Negro" out of the "local and national setting and placing it in 77 the realm of the international."® In White's assessment, it was not the message but the

NNC's Communist leanings that sealed the petition's fate. He contended that the

Association, which had worked diligently to prevent Communist infiltration, would be able to appeal the case of African-Americans before the United Nations while dodging the Red bullet that had killed the NNC's chances. Du Bois was eager to take up the challenge.™

After White's and Du Bois's disappointing experience in San Francisco, it may seem odd that these two men were now eager to work through the UN organization founded in that city. Important changes had occurred since May 1945, however, and these changes had cast the UN in a new light. Eleanor Roosevelt had joined both the

NAACP's Board of Directors and the United Nation's Commission on Human Rights.^’

For Walter White, these developments meant that a powerful, sympathetic ally would be available to champion the cause of African-Americans before the international body. Du

Bois, on the other hand, had come to the conclusion that the U.S., because of the emerging Cold War, was vulnerable to a skillfully publicized expose on America's race problem. "The problems of the color line," Du Bois contended, were "becoming increasingly international, and demanding investigation [and] publicity."™ This publicity would force the nation to address the needs of its 13 million African-Americans, regardless of what the UN could or would do.

On 1 August 1946, Du Bois requested several copies of the NNC petition, which he believed was "too short" and "not sufficiently documented" to spur the UN or the

United States to action.™ He sought to craft a scholarly 150-200 page treatise that documented both the effects of human rights abuses on America's black population and 78 the UN's obligation to intervene. For this daunting assignment, Du Bois initially suggested to Walter White that Earl B. Dickerson, Illinois assistant attorney general and a member of the Association's Board of Directors; Sadie T, Alexander, secretary of the National Bar

Association; and Henrietta Buckmaster, an author and civil rights activist, join Rayford

Logan to prepare a four-part petition. The petition would detail the Constitutional rights of African-Americans, the denial of those rights from 1863-1917, the inferior legal and social status of African-Americans from 1917-1946, and the United Nations' responsibility to uphold human rights. Du Bois believed that this team could pull together a petition in time for the UN General Assembly's September meeting. White forwarded the plan to the

Board of Director's powerful Committee on Administration for its advice.’''

The committee members agreed with the overall thrust of the plan but suggested some major revisions, including expansion of the editorial board beyond "the New York family" to include, perhaps Roscoe Dunjee, editor of Oklahoma'sBlack Dispatch.''^

Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP’s Chief Counsel and a future Supreme Court Justice, thought the September deadline completely impractical; it was already Labor Day weekend. He also questioned whether attorneys Dickerson and Alexander, who had thriving law practices, would have the time to devote to the petition. Instead, Marshall recommended Milton Konvitz, a Cornell University professor, as one who had done "the best job" on the legal rights of African-Americans. The main issue for Marshall was whether the Association wanted to "do a real job or not" in presenting an airtight case before the United Nations. If it did, he advised, then it needed to slow down, determine 79 who was going to do the work, and decide what, exactly, the Association wanted to accomplish/^

Du Bois took the suggestions under advisement and replaced Alexander with

Konvitz. He also proposed that instead of Buckmaster, Charles Houston, founder of the

NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, write on the present status of African-Americans. Du Bois thought Dickerson was indispensable and pressed to keep him on the team. Dickerson's expertise was probably valued because, as a key member of the National Lawyer's Guild, he may have helped draft the National Negro Congress's petition on the duties of the

United Nations to protect human rights. Not only did Du Bois seek to maintain

Dickerson, he also believed that Marshall was too pessimistic about the timeline. The

General Assembly would begin its session on 23 September and Du Bois believed that it would not get down to business until late October. Du Bois therefore contended that there was "no reason why" the petition could not be ready for the General Assembly by

November.’’ His timetable called for getting the assent of Konvitz, Dickerson, Houston, and Logan by 28 September; the authors finishing their sections by 26 October; Du Bois completing his editing of the volume by 9 November; and the NAACP presenting the completed petition to the UN no later than November 30. Konvitz would write on the legal rights of African-Americans, Dickerson on the denial of those rights from 1783 to

1917. Houston would follow up with an exploration of the present legal and social status of African-Americans and Logan would conclude with the responsibility of the United

Nations to protect human rights. Du Bois, as editor, would provide the synthesis that 80 pulled all four sections together. The Board approved the plan and shortly thereafter Du

Bois hit his first snag.’*

Dickerson said he would be "gratified" to help write the Association's petition,

Konvitz told Du Bois that he could not "say no to you," and Logan, always eager to be in the company of power and history, jumped at the chance to participate.” Charles

Houston, however, refused because his workload made it "impossible" for him to contribute. He suggested that Du Bois ask Robert Ming, Jr., former associate general counsel for the Office of Price Administration and a professor of law at the University of

Chicago, to write the chapter on African-Americans' status.*" Ming replied in the affirmative and then failed to send in his chapter by the original 26 October deadline, missed an extended 15 November deadline, and ignored Du Bois's repeated telegrams.

Frustrated, Du Bois enlisted Houston's help in prodding Ming to deliver.*' Finally, on 2

January 1947, Ming's chapter arrived in "good" shape but "45 days late."*’

Du Bois troubles were far from over. At every turn, friends and foes warned him about the impotence of the UN. As Rayford Logan researched materials for his section, he began to seriously question whether the UN had any authority at all to safeguard human rights. The dreaded "domestic jurisdiction" clause, which the NAACP had fought so hard and futilely to overturn in San Francisco, seemed to effectively block all penetration by the UN into the internal affairs of a sovereign nation. When international intervention did occur, such as in the case of the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crime Trials, it was the result of "treaties imposed upon weak nations," which certainly was not descriptive of the United States.*’ 81

Leslie S. Perry, director of the Association's Washington, D C. Bureau, warned Du

Bois that the NAACP was asking the UN to go to the very "brink of its authority." And after reading Ming's and the others' chapters. Perry determined that the draft petition would hardly compel the international organization to exceed its powers and challenge the

United States. If the UN could be budged to move. Perry decided, it would need more than the legal treatise that Du Bois's team had drafted. Perry was "disturbed" by the authors' inability to fully convey "the low state of Negro welfare" in the United States or

"the disabilities under which the Negro works and lives." He called for "sociological data" on employment stratification and resulting wage differentials, on illiteracy and per capita expenditures on African-American and white students, on the high-rent urban ghettos and rural plantation shacks that blacks were forced to live in, and on the high infant mortality rate, low life expectancy, and dangerously inadequate health care facilities for ten percent of the American population.Perry's stinging critique struck a chord and Du Bois deftly challenged the former social worker to write that chapter. Perry assented.

Robert Carter, an attorney in the NAACP's legal office, shared Logan's and Perry's concerns about the UN's authority to intervene. The draft petition simply did not set up the "prerequisite" conditions that would explain why the UN had to have jurisdiction in this case. "Nowhere," Carter contended, "do I find a clear-cut, strong statement to the effect that the states will not protect the Negroes." Nor did Carter find any direct statement that the federal government was "powerless" to stop human rights violations.

It is "impossible for Negroes to attain justice within the United States" and this compelling fact. Carter concluded, meant that "the only recourse left" was "direct action [by] the 82

United Nations." This was the ground work that Du Bois had to lay if he wanted the UN to take some action.

Action was a rare commodity. At each foray into the UN bureaucracy, Du Bois was waved away with caveats about the United Nations' limited powers. Clark

Eichelberger, director of the American Association for the United Nations, and a representative from the Commission on Human Rights alerted Du Bois that they could provide "no assurance" the commission would even accept the NAACP's petition.*^ When

Du Bois gave John Humphrey, director of the commission, a draft of the petition,

Humphrey lukewarmly promised to put it on a list with other petitions, but made it clear that the Commission on Human Rights had "no power" to protect human rights. He also let Du Bois know that all petitions to the Commission were confidential and, as such, there would be no publicity even if the NAACP submitted its petition.

Public attention in the United States seemed to be focused on the impending crisis in the Near East where the autocratic regime in Greece could no longer be propped up by an increasingly weakened Great Britain. The British were broke and did not have the resources to support both the Labour government's domestic agenda as well as Britain's traditional foreign policy objectives. Britain's food and fuel shortages, juxtaposed with

Greece's continuous drain on the British treasury, caused Chancellor of the Exchequer

Hugh Dalton to complain that "[w]e are, I am afraid, drifting in a state of semi-animation towards the rapids" and must stop the "endless dribble of British taxpayers' money to the

Greeks."*** After months of debate, Dalton finally convinced Prime Minister Clement

Attlee to hand the Greek quagmire over to the Americans. 83

State Department officiais, already convinced that the Greek Communists and their war machine were fully supported and directed by Moscow, were eager to crush the insurgency and hand the Soviets a major defeat. When State Department officials imagined a Communist victory in Greece, they saw the apocalypse. They envisioned a

"world cut in half," with communism spilling out of the Near East into Iran, Africa, Italy, and France. The problem was that Congress and the American public saw neither the apocalypse nor any direct correlation between the outcome of the Greek civil war and

U.S. interests. If the United States was going to take up the mantle of the British Empire, the White House and State Department knew that they would have to describe the conflict as if the fate of western civilization hung in the balance. And what better place to fight for western civilization than in the cradle of democracy — Greece.*'^

On 12 March 1947, in what would become known as the Truman Doctrine,

President Truman laid before Congress his version of the apocalypse. Greece, the president declared, was threatened by Communist terrorists, who were supported by the

Soviet satellite states of Bulgaria, Albania, and Yugoslavia. Besieged by the constant incursions on its northern border and the terrorists' disruption of its economy, the Greek government's "small and poorly equipped" army was simply "unable to cope." America, the president asserted, was the only nation "willing and able" to support the "democratic

Greek government."’” Truman, of course, knew that the Greek government was anything but democratic. U.S. officials had consistently characterized the ruling clique as "corrupt, incompetent, and repressive" ” and Truman, himself, was compelled to acknowledge that the "government of Greece [was] not perfect," that it had been "operating in an 84 atmosphere of chaos and extremism." Nonetheless, the president continued to hammer home the point that only American support could protect Greece and allow it to become " a self-supporting and self-respecting democracy" — a democracy just like the United

States where there were "free institutions, [a] representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty. . .and freedom from political oppression."’”

Was this the same democracy where, less than a month before Truman's speech,

Willie Earle had been dragged out of a South Carolina jail, lynched, shot, and mutilated and his confessed murderers found "not guilty"? Was this the same democracy where, on

27 May 1947, just five days after Congress appropriated $400 million to support Greece and Turkey, William Pittman's eviscerated torso was found in a North Carolina ditch?

Was this the same democracy where a pregnant May Noyes was repeatedly shot and tortured by a man that Alabama police exonerated from any wrongdoing? And was this the same democracy where Macio Snipes was gunned down for daring to vote in

Georgia?”

Somehow Truman and his advisers believed that they had the power to bring democracy to Greece but were impotent to ensure "free elections [and] freedom from political oppression" in the South. Just as African-Americans once chided Woodrow

Wilson to make "America Safe for Democracy," African-Americans now wanted to see a

Truman Doctrine for the United States. Instead, they got a Democratic administration tied in knots by its powerful Southern contingent, stymied by a Republican onslaught that had just captured the 80th Congress, frustrated by its inability to "rollback" communism in Eastern Europe, and mesmerized by its "new and ruthless" definition of democracy that 85 had only one meaning—anti-communism.®'' That quicksand definition led the federal government to sink into the morass of propping up the repressive Greek government and subsequent reactionary regimes. Yet, communism, anti- or otherwise, was irrelevant to

African-Americans' struggle to achieve human rights and equality.®^ Put simply, African-

Americans were not subjected to the worst that the United States had to offer because they were wholeheartedly embracing Marxist-Leninism. In fact, communism, for a variety of reasons, never flourished in the African-American community. Rather, African-

Americans suffered in the United States because whites' needed to justify first, slavery, and then continued servitude.®" Robert Carter was right. Du Bois would have to make it clear that the United Nations was the only place that African-Americans could secure justice.

After the NAACP's petition had been significantly revised to incorporate the changes suggested by the reviewers, Du Bois immediately began to lay the groundwork for a full UN hearing.®’ He and Ollie Harrington, the Association's public relations director, knew the NAACP's petition was a "mass of homicide" that would forever kill any illusion about American democracy. As a result, it would be extremely difficult to get the

UN to accept the petition and "allow it to remain in the open."®® Nevertheless, Du Bois contacted all of the UN delegations, as well as Secretary General Ti-ygve Lie, asking for their support in bringing the NAACP's petition before the General Assembly.®® One of Du

Bois's colleagues, Harry E. Davis, a state legislator from Ohio, warned him that the

"Anglo-American representatives" would make every effort to "sidetrack" the petition by throwing up the "internal domestic affairs" excuse.'®® The British met all of Davis's low 86 expectations and refused to be of "any assistance."'”' Trygve Lie also replied that he was

"not in a position" to receive the petition and suggested that Du Bois contact John

Humphrey in the Human Rights division.""' Du Bois and Harrington had anticipated this chilly reception but felt that they could count on support from at least the Indian, Soviet, and "one or two South American" delegations to pressure the UN to receive the petition and openly and fully debate its merits. Harrington, who would eventually defect to East

Germany, joked that Soviet UN Ambassador Andrei Gromyko would "again incur the wrath" of the American delegation for his assistance to the African-American cause.'”"

Because Walter White erroneously thought that Mrs. Roosevelt would be a strong ally in the NAACP's quest for UN intervention, he prodded Du Bois to consult her.'”''

Well before White's urging, however, Du Bois had already found the former first lady less than supportive. Roosevelt either replied tersely to his letters or completely ignored them.

Simmering over what he saw as Roosevelt's hypocrisy, Du Bois concluded that she was simply following State Department orders.'”" John Humphrey reinforced that conclusion when he told Du Bois that only member states could place a petition before the United

Nations and the U.S. State Department had already decided that "no good would come" from putting a petition "of this character" on the General Assembly's agenda.'””

At the same time, Marian Wynn Perry of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund warned Du Bois of a law that placed "strict limitations and criminal penalties" on anyone who contacted a foreign government on a subject currently being negotiated. She urged

Du Bois to get State Department approval before submitting the petition to the United

Nations. Du Bois, alluding to the growing debate over Palestine, politely dismissed her 87 concerns by joking that "the whole Jewish population of the United States" would be imprisoned if it were illegal to contact the United Nations, And, then, in a more somber tone, he declared that he would be "very happy to go to Jail in defense of the right to petition the United Nations."'”^

That steely determination led Du Bois to circumvent the NAACP bureaucracy and

Walter White. He decided to independently and publicly pressure the United Nations to act. Ollie Harrington had already been intimating to members of the African-American press corps that the Association had prepared a document that would humiliate the

American government. It was, therefore, a relatively simple task for Du Bois to convince the public relations director to leak the petition, without White's consent, to the New York

Times and several other influential newspapers.'”" Although White was furious with Du

Bois, the plan worked. Sunday's New York Times carried Du Bois' charges that the

American South, because of its racism and systematic corruption of the democratic process, posed a greater threat to the U.S. than the Soviets ever could.'"” In response,

Humphrey capitulated and received the NAACP's petition on 23 October 1947."”

Walter White began the presentation by noting that "freedom is indivisible," yet there had been repeated attempts to deny people of color their freedom by "exploiting" them solely on the basis of "color, race, or creed." White declared that the "injustice against black men in America" had "repercussions" for the "brown men of India, yellow men of China, and black men of Africa." As long as discrimination existed in the most powerful nation in the world. White surmised, the rest of the world would be caught in its wake and plagued with continued war and unrest. In a veiled reference to the United 88

States' declaration to save democracy in Greece, Du Bois noted that there were twice as many African-Americans as Greeks, implying that if democracy were to be saved, its salvation must begin at home. He then stated that African-Americans were "as loyal" as any other citizens and demanded a world hearing to "persuade" the United States to "be just to its own people." This could not be achieved if the UN insisted on burying the

NAACP's petition in the "archives."'"

Humphrey patiently listened to Du Bois's and White's pleas, then carefully articulated UN policy. "I must make clear to you," Humphrey declared, that the petition would be treated as "confidential." Even at that, he continued, "the Commission. . .still ha[d] no power to take any action. . concerning human rights." Recognizing the inanity of his own statement and attempting to smooth what was becoming a tense session,

Humphrey assured the NAACP officials that their effort would not be in vain. In fact,

Humphrey offered, the Commission would review the petition as background material for

"formulating an International Bill of Human Rights" and helping the Commission define the "'human rights and fundamental freedoms'" alluded to in the UN Charter."^

Dissatisfied with Humphrey's response, Du Bois continued to push hard for a full- scale publicity campaign about the plight of African-Americans in the United States.

Later, he coyly turned to Warren R. Austin, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

In Truman's plea for aid to the Greeks, the president announced that "one of the chief virtues of democracy. . .is that its defects are always visible and. . .can be pointed out and corrected.""^ Du Bois therefore urged Austin to place the petition on the General

Assembly's agenda because it would "be an excellent thing" if Americans could let the 89 world know that they were "perfectly willing" to perfect democracy in the United States before they tried to export it abroad."'*

State Department officials were well aware of the problems that America's Jim

Crow system had caused, from housing discrimination against Third World UN delegates in New York City, to racist treatment of Indian businessmen in Washington, DC., to having to explain away the latest lynching in the Deep South.'" America's position as the

Jim Crow leader of the "free world" posed a constant, nagging stumbling block to the full implementation ofU.S. foreign policy. But instead of "correct[ing] this sordid situation themselves," the U.S. looked for ways to deflect the NAACP's charges. The State

Department eventually determined that touting democracy's ability to openly work on its problems coupled with a full barrage aimed at Soviet atrocities would divert attention from America's "Negro problem.""*’ But for now, the U.S. delegation members hoped to defuse the situation by either inviting the NAACP leadership to meet with them directly or having the revered Eleanor Roosevelt handle the matter through a "personal appeal" to

Walter White.'" Roosevelt, of course, believed that "colored people. . would be better served. . .if the NAACP's [petition] were not placed on the Agenda.""*

In order to thwart the State Department's efforts, Du Bois barraged the popular and scholarly press with the NAACP's petition. "" The Chicago Defender called the petition. An Appeal to the World, a "searing indictment" of America's "failure to practice what it preaches."""' The National Urban League's editor hailed the petition as "the most strategic move" in race relations for a long time and hoped that it would "make democracy a living force in America and throughout the world. P.M. described the NAACP's 90

"memorandum" as "an unpleasant jolt" and a reminder of "the considerable gap between

American preaching and practice. " For Journalist Saul Padover, the Truman Doctrine and the constant American harping about human rights abuses in Eastern Europe now had an

"unconvincing sound." He saw that "if there [was] not much democracy in Hungary and

Bulgaria, there [was] possibly even less of it.. in South Carolina and Mississippi."'^^ In the same issue,P.M. carried U.S. Attorney General Tom Clark's speech to the National

Association of Attorneys General. Clark said that he was "humiliated" that African-

Americans had to seek redress of their grievances from a foreign nation and vowed to use the full power of the Justice Department, "as is permitted under the law," to "protect the life and liberties" of African-Americans. All of the press, however, was not positive. The

San Francisco Chronicle concluded that the NAACP leadership must obviously like

"rejection" because there was no way that the Association would be able "to get around" the United Nations' "domestic Jurisdiction" clause. For theMorgantown Po.st in West

Virginia, the NAACP's action was nothing but a "publicity" stunt that would "embarrass" the United States and "furnish. . .Soviet Russia with new ammunition."'-^

As these commentaries made clear, the petition would not be assessed solely on the validity of the charges it contained. Rather, An Appeal to the World would, instead, be weighed on the scales of the Cold War. It was a weigh-in that the NAACP was to lose and one that diplomatic historians have overlooked in analyzing the battles of the Cold

War.

The Americans on the UN's Commission on Human Rights refused to even acknowledge the petition, lest they lend credibility to the charges and thereby undermine 91

U.S. posturing as the leader of the "free world." On the other hand, the Soviets could not believe their windfall and quickly became the champions of the down-trodden American

Negro.

The UN's Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities was the ultimate arena where the issue would be decided. The Soviet delegate, Alexander P. Borisov, argued vigorously for the inclusion of the NAACP's—and the National Negro Congress's—petition on the UN's agenda. Jonathan Daniels, the

American delegate, said it would be "invidious" to elevate one group's petition over the others and alluded to the unconfirmed rumors that the Soviets had been charged with

"forced labor" and running a gulag system. Daniels wanted to make sure that if America's dirty laundry would be aired, the Soviets' would be hanging on the line as well. Borisov parried every attempt to include all petitions on the Sub-Commission's agenda and continued to press for the NAACP's and the National Negro Congress'". Daniels continued, in a line of reasoning similar to that of South Africa's a year earlier, that because the UN had no International Bill of Human Rights, it would be impossible to determine if blacks had a legitimate complaint. Finally, Daniels asserted, the UN simply did not have in place the machinery to receive and investigate petitions alleging human rights abuses. After days of wrangling and numerous points of order, Borisov's attempts to place the NAACP's petition before the UN went down to resounding defeat at the hands of the United States.

Eleanor Roosevelt conveyed the decision to Walter White and emphasized that she was in total accord with the vote and with Daniels's position. Roosevelt asserted that the 92

U.S. delegation was not going to just "stand by and let the Soviet Union attack the United

States.Recognizing that Borisov's actions had made the NAACP vulnerable to charges of being a Communist front. White accepted defeat and retreated.

Thus, in the span of three short years, the hope of the UN as a powerful weapon for systemic change had dissolved into the reality of the United Nations as little more than a pawn in the Cold War. Nor was the UN the only victim of the growing animosity between the Soviet Union and the United States. The National Negro Congress had been destroyed by the mounting power of the Cold War. Even more significant, the nation's oldest, largest, best organized, and wealthiest civil rights organization would soon begin to crack under the pressure and start a slow and steady retreat from the issues of human rights and decolonization. Eleanor Roosevelt's stinging rebuke, the Soviet Union's prominent role in championing the Association's petition, and the emergence of rabid anti­ communism at home would lead the NAACP to reassess not only its strategies but its overall goals as well. Earlier, Nkrumah aide and Pan-Africanist George Padmore had asserted that blacks, as "part and parcel of the American body politic," were consumed by

"the question of communism or anti-communism," and thus unable to fully turn their attention to the issues of political and economic independence.'^*^ This prophetic statement would become a painful reality in the coming years. 93

ENDNOTES

1. Malcolm X, February 1965: The Final Speeches, Steve Clark, ed. (New York: Pathfinder, 1992), 104.

2. Louis Ruchames,Race, Jobs, & Politics: The Story o f FEPC (Westport, Connecticut: Negro Universities Press, 1971), 161.

3. James F. Byrnes, Speaking Frankly (New York & London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1947); Daniel Yergin,Shattered Peace: The Origins o f the Cold War and the National Security State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977); John L. Gaddis, The United States and the Origins o f the Cold War, 1941-47 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972); Bruce R. Kuniholm,The Origins o f the Cold War in the Near East: Great Power Conflict and Diplomacy in Iran, Turkey, and Greece (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980); Lloyd C. Gardner, Architects o f Illusion: Men and Ideas in American Foreign Policy, 1941-1949 (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970),- Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance o f Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford: University Press, 1992); and Walter LaFeber,America, Russia, and the Cold War: 1945-1975, America in Crisis Series, ed. Robert A. Divine (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1967).

4. "Statement of Walter White at 37th Annual Meeting," 7 January 1946, Part 1, Reel 14, NAACP.

5. Gabriel Kolko, Confronting the Third World: United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1980 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988); Richard H. Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy o f Intervention (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982); Stephen G. Rabe,Eisenhower and Latin America: The Foreign Policy o f Anticommunism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988); Robert A. Pastor,Condemned to Repetition: The United States and Nicaragua (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987); and Gordon Connell- Smith, The United States in Latin America: An Historical Analysis of Inter- American Relations (London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1974).

6. Alan Bullock, 5ev;>?; Foreign Secretary, 1945-1951 {London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1984); William Roger Louis, The British Empire in the Middle Blast, 1945-1951: Arab Nationalism, the United States, and Postwar Imperialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984); Robert J. McMahonColonialism and Cold War: The United States and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence, 1945-49 (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1981); and George C. Herring, America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975, 2d edition, America in Crisis series, ed., Robert A. Divine (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979, 1986), 6-7. 94

7. "Statement of Walter White at 37th Annual Meeting NAACP," 7 January 1946, Part 1, Reel 14, NAACP.

8. Ibid.

9. Winston S. Churchill, "Sinews of Peace," 5 March 1946, in Wimton S. Churchill His Complete Speeches: I897-I963, Vol. VII; 1943-1949, ed. Robert Rhodes James (New York and London: Chelsea House Publishers, 1974), 7285-93.

10. "Comment by NAACP on Ex-Prime Minister Winston Churchill's Address on March 5th at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri," 7 March 1946, Box 616, File "State Department, 1941-47," Papers o f the NAACP', and "Churchill Speech," Report of the Secretary, 4 April 1946, Part 1, Reel 7, NAACP.

11. "Statement of Walter White at 37th Annual Meeting," 7 January 1946, Part 1, Reel 14, ibid.

12. Quoted in, Martin Bauml Duberman,PaulRobe.son (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988), 303-04.

13. George Streator, "Negro Congress Appeals to U.N.: Detroit Gathering Asks It to Halt Oppression of the Race in this Country," New York Times, 1 June 1946.

14. Quoted in, Rayford W. Logan, diary, 27 June 1945, Logan Papers.

15. George Streator, "Negro Youth Told Future is in South: Dr. Du Bois says the Region Should be Freedom 'Firing Line'—Byrnes Assailed," New York Times, 21 October 1946; and "UN and the Negro," People's Voice, 8 June 1946.

16. National Executive Board, "Recommendations of the UN Committee," 30 May 1946, Part 2, Reel 26, NNC.

17. R.A. Guerin to J. Edgar Hoover, letter, 31 May 1946, Reel 2, FBI File on National Negro Congre.ss (Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, 1987), microfilm.

18. Herbert Aptheker, "The Oppression of the American Negro: The Facts," Part 2, Reel 26, NNC.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid.; and National Negro Congress, "The Jurisdiction of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations," ibid. 95

22. "National Negro Congress Petitions UNO to End Nat'l Bias," New York Age, 8 June 1946.

23. National Negro Congress, A Petition to the United Nations on Behalf of 13 Million Oppressed Negro Citizens o f the United States ( f America (New York: National Negro Congress, 1946), 2-3.

24. National Negro Congress to Council & Affiliates, memo, ([1946]), Part 2, Reel 12, NNC:, Russell Barnes, "UN Action Doubtful on Negroes' Petition: Appeal for Relief from Discrimination Could Prove Embarrassing to the U.S.," Detroit News, 3 June 1946; and "Summary Record of the Presentation of a Petition by Dr. Max Yergan, President, National Negro Congress," 6 June 1946, Part 2, Reel 28, NNC.

25. Quoted in, John Baxter Streater, Jr., "The National Congress, 1936-1947," Ph.D. diss. (University of Cincinnati, 1981), 241.

26. Ralph Bunche, "Critique of the National Negro Congress," 1940, Reel 1, Bimche.

27. Streater, "The National Negro Congress, 1936-1947," 241, 299-342; and Hughes, "Toward a Black United Front," 189-229.

28. "The American People's Tribunal," (n.d. [July 1946]), Part 2, Reel 29,NNC] Untitled, (n.d. [July 1946]), Part 2, Reel 26, ibid.; "UN Commission Seeks More Data on Negroes," People's Voice, 6 July 1946.

29. Guy Hottel to J. Edgar Hoover, memo, 3 October 1946, Reel 2, FBI File on National Negro Congress.

30. Celia Forman to Horace Perryman, letter, 15 October 1946, Part 2, Reel 28, NNC\ and Perryman to Forman, letter, (n.d ), ibid.

31. "Summarization—U.N. Signature Campaign," (n.d ), ibid.

32. Revels Cayton and Dorothy Funn to Rev. R.B. Hurt, letter, 16 September 1946, ibid.; Cayton and Celia Forman to Rev. F.W. Jacobs, letter, 16 September 1946, ibid.; Cayton and Forman to Rev. George C. Wainright, letter, 16 September 1946, ibid.; Moselle Edwards to Dorothy Funn, letter, (n.d. [September 1946]), ibid.; Edward Strong to Rev. P.A. Bishop, letter, 26 October 1946, ibid.; and Celia Forman to Moselle Edwards, letter, 17 September 1946, ibid.

33. Max Yergan to Mary McLeod Bethune, letter, 15 November 1946, ibid.; and Mary McLeod Bethune to Max Yergan, letter, 20 November 1946, ibid.

34. Ruth Jett to Max Yergan, letter, 21 November 1946, ibid. 96

35. Adelaide Bean to Thelma Dale, memo, (n.d. [November 1946]), ibid.; "Statement on the Presentation to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations of a Document, 'Jim Crow America,' in Evidence of the Oppression of Negro Americans," (n.d. [November 1946]), ibid.

36. Scheidt to Director, teletype, 11 September 1946, Reel 2, FBI File on National Negro Congress.

37. FBI Report NY 100-3633, (n.d ), ibid.; and Mary Sperling McAuliffe,Crisis on the Left: Cold War Politics and American Liberals, 79-/7-7 954 (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1978), 14.

38. Anne Benda to John Brophy, letter, 15 January 1947, Part 2, Reel 34, AWC; Fred Williams to John Brophy, letter, 18 December 1946, ibid.; and Hodges E. Mason to George L.C. Weaver, letter, 16 December 1946, ibid.

39. Joseph and Stewart Alsop, "Chicago Parley of Progressives Turned Liberals Against Reds: Communist Activity There Seen Linked With the Conference's Attack on Baruch Atom Plan—an Attack Which Gromyko had Predicted," Chicago Herald Tribune, 1 October 1946.

40. "Publicity Cost for Exploitation of United Nations Petition,"(n.d). Part 2, Reel 26, NNC.\ and Edward E. Strong to Rowena Sudduth, letter, 19 September 1946, ibid.

41. Edward E. Strong to Rowena Sudduth, letter, 19 September 1946, ibid.

42. United States Delegation to the United Nations, 10 July 1946, US/A/2, Box 48, File "US/A/1-75," Records o f the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, RG 84. Washington National Records Center, Suitland, MD.

43. United Nations, Yearbook o f the United Nations: 1946-1947, (Lake Success, NY: United Nations, 1947), 144-148.

44. For a full discussion of the "alliance" between South Africa and the United States see, Thomas Borstlemann, Apartheid's Reluctant Uncle: The United States and Southern Africa in the Early Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

45. Memorandum of Conversation, 29 October 1946, US/A/70, Box 48, File "US/A/1- 75," RG 84; and Memorandum of Conversation, 6 November 1947, US/A/C. 1/546, Box 38, File "US/A/C. 1/451-550," ibid.

46. Minutes of the Tenth Meeting of the General Assembly Delegation, 28 October 1946, US/A/M (CHR)/10, Box 60, File "US/A/M/(CHR)/l-32," ibid.; Minutes of 97

the Eleventh Meeting of the United States General Assembly Delegation, 28 October 1946, US/A/M/(CHR)/11, ibid.; and Minutes of the Fifteenth Meeting of the General Assembly Delegation, 12 November 1946, US/A/M/(CHR)/15, ibid.

47. Minutes of the Tenth Meeting of the General Assembly Delegation, 28 October 1946, US/A/M/(CHR)/10, Box 60, File "US/A/M/(CHR)/l-32," ibid.; Minutes of the Eleventh Meeting of the United States General Assembly Delegation, 28 October 1946, US/A/M/(CHR)/11, ibid.; Minutes of the Fifteenth Meeting of the General Assembly Delegation, 12 November 1946, US/A/M/(CHR)/15, ibid.; and Minutes of the Tenth Meeting of the United States Delegation to the Third Regular Session of the General Assembly, 5 October 1948, US(P) A/M/(CHR)/10, Box 60, File "US(P)/A/M/ (CHR)/l-34," ibid.

48. Memorandum of Conversation, 23 September 1947, US/A/C. 1/160-US/A/C.4/38, Box 37, File "US/A/C.1/101-200," ibid.; Minutes of the Tenth Meeting of the General Assembly Delegation, 28 October 1946, US/A/M/(CHR)/10, Box 60, File "US/A/M/(CHR)/l-32," ibid.; Minutes of the Eleventh Meeting of the United States General Assembly Delegation, 28 October 1946, US/A/M/(CHR)/11, ibid.; Minutes of the Fifteenth Meeting of the General Assembly Delegation, 12 November 1946, US/A/M/(CHR)/15, ibid.; and Minutes of the Tenth Meeting of the United States Delegation to the Third Regular Session of the General Assembly, 5 October 1948, US(P) A/M/(CHR)/10, Box 60, File "US(P)/A/M/ (CHR)/l-34," ibid.

49. Yearbook o f the United Nations: 1946-1947, \AA-\A%.

50. United Nations Conference Summary Proceedings, 8 February 1947, Part 2, Reel 28, AWC.

51. Max Yergan to Dwight Bradley, letter, 29 January 1947, ibid.

52. "Editorial," New York Amsterdam NeM>s, 14 December 1946.

53. Max Yergan to Dwight Bradley, letter, 29 January 1947, Part 2, Reel 28, NNC.

54. "Proposals for Extending UN Petition Campaign as Adopted by the Conference on United Nations and Minorities," 8 February 1947, ibid.; "United Nations Conference: Summary Proceedings," 8 February 1947, ibid.; and "Suggested Contents of Supplementary Petition to the United Nations," 8 February 1947, ibid.

55. "Proposals for Extending UN Petition Campaign as Adopted by the Conference on United Nations and Minorities," 8 February 1947, ibid.

56. Alfred McPherson, et al to Revels Cayton, letter, 6 July 1946, Part 2, Reel 29, ibid.; Edward Strong to Marie Harris, letter, 22 October 1946, ibid.; Bertha Tipton 98

to Revels Cayton, letter, 8 July 1946, ibid.; Edward Strong to Dorothy Funn, letter, (n.d), ibid. (emphasis in original); FBI Report, 8 January 1947, Reel 2,FBI File on National Negro Congress-, FBI Report, 17 February 1947, ibid.; and FBI Report, 22 October 1946, ibid.

57. FBI Report, 17 February 1947, ibid.; and Special Agent in Charge, Washington to Director, FBI, memo, 10 January 1948, ibid.

5 8. Record, Race and Radicalism, 114-16.

59. FBI Report, 17 February 1947, Reel 2,FBI File on National Negro Congress; and Special Agent in Charge, Detroit to Director, FBI, memo, 15 May 1947, ibid.

60. National Executive Board Meeting: Summary Minutes, 22 June 1947, Part 2, Reel 34, AWC.

61. Ibid.

62. Ibid.

63. Ibid.; and "Untitled," 22 June 1947, ibid.

64. National Executive Board Meeting: Summary Minutes, 22 June 1947, ibid.; and "Untitled," 22 June 1947, ibid.

65. Special Committee Meeting: Minutes, 7 July 1947, ibid.; National Negro Congress Financial Statement, 23 July 1947, ibid.; Unsigned to P. Kenneth O'Donnell, letter, 3 February 1961, Reel 2,FBI File on National Negro Congress.

66. "Max Yergan Obituary,"New York Times, 13 April 1975.

67. Special Agent in Charge, Detroit to Director, FBI, memo, 15 August 1947, Reel 2, FBI File on National Negro Congre.ss.

68. "Statement on Merger of the National Negro Congress with the Civil Rights Congress," 4 December 1947, ibid.; and Press Release from Civil Rights Congress and National Negro Congress, 6 December 1947, ibid.

69. Gloster Current to Walter White, letter, 4 June 1946, Box 444, File "National Negro Congress: 1945-47," Papers o f the NAACP', Wilkins to White, memorandum, 6 June 1946, ibid.; and White to Bunche, letter, 7 June 1946, ibid.

70. Du Bois to B.R. Ambedkar, letter, 31 July 1946, Reel 58,Du Bois-, White to Du Bois, memo, 1 August 1946, Box 634, File "United Nations—General, 1945-46," Papers o f the NAACP', Du Bois to White, memo, 1 August 1946, Reel 59,Du Bois. 99

71. Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting, 8 May 1945, Reel 3, NAACP Board of Directors Meeting, 1944-1953 (Library o f Congress), microfilm, (hereafter NAACP/LC)', and Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting, 11 June 1945, Reel 3, NAACP.

72. "Report of the Department of Special Research, NAACP: June 4 to September 7, 1946," Reel 59, Du Bois.

73. Du Bois to NNC, letter, 1 August 1946, ibid.

74. Du Bois to White, memo, 26 August 1946, Box 637, File "United Nations Petition, 1946," Papers o f the NAACP\ and White to Committee on Administration, memo, 28 August 1946, ibid.

75. Roy Wilkins to White, memo, 3 September 1946, Reel 59, Du Boi.s\ Channing Tobias to White, letter, 30 August 1946, ibid.; Ruby Hurley to White, memo, 29 August 1946, ibid.; and Charles Toney to White, letter, 4 September 1946, Box 637, File "United Nations Petition, 1946," Papers o f the NAACP.

76. Thurgood Marshall to White, letter, 31 August 1946, Reel 59,Du Bois.

77. Du Bois to White, memo, 5 September 1946, ibid.

78. Du Bois to White, memo, 5 September 1946, Box 241, File "William E.B. Du Bois—General, 1946," Papers o f the NAACP; Du Bois to White, memo, 23 September 1946, ibid.; and White to Du Bois, memo, 17 September 1946, ibid.

79. Dickerson to Du Bois, letter, 26 September 1946, Reel 58,Du Boi.s; Du Bois to Konvitz, letter, 25 September 1946, ibid.; and Konvitz to Du Bois, letter, 28 September 1946, ibid.

80. Du Bois to White, memo, 1 October 1946, Reel 59, ibid.; and Du Bois to Robert Ming, Jr., letter, 30 September 1946, Reel 58, ibid.

81. Du Bois to Charles Houston, telegram, 20 November 1946, Reel 58, ibid

82. Du Bois to White, memo, 2 January 1947, Reel 60, ibid.

83. Logan to Du Bois, letter, 12 October 1946, Reel 58, ibid.; Logan to Du Bois, letter, 12 October 1946, ibid.; and Logan to Du Bois, letter, 27 October 1946, ibid.

84. Leslie S. Perry to Du Bois, letter, 7 January 1947, Reel 60, ibid.

85. Robert L. Carter to Du Bois, memo, 22 January 1947, Box 637, File "United Nations Petition (NAACP): 1947, Jan-Sept," Papers o f the NAACP. 100

86. Du Bois to Arthur S. Spingarn, memo, 16 January 1947, Reel 60,Du Bois.

87. Du Bois to White, memo, 29 January 1947, Box 637, File "United Nations Petition (NAACP): 1947, Jan-Sept," Papers of the NAACP', and John P. Humphrey to Arthur B. Spingarn, letter, 19 February 1947, Box 637, File "United Nations Petition (NAACP): 1947, Oct," ibid.

88. Quoted in, Yergin,Shattered Peace, 280.

89. Yergin, Shattered Peace, 281-82; and Lawrence S. Wittner,American Intervention in Greece, I943-I949 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), xi, 73-74, 77-78.

90. Harry S. Truman, "The Truman Doctrine," inThe Annals o f America, Vol. 16, 1940-1949: The Second World War and After (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1968), 435; and Wittner, American Intervention in Greece, 79- 80.

91. Yergin, Shattered Peace, 288, 292.

92. Truman, "The Truman Doctrine,"The Annals o f America, 435-36.

93. Civil Rights Congress, We Charge Genocide: The Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relieffrom a Crime o f the United States Government Against the Negro People. (New York: Civil Rights Congress, 1951),64, and 66-67.

94. Du Bois to Harold Preece, letter, 12 August 1947, Reel 60,Du Bois.

95. Ibid.

96. Lauren,Pride atid Prejudice, 5-43.

97. Du Bois to White, memo, 28 August 1947, Reel 60,Du Bois.

98. Oliver Harrington to A1 Smith, letter, 2 October 1947, Box 637, File "United Nations Petition (NAACP): 1947, Oct," Papers o f the NAACP', and Du Bois to William H. Stoneman, letter, 16 October 1947, Box 637, File "United Nations Petition (NAACP): 1947, Jan-Sept," ibid.

99. Du Bois to Trygve Lie, letter, 11 September 1948 (sic), ibid.; Du Bois to William H. Melish, letter, 18 September 1947, Reel 60,Du Bois', Hugh H. Smythe to Afghanistan UN delegation, et al, letter, 29 September 1947, ibid.

100. Harry E. Davis to Du Bois, letter, 19 September 1947, Reel 59, ibid. 101

101. Assistant Private Secretary (United Kingdom Delegation) to Hugh H. Smythe, letter, 2 October 1947, Reel 60, ibid.

102. William H. Stoneman to Du Bois, letter, 29 September 1947, Box 637, File "United Nations Petition (NAACP): 1947, Jan-Sept," Papers o f the NAACP.

103. Vijaya Pandit to Du Bois, letter, 25 September 1947, Reel 60, Du Bois\ William Melish to Du Bois, letter, 30 September 1947, ibid.; Harrington to A1 Smith, letter, 2 October 1947, Box 637, File "United Nations Petition (NAACP); 1947, Oct," Papers o f the NAACP', Du Bois to William Melish, letter, 6 October 1947, Reel 60, Du Bois', and T. Tokina to Smythe, letter, 10 October 1947, ibid.

104. White to Du Bois, memo, 29 January 1947, ibid.; and Du Bois to White, 31 January 1947, ibid.

105. Du Bois to Eleanor Roosevelt, letter, 17 July 1946, Reel 59, ibid.; Eleanor Roosevelt to Du Bois, letter, 22 July 1946, ibid.; White and Du Bois to Eleanor Roosevelt, letter, 22 September 1947, Box 637, File "United Nations Petition (NAACP): 1947, Jan-Sept," Papers o f the NAACP', Du Bois to Eleanor Roosevelt, letter, 14 October 1947, Reel 60, Du Bois', and Du Bois to Walter White, memo, 24 November 1947, ibid.

106. Warren R. Austin to Hugh H. Smythe, letter, 9 October 1947, ibid., John P. Humphrey to Du Bois, letter, 9 October 1947, ibid.; Du Bois to Warren R. Austin, letter, 14 October 1947, ibid.; Warren R. Austin to Du Bois, letter, 21 October 1947, Box 637, File "United Nations Petition (NAACP): 1947, Jan-Sept," Papet's o f the NAACP.

107. Marian Wynn Perry to Du Bois, memo, 9 October 1947, Reel 60,Du Bois", Du Bois to Marian Wynn Perry, letter, 14 October 1947, ibid.

108. White to Du Bois, memo, 11 October 1947, Box 637, File "United Nations Petition (NAACP): 1947, Oct," Papers o f the NAACP', Oliver Harrington to Agnes Meyer, letter, 11 October 1947, ibid.; and Rayford W. Logan, diary, 16 November 1947, Logan Papers.

109. George Streator, "Negroes to Bring Cause Before U.N.: Statement Charges that South Offers Greater U.S. Threat than Soviet Activities," New York Times 12 October 1947, 52.

110. Du Bois to Walter White, memo, 17 October 1947, Reel 60, Du Bois. NAACP, An Appeal to the World: A Statement on the Denial o f Human Rights to Minorities in the Case o f Citizetis o f Negro Descent in the United States o f America and an Appeal to the Uttited Nations for Redress (New York: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1947). 102

111. "Introductory Statement by Walter White, Executive Secretary of the NAACP, October 23, 1947. On occasion of presentation of Petition to the United Nations," Box 68, File "Articles:WEB. Du Bois Preface to Statement on Denial of Human Rights to Negroes, 1947," Papers o f the NAACP', and "Statement of Dr. WEB. Du Bois to The Representatives of the Human Rights Commission and its Parent Bodies—The Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly," 23 October 1947, ibid.

112. "Statement by Professor John P. Humphrey, Director, Division of Human Rights, Social Affairs Department," Box 637, File "United Nations Petition (NAACP): 1947, Oct," ibid.

113. Truman, "The Truman Doctrine,"The Anmls of America, 435.

114. Du Bois to Warren R. Austin, letter, 28 October 1947, Box 637, File "United Nations Petition (NAACP): 1947, Jan-Sept," Papers o f the NAACP', and Hugh H. Smythe to Estelle Robbins, letter, 26 November 1947, Reel 60,Dn Bois.

115. Gallman to Marshall, telegram, 10 January 1947, 811.4016/1-1047, General Records o f the State Department, RG 59, National Archives, Washington, DC.; Memorandum of Conversation, 15 January 1947, 811.4016/1-1547, ibid.; Dean Acheson to Morris Rosenthal, letter, 3 March 1947, 811.4016/2-1147, ibid.; Rosenthal to Acheson, letter, 11 February 1947, 811.4016/2-1147, ibid.; Barber to Briggs, memo, 8 May 1947, 811.4016/5-847, ibid.; and John J. Macdonald to Marshall, letter, 5 November 1947, 811.4016/11-547.

116. Hugh H. Smythe to Estelle Robbins, letter, 26 November 1947, Reel 60,Du Bois', "Position Paper: Discrimination Against Negroes in the United States," 30 August 1948, SD/A/C.3/76, Box 173, File "Instructions to the United States Delegation to the Third Regular Session of the General Assembly: Committee 3 (Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural)," RG 84; and "Statement in Answer to Possible Charge that the United States Discriminates Against Negroes in This Country," 15 April 1949, Box 89, File "Rights: Human (1946-49)," ibid.

117. P.M. Burnett to Durwald V. Sandifer, n.d., (October 1947), Box 78, File "Discrimination, Race: U.S., 1947," ibid.

118. "Comment Paper: Discrimination Against Negroes in the United States," 30 August 1948, SD/A/C.3/75, Box 175, File "Background Book: Committee III (Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural), Volume IV," ibid.

119. Du Bois' Department of Special Research mailed copies of the NAACP's petition to: Ne'w York Times; New York World Telegram; New York Herald Tribune; New York Post; New York PM; New York Sun; New York Journal-American; Chicago Post; Chicago Sun-Times; Chicago Tribune; Atlanta Constitution; Atlantic 103

Monthly; Foreign Affairs Quarterly; Journal o f Negro History; American Sociological Review; American Journal o f Sociology; Journal o f Negro Education; Quarterly Review o f Higher Education Among Negroes; The Nation; Harper's Monthly; Negro Digest; American Mercury; Ladies' Home Journal; The Annals; Saturday Evening Post; American Historical Review; New Republic; San Francisco Chronicle; Detroit Free Press; Des Moines Register; IxmisviUe Courier-Journal; Norfolk Journal & Guide; Afro-American; Oklahoma Black Dispatch; Houston Informer; Amsterdam News; People's Voice; Kansas City Call; Los Angeles Tribune; Atlanta Daily World; Louisville Defender; Michigan Chronicle; Philadelphia Tribune; and Boston Chronicle. "Review Copies of NAACP U.N. Petition Sent to:," 15 January 1948, Reel 62,Du Bois.

120. Robert S. Abbott, "An Important Appeal,"Chicago Defender, 1 November 1947.

121. Dutton Ferguson to Hugh H. Smythe, letter, 20 October 1947, Reel 60,Du Bois.

122. Saul K. Padover, "How About Democracy for Negroes Too?"P.M., 14 October 1947.

123. A digest of press responses is included in, Hugh H. Smythe to Cedric Dover, letter, 3 November 1947, Reel 60, Du Bois. Also see, Hugh H. Smythe to Common Sense, "American Negroes Petition the United Nations for Help in Removing Discrimination," 29 October 1947, ibid.

124. United Nations Economic and Social Council, "Commission on Human Rights. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Draft Resolution proposed by Mr. A.P. Borisov," 1 December 1947,Papers o f the United Nations Commis.sion on Human Rights, Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, Ohio; "Proposal of Mr. M R. Masani (India) with Regard to the Implementation of Human Rights," 1 December 1947, ibid.; "Amendment to Mr. Borisov's Resolution (E/CN.4/Sub.2/24) Proposed by Mr. M.A. Masani (India)," 2 December 1947, ibid.: "First Session: Summary Record of the Fourteenth Meeting," 3 December 1947, ibid.; "First Session: Report Submitted to the Commission on Human Rights by the Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities," 5 December 1947, ibid.; "First Session: Summary Record of the Eighteenth Meeting," 7 December 1947, ibid.; Marian Wynn Perry, "Untitled," (n.d. [1948]), Box 635, File "United Nations General Assembly, November 1948-49,"Papers o f the NAACP; "UN Turns Down Petition," Philadelphia Tribune, 13 December 1947. The editorial announced that "The United States will be spared, for a while at least, the washing of its dirty 'racial' linen in full view of the entire world. . ."; and "UN Group Kills Probe of Bias on U.S. Negro," Daily News, 4 December 1947, in Box 637, File "United Nations Petition (NAACP): 1947, Nov-Dee," Papers o f the NAACP. 104

125. Eleanor Roosevelt to White, letter, 8 December 1947, Box 635, File "United Nations General Assembly, 1946-August 1948," ibid.

126. Padmore to Du Bois, letter, 17 August 1945, Reel 57,Du Bois. CHAPTER IV

The Declining Significance of Human Rights: Anti-communism, the Presidential Election of 1948, and the Disintegration of African-American Unity

Things Fall Apart—Chinua Achehe'

In the first few years after the onset of the Cold War, the international scene appeared to be in complete chaos as Communist governments took over in Eastern

Europe and China and threatened to seize power in Italy and France. This international turmoil plunged the U.S. into a Second Red Scare that propelled the House Un-American

Activities Committee into prominence and infamy. Anti-communism battered everything in its path, including African-American leaders. The NAACP and the Council on African

Affairs launched their own internal purges to eliminate ideological heretics and became so embroiled in the bitter 1948 Presidential election that it ripped them apart.

The Democratic Party, under pressure from anti-communism and the Cold War, split into three distinct factions. The New Dealers, led by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., openly courted General Dwight D. Eisenhower to be the Democratic Party presidential candidate; the left-wing flocked to former Vice President Henry Wallace, and the right- wing, upset by the Truman's apparent softness on civil rights, bolted from the party. As a result, by August 1948 there would be three parties: The Dixiecrats, led by Senator Strom

Thurmond (D-SC); the Progressive Party, run by former Vice President and Secretary of

105 106

Commerce Henry Wallace; and the Democrats, headed by a beleaguered President

Truman. While the Democrats tore mercilessly at each other, the Republicans stood unified, confident, and strong behind New York Governor Thomas Dewey.

Dewey's imminent presidential triumph greatly troubled Walter White, who viewed

Truman's victory as integral to the long-term success of the NAACP's agenda. In White's estimation, the president's response to a brutal quadruple lynching in Monroe, Georgia had demonstrated a strength of character that White earlier doubted the president possessed.

In the aftermath of that lynching, the president had received a delegation, led by White, to outline a strategy for achieving civil rights in the United States. At the delegation's urging, the president commissioned a blue-ribbon panel, chaired by the CEO of General Electric,

Charles E. Wilson, to investigate the status of civil rights in America. To the surprise of the African-American leadership, the committee wrote a scathing report of civil rights in

America and urged the government to ftilly implement the Bill of Rights for all

Americans.^ Truman followed this with a rousing address at the NAACP's National

Convention. White was impressed and decided to put the power of the NAACP behind

Truman's candidacy.^

In White's eyes, Wallace posed the greatest threat to Truman. Unlike the

Democrats, Wallace had placed African-Americans in prominent positions in his new

Progressive Party and dared to speak forcefully, even in the South, about racial equality.

The potential for drawing the African-American vote away from Truman thus seemed very real. Although outright support of a political candidate violated Association policy. White concluded that the election was certainly too important to let the "idealistic" Wallace split 107 the Democratic vote and allow the "coolly efficient and evasive" Republican candidate to win the presidency / The success of Truman's candidacy therefore made it important for

White to discredit Wallace, and the executive secretary was certain there was enough in

Wallace's past to do it/ Wallace, the former secretary of commerce, had been fired by

Truman for openly criticizing U.S. foreign policy, supporting detente with the Soviets, and denouncing the strategy of containment. More importantly, for White, Wallace had the

Communist Party's endorsement.

White marshalled substantial NAACP resources to investigate Wallace's record as secretary of agriculture under Roosevelt and to delve into the hiring practices in Wallace's

Commerce Department.® He sought out any rumors or derogatory information about

Wallace from leaders of other organizations. Then, in conjunction with Lester Granger, head of the National Urban League, he wrote a series of "damning" articles for Harper's and Collier's magazines blasting Wallace for the huge gap between his rhetoric on racial equality and his deeds as a Cabinet member. Wallace's campaign was not about African-

Americans, Granger charged. It was a personal vendetta against President Truman.

Granger depicted Wallace as a vengeful man who was willing to insert the Communists into the political life of America, and risk a Republican in the White House just to settle an old "score with President Truman."’ Wallace, Granger declared, was not fit to be president. Truman was.

White hoped to rally the support of mainstream African-American organizations around Truman's campaign and divert any energies that they may have given to Wallace's

Progressive Party. In March 1948, the NAACP hosted a meeting of 21 organizations — 108 including the National Council of Negro Women and the National Baptist Convention ~ to articulate African-Americans' demands to the Republican and Democratic Parties."

Despite the fact that Wallace was consistently drawing large, enthusiastic crowds early in the campaign, the Association completely ignored the Progressive Party and treated it as illegitimate. Not until the Progressive Party's National Convention in July did the NAACP acknowledge Wallace's candidacy. The Association finally issued a statement that the

Progressive Party had no track record by which to assess the "sincerity" of its alleged commitment to civil rights. The statement also added that African-Americans expected more than civil rights legislation from this new party; they expected social legislation dealing with housing, education, and minimum wages.®

The NAACP-led caucus was just as intemperate with the Republicans. The organizations chided the GOP for the "cavalier attitude" of the Republican-controlled 80th

Congress, which treated the party's 1944 campaign promises for civil rights legislation as nothing more than a "scrap of paper." In a biting statement, the words "Republicans" and

"failure" became synonymous. The Republicans, the organizations charged, "failed" to break the Southern Democrats' stranglehold on civil rights legislation, "miserably evaded" legislation on housing, social security, and the FEPC, and often used the southern contingent's resistance as a flimsy excuse to "do nothing." White followed this with a series of brutal articles in which he denounced the Republicans' "constant concern" for states' rights and noted the OOP's uncanny resemblance to the Dixiecrats.'®

Reflecting White's barely veiled support of Truman, the tenor of the message to the Democratic Party was entirely different. The 21 organizations pointed to the "schism" 109 within the party, singled out the bigots who stayed in power by consistently "violat[ing], .

.the Constitution," and challenged the majority to regain control of their party. "The day of reckoning has come," they warned. The Democratic Party was either "going to permit the bigots to dictate its philosophy [and] perish" or "rise to the heights of Americanism" and adopt the full recommendations of the President's Committee on Civil Rights.”

The outcome of the Democratic National Convention would determine if the fully- pledged support of the black urban vote was enticing enough to lure the Northern

Democrats from their Southern brothers.'^ If the North took the bait, the pay-off for the

Democrats, as well as for African-Americans, White reasoned, would be great.” But so were the risks. Truman's increased popularity with White was not mirrored across the rest of America. It was clear that his continued tenure as president was in jeopardy; there was even major doubt about whether he would get the nomination of his party. The factional strife had siphoned off the left and right-wings of the Democratic Party and the center was highly unstable and unpredictable. The Jewish community, angry about Truman's vacillation over Palestine, had apparently repudiated the president's congressional candidate in New York City's mid-term election, and was ready to reject the president, too. Moreover, after Truman vowed to break a nationwide railroad strike by drafting the workers into the armed forces, only his veto of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act had eased organized labor's antagonism toward him. The national press, sensing the collapse of the

New Deal coalition, began to write Truman's political obituary. By the time of the

Democratic National Convention, the cab drivers joked that instead of taxis, the

Democrats should have ordered hearses.” 110

A pall, in fact, did hang over the convention hall where the Democrats met in

Philadelphia. Tempers flared as the Democratic bosses deadlocked over a platform that would satisfy all of the party's constituencies. A major source of friction was the civil rights plank. Instead of incorporating the recommendations from Charles E. Wilson's committee, Truman's advisers convinced him that anything stronger than the innocuous language from the 1944 Democratic plank would force the already skittish southern contingent to abandon him completely. This compromise may have caused the president some discomfort. He noted that the only convention speakers who appeared to be

"wholeheartedly" for him, were two African-Americans demanding that the Democrats address the issue of civil rights. The most forceful demand, however, came from

Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey, who announced that America was already 172 years too late in implementing civil rights for all Americans. "The time has arrived,"

Humphrey declared, "for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk. . .into the bright sunshine of human rights."'^ Inspired by Humphrey's rousing address and under the careful direction of Walter White, the Democrats then fashioned a decidedly stronger civil rights plank. Enraged at this turn of events, the Southern

Democrats stalked out of the convention, formed their own political party, the Dixiecrats, and ran their own candidate. Senator Strom Thurmond, for President. Thurmond noted that the break was necessary because unlike FDR, who had made similar promises about civil rights, "Truman really mean[t] it."*® I ll

How much Truman or anyone else would actually do was yet to be determined.

Although Senator Joseph McCarthy would not emerge as a national leader for nearly two more years, an incipient McCarthyism was already providing an excuse for increasingly powerful conservatives to clamp down on the demands for civil rights. Linking civil rights agitation with communism, Director of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover authorized the infiltration and surveillance of civil rights organizations, and launched investigations into the public and private lives of African-American leaders. Second-class citizens could only have second-class loyalty. Hoover reasoned. Every dissent was subversive and every criticism un-American.'^ Indeed, the House Un-American Activities Committee and the federal government's Loyalty Review Board often held that agitation for civil rights or membership in the NAACP was proof of disloyalty.'*

African-American leaders felt the pressure. "God knows," Roy Wilkins declared,

"it was hard enough being black, we certainly didn't need to be red, too."'® Black columnist Dan Burley wryly observed that "there might be some 'Red' Negroes around but they aren't Red the way the House Committee on Un-American Activities would have it.

The kind of'Red' Negro I'm talking about is raw inside from being made to drink the segregated waters of Georgia and Mississippi" and red from being beaten with pistol butts and barbed wire clubs in Alabama and Tennessee.^" Ed Strong concurred. "Whom ha[s] the [House Un-American Activities Committee] attacked," he demanded to know. "The

CIO but not the Ku Klux Klan; Paul Robeson but not [Mississippi Senator and demagogue] Theodore Bilbo; [and] not a single group guilty of burning Negroes; gouging out the eyes of veterans, and subverting the Constitution." That was the NAACP's pained 112 observation as well. Instead of attacking "undemocratic organizations" like the Ku Klux

Klan, the Association protested, HU AC "indiscriminate[ly] persecuted and condemned. .

.sincere liberals and their organizations.""'

The persecution led the NAACP to redefine its goals, limit its struggle for equality, and place that struggle within the context of anti-communism and containment. The demand for civil rights was no longer part of a larger issue of ensuring human rights both at home and abroad. Rather, civil rights were defined as an attempt to perfect democracy in the United States, ensure the full implementation of the Bill of Rights, and permanently silence Soviet propaganda that capitalized on America's "Negro Problem.""" Yet, while the NAACP consistently "reafFirm[ed] its adherence to. . the Constitution of the United

States," the African-American Left championed what its spokesmen believed to be a better brand of democracy. Du Bois, who was increasingly estranged from the NAACP, contended that the difference between communism and capitalism was the "difference between heaven and hell" and that socialism was "the only hope" for African-Americans."’

According to Paul Robeson, the true ideal was to be found in the Soviet Union where everyone, regardless of race or ethnicity, fully enjoyed the benefits of that society.’"'

These wildly divergent views would lead to an ideological struggle in both the mainstream and leftist African-American organizations, and these battles would weaken the leadership, constrict its vision and leave African-Americans' quest for human rights with no champions.

The first major struggle began in the Council on African Affairs. Founded in 1936, the Council had a national membership of less than 100, a dedicated core of 25 Board 113 members, and had evolved into Max Yergan's personal fiefdom. He arranged Paul

Robeson's benefit concerts and ensured that the proceeds came to the Council. Yergan also set the editorial policy for and published the CAA's newsletter. New Africa, and was solely responsible for all of its personnel and financial matters. That much power concentrated in one man's hands was, in Ralph Bundle's estimation, a disaster waiting to happen. Bunche warned his colleagues to stay clear of the "opportunistic" and shallow

Yergan. The "Kremlin apologist" openly played with the "C[ommunist] P[arty] boys," he said, and the Council itself was riddled with fellow-travelers and had a well-known

Communist sympathizer as its "financial angel," a charge that even Du Bois had to acknowledge was "probably true."^^

Yergan's affinity for the Left was rapidly dissipating, however. He had just witnessed the Communist Party's destruction of the National Negro Congress and was determined to steer his last base of power, the Council, away from the Reds. The duplicity of the Communist Party was not his only concern; the U.S. government was closing in on the CAA, as well. In November 1947, Attorney General Tom Clark placed the Council's name on the list of subversive organizations that threatened to overthrow the

United States government. Panicked at this development, Yergan confided to Rayford

Logan that he was determined to sever the Council's relationship with the Communists and conceded that this move would force a showdown with Robeson.^®

The confrontation occurred at a Council meeting on 2 February 1948. Robeson tried to pack that Council meeting with all of his "liberal-minded" supporters, especially

Du Bois, who would not be cowered by the growing anti-Communist sentiment in 114

America.^^ Yergan, on the other hand, had also been lobbying his supporters. He had convinced Logan that as long as the Council was branded a "Communist front" it would be totally ineffective in persuading the State Department to adopt a progressive policy toward Africa.^® The Council, which once had regular consultations with State

Department officials, was now completely closed off from the corridors of power, he sighed. If the Council was to regain its influence and vigor, Yergan argued, it had to distance itself from the Communists and become a "non-partisan [organization] loyal. . . to

American democratic principles." He insisted that the Council make an official statement that it was "neither fascist. Communist, nor subversive.""’ Robeson, though, argued that

Yergan's strategy would do nothing but capitulate to popular "red-baiting" and declared that the CAA would not be "diverted [by] the Justice Department's gratuitous labeling of the Council as 'subversive'." The issue for Robeson was Africa, not communism. U.S. foreign policy, in his view, was openly imperialistic. Its anti-Soviet, pro-British, and pro-

Western Europe tenets meant that Africa would continue to be used to rebuild the imperial powers, house military bases for British and American forces, and supply the U.S.'s nuclear arsenal with uranium.^” To make it clear to everyone where he stood on the issue,

Robeson, the CAA's big-name draw, threatened to resign if the Council followed Yergan's lead.^*

The intensity of the confrontation escalated when W. Alpheus Hunton, Education

Director and Robeson ally, accused Yergan of being incompetent and a thief. Hunton charged that the executive director had mismanaged the Council, missed numerous opportunities to publicize Africa's plights, stifled membership drives, and embezzled funds 115 intended for famine relief in Sub-Saharan Africa. Hunton moved to dilute Yergan's power through the establishment of an "Executive Board withparamomit aiithorily over all functions. . of the Council. Although Yergan's supporters challenged Hunton's right to criticize the executive director's stewardship, Robeson's faction insisted that the charges be fully investigated and their arguments held sway.^^

Feeling outgunned behind the Council's wall, and violating an agreement to keep the debate within the membership, Yergan took his fight to the press. The New York

World-Telegrarti detailed how the "Commie Issue" had split the Council. The New York

Times highlighted the efforts of both Yergan and Channing Tobias, who was also a member of the NAACP's Board of Directors, to move the Council out of the Communist camp. Tobias was greatly disappointed that the membership refused to adopt Yergan's declaration that the Council was "neither fascist. Communist, nor subversive" and submitted his resignation.^"* It would be the first of many from Yergan's camp.^^

After the 2 February 1948 meeting, the battle between Robeson and Yergan rapidly degenerated. Yergan fired Hunton's secretary, refused to pay the Education

Director's salary, and changed the locks on the director's office doors. He also suspended publicationo îNew Africa, failed to publish minutes of the 2 February meeting, and called a "rump meeting" where his supporters disfranchised Robeson's faction and elected a totally new and more pliable Executive Board.’** At the next meeting, Robeson retaliated.

His supporters censured Yergan for embezzling funds and for apparently calling in the police at the 2 February meeting. The Robeson faction also secured the creation of a permanent Executive Board that included Robeson, Du Bois, Hunton, and Herbert 116

Aptheker. Infuriated at this challenge to his authority, Yergan stalked out of the meeting and fired Hunton the next day.^^

In an attempt to undercut Robeson's support, Yergan again waged war through the media. He told the press that the Communists were trying to use the Council to secure the

Negro vote for the Progressive Party's presidential candidate, Henry Wallace. On its surface, it appeared that Yergan's charges were valid. Robeson served as Vice-Chair of the Progressive Party and wholeheartedly agreed with Wallace on many fundamental issues. Moreover, Wallace's campaign, which emphasized racial equality, had "generated considerable excitement and respect within the black community."”* But, regardless of

Robeson's close ties with Wallace and the former vice-president's initial appeal to African-

Americans, the campaign was not discussed at the February and March meetings of the

Council. Yergan's publicity ploy revealed both his opportunism and his desperation. He was trying to divert attention from his mismanagement of the Council by "yelling about

Communists," Robeson told the press.^*’ Yet, Du Bois had already informed Robeson that

Yergan's position and authority was "legally. . impregnable.'"*** But that legality would soon be challenged.

Three members of the Council, including the venerable Mary Church Terrell, formally charged Yergan with "mal-feasance, mis-feasance, and non-feasance." In order to "conceal his own political retreat" from progressivism, they charged, Yergan had hurled the "irresponsible charge of'communism'" at the Council. They further declared that he had "co-mingled" substantial amounts of Council funds with his own, including almost $2,000 intended for famine relief in Africa. In fact, they asserted, Yergan had sent 117 less than "25 percent of the $8,918.56 collected" to Africa, His "one-man rule" and

"crude, disruptive, high-handed [and] illegal" attempts to thwart the establishment of an

Executive Board could no longer be tolerated. They demanded immediate action, and

Robeson was more than willing to oblige.'"

At a special Council meeting on 26 May 1948, Yergan was "immediately suspended" as Executive Director of the Council on African Affairs. The Council leadership followed this action by seeking a court injunction restraining Yergan from representing himself as the executive director.**" An expensive legal battle for the Council's property ensued; only after Yergan was officially expelled from the membership in

September 1948 did he admit defeat and agree to drop all claims against the Council.'*^ He would resurface in the early 1950's spewing red-baiting venom, championing South Africa and apartheid as a bulwark against Soviet expansion into Africa, and endorsing Dixiecrat

James Byrnes for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.'*'* But, for now, it appeared that Robeson and his strong alliance with the Communists were victorious.

The Communist issue and the bitterly-fought presidential campaign would also split the NAACP. In the aftermath of the National Negro Congress's disintegration, the

Communist Party plotted to infiltrate the NAACP and have the Association serve as its entree into the African-American community."*^ Walter White, refusing to let the NAACP serve as a "tail to the Communist kite," warned over 1,500 branches that the national office would revoke their charters if they associated with or supported "politically dominated" organizations. Communists bore from within, he warned. They captured key strategic posts in an organization and then refashioned its goals to fit Moscow's aims, not 118 those of African-Americans.'*® Roy Wilkins's warning was even more blunt. The Reds will

"worm their way into Negro organizations" and take over, just like they "took over

Czechoslovakia.

The fear of a Communist take-over was not the only force driving Association policy. White, and especially Wilkins, decided that the mounting Cold War hysteria and the growing power and influence of the House Un-American Activities Committee meant the Association could be easily neutralized if it were branded a "Communist front." The

NAACP leaders therefore implemented a policy to separate the organization from any vestige of the Communist Party. They ousted the left-wing labor union, the United Office and Professional Workers of America, from representing the Association's clerical staff.

They excluded all leftist organizations, such as the Council on African Affairs and the Civil

Rights Congress, from NAACP-sponsored events. They reaffirmed the Board of

Directors' 1944 "non-partisan" policy, which prohibited executive officers from endorsing any candidate for political office, speaking at political rallies or conventions, and maintaining or implying that the NAACP endorsed any political candidate.'”* They also kept a close eye on W.E.B. Du Bois, who, along with Robeson, had been one of the few prominent African-American leaders working to elect Wallace to the presidency.

Du Bois was on a cross-country speaking tour when the Board reaffirmed its non­ partisan stance. Decidedly "apprehensive" that the scholar might publicly endorse Wallace during the tour. White immediately air mailed Du Bois a copy of the notice.'**' The scholar was furious. He circumvented the executive secretary and went directly to the President of the Board, Arthur Spingarn, for clarification of the policy. Du Bois acknowledged that 119 the present election had aroused "bitter feelings" but how, he asked Spingarn, could the

Association "interfere with the political freedom" for which it had fought for nearly 40 years. Du Bois sympathized with the difficulty of maintaining unity in an organization of over 500,000 members, but he could not believe that the Association would try to restrict private citizens from expressing their political beliefs just because they happened to be employees of the NAACP. He then laid out his own conditions. He would continue to endorse Wallace but would make it clear that he was speaking as a private individual,

"not. . .for the NAACP. Spingarn was non-committal but offered to submit Du Bois's statement to the full Board for consideration.^' The Board decided that there would be

"no exceptions" to the non-partisan policy.

Du Bois's response was swift. The NAACP's "gag-law" threatened to "close his mouth and stop his pen," which was about "the sharpest threat a man [could] face at the end of his life," he railed. Articles written for the Chicago Defender would now have to be reviewed and censored for political content; speaking engagements declined. The order was too broad, he informed Spingarn. Exactly what, in these intensely troubled times, was not political? Was he prohibited from discussing civil rights, the poll tax, segregation?

What about China? Greece? Was he to avoid a meeting simply because one of the speakers, an NAACP branch officer, was a Progressive Party candidate for Congress?

Was he to risk "bread and butter," and thus his ability to support his invalid wife, if he somehow crossed the NAACP's imaginary political boundary? Frustrated, Du Bois declared that if he had known about the "non-partisan" policy, he never would have returned to the Association. 120

Nevertheless, Du Bois continued to test the limits of the NAACP's patience. Only two weeks after being notified of the "non-partisan" policy, the New York Times described

Du Bois — "research director. National Association for the Advancement of Colored

People" — as one of the founders of a third party to elect Henry Wallace to the presidency.

White was stunned and bluntly asked Du Bois if he deliberately ignored the Board's non­ partisan policy in order to support this obvious political activity. Du Bois dodged White's direct question and cryptically replied that he "did not sign the manifesto" but that he did

"endorse Mr. Wallace for President.

The tension between the two men came to a head at an NAACP branch meeting in

Philadelphia, when Du Bois urged the membership to vote for Henry Wallace for

President. Walter White, who first learned about the endorsement in the newspaper, demanded an explanation.^® Yet, Du Bois had done exactly what he told Spingarn he would do. Before he made his political speech, he announced that he was speaking as an individual, not as an employee of the NAACP and in no way should his statements be interpreted as an endorsement by the Association. The NAACP's policy, in his estimation, did not forbid employees from having political views and expressing them, as White was

"doing daily" in his pro-Truman syndicated columns.”

Du Bois's insolence infuriated White but Madison Jones, an NAACP administrator, counseled the executive secretary that the issue was moot. The Association could not

"censure" Du Bois for endorsing Wallace because the scholar had made it clear that he was speaking as a private individual. "The damage has been done," Jones added, and "the way it was done" left the Association with no "loophole. . to act upon."®* White 121 disagreed and had already pushed for Du Bois to be censured.^’ The Committee on

Administration agreed with White's interpretation. The committee found that Du Bois had violated the Board's policy and asked him again to follow the rules that applied to all employees. White hid behind Spingarn's shield and had the President of the Board inform

Du Bois of the decision.^

The working relationship between Du Bois and White, already strained by a series of bureaucratic and ideological run-ins,'’* completely broke down over the issue of human rights. In December 1947, a sub-committee of the Commission on Human Rights, led by

Eleanor Roosevelt, completed the initial draft of a Declaration of Human Rights, which was to be just an enumeration of ideal standards. The sub-committee had also begun work on a Covenant on Human Rights that would have the force of law. Almost immediately, an alarm resonated from deep within the United Nations about the

Declaration's and Covenant's defects. Channing Tobias's son-in-law, William H. Dean, Jr.,

Chief of the UN's Africa Unit, warned White that the NAACP's legal team needed to review the drafts. "There were some things" in there, Dean cautioned, that the

Association "would not agree with."'’^ He was right. The legal staffs analysis concluded that the draft Declaration, as well as the Covenant on Human Rights, "added little" to the status of African-Americans in the United States and "certainly added nothing" that would alleviate the plight of "minorities the world over."**^

The primary problem was that the proposed declaration contained no implementation mechanism. The Commission on Human Rights established in its very first session that it had "no power to take any action in. . any complaints concerning human 122 rights."®'* This "declaration of impotence," John Humphrey conceded, made the

Commission "the most elaborate wastepaper basket ever invented."®^ The French delegate, René Cassin, was appalled at this state of affairs. He wanted the General

Assembly to place implementation powers somewhere in the UN machinery but this did not happen.®® If anything, the American delegation sought to further extend the

Commission's impotency. Jonathan Daniels asserted that the authority to determine if a matter fell within the boundaries of domestic jurisdiction rests with the accused nation and not the UN.®’ White protested. Daniels's proposal, he pleaded with Eleanor Roosevelt, was tantamount to a criminal having the right not to be prosecuted. Milton Konvitz, co­ author of the NAACP's petition, agreed, but alerted White that Daniels was only parroting the "proviso adopted by the U.S. Senate" when it ratified the treaty for the International

Court of Justice. It, therefore, appeared that the position of the U.S. delegation was determined in large measure by how much the Southern Democrats would accept.®*

A meeting at the State Department in March 1948 confirmed that suspicion.

Afraid that the Southern-dominated Senate would not ratify their work on human rights if it were too liberal, Eleanor Roosevelt and State Department officials wanted nothing in the Declaration on Human Rights that would arouse the ire of the Southern Democrats.

As a result, they sought a statement that played to the lowest common denominator.

Roosevelt asserted that the Declaration need only be a "short, concise" document, and need not include all rights. She therefore opposed separate articles that outlawed racial discrimination, "hate speech," and the use of state force to quell dissent. And through it all she maintained that there was no reason to discuss how the Declaration would be 123 implemented/’^ Roosevelt's stance on the Declaration was disconcerting enough but her support of a controversial clause in the draft Covenant shook Marian Wynn Perry, the

NAACP's legal counsel. That clause, which was a precursor to the infamous Bricker

Amendment, reasserted the primacy of states' rights even in international treaties. If this clause was adopted. Perry alerted White, it would set a terrible precedent in international law. Not only would the Southern Democrats continue to bottle upcivil rights legislation; they would also have maximum authority to choke offhuman rights efforts as well. White fired off a memo to Roosevelt urging the U.S. to use its position and power to craft a more "courageous" document. He doubted if his protest would have any effect, but wanted to be on record that as having found major faults with the draft and having implored the U.S. delegation to take a stronger stand.™

As the Commission continued its work. Bill Dean begged his father-in-law to have the NAACP use whatever resources it had to strengthen the weak documents. Things in the draft Declaration and Covenant are just "not right" he asserted.’’ Tobias agreed and began to pepper the NAACP's New York headquarters demanding that someone from the

Association keep a "very close watch" on the proceedings. He noted that if the Board had considered sending White all the way to Geneva, Switzerland it surely could afford to

"send someone out to Lake Success," New York, where the Commission was currently meeting.™

Walter White believed that Lake Success was just a warm-up for the real decisions that would be made at the upcoming UN session in Paris, and that is where he wanted the

NAACP to be fully represented. The State Department's public relations strategy, which 124 was to have major organizations involved as "consultants" to the U.S. delegation, dovetailed nicely with White's plans. After Chester Williams, UN Public Relations Officer, invited the NAACP, along with 44 other organizations, to attend the meeting in Paris,

White advised the Committee on Administration that Du Bois would be the "best person" to send as the Association's representative.’^ The Committee disregarded White's recommendation, however, and voted to have the executive secretary attend instead.’''

The Committee members declared that Du Bois was too old and intransigent to be effective in Paris. According to White, Du Bois's "reftisal to descend from Mt. Sinai" greatly influenced the fateful decision.’^ No doubt there was another concern. The

Communists' overthrow of the moderate Czech government, the Soviets' ongoing blockade of Berlin, and the increasing success of Mao Tse-Tung's Red Army in China had made the UN an increasingly tense and hostile arena. In this setting, Du Bois's avowed faith in socialism and his open hostility toward the Truman administration made him a liability. White, the ultimate consensus builder and politician, appeared tailor-made for the task. There was only one problem. Although he possessed the political acumen needed for the job and had an outstanding grasp of the broader foreign policy issues. White did not have the expertise in human rights issues to handle intense negotiations by himself.

Recognizing this, he immediately requested a meeting with Eleanor Roosevelt and sought

Du Bois's guidance.’®

Du Bois's terse response to White's request was a warning of the scholar's growing disillusionment. Although the antagonism between the two men dated back to the mid-

1930s, their final conflict began over Eleanor Roosevelt's steely response to the NAACP's 125 petition. Whereas Roosevelt's priorities — Cold War first, civil rights last — disgusted Du

Bois, White was sympathetic to the former first lady's dilemma and understood why she blocked the NAACP's petition.’’ Du Bois was not so sympathetic. Despite White's urging, he repeatedly refused to advise Roosevelt on ways to strengthen the draft

Declaration on Human Rights. The world did not need further definition of human rights,

Du Bois offered, it needed those rights enforced. Until Roosevelt and the U.S. delegation were willing to cross that threshold, further advice was a waste of his time.’”

Du Bois's refusal to aid in the development of the Declaration on Human Rights surfaced again in March 1948. In preparation for the State Department conference on the

Declaration, White asked Du Bois to provide him with an analysis, only to learn that Du

Bois had left on a cross-country speaking tour without responding to the request.’® When

White was preparing for the UN meeting in Paris, Du Bois again rebuffed the executive secretary. Still fuming that Roosevelt had threatened to resign from the Commission on

Human Rights if the NAACP's petition came before the UN, Du Bois advised White to demand that Ati Appeal to the World be heard by the General Assembly.”" Du Bois then refused to offer any suggestions concerning the Declaration on Human Rights. "General statements on rights are of no importance," he declared. We want implementation.”'

White graciously thanked Du Bois for the synopsis but asked for additional

"documentation."”’ White, obviously missing Du Bois's signals, got documentation he never expected.

Du Bois exploded. It is unclear what the final spark was. Perhaps it was Eleanor

Roosevelt's hypocrisy and White's refusal to confront her about it. It could have been 126

Wallace's waning strength in the presidential campaign or Du Bois's closer and eventually intimate association with Progressive Party stalwart, Shirley Graham. Or perhaps it was the NAACP's refusal to endorse Wallace, who valiantly supported eveiything that the

Association had been begging the Democrats to do for decades. Whatever it was, it unleashed a tirade aimed directly at Walter White. In a well-crafted and widely distributed memo, Du Bois predicted that Paris would be "just a waste of time" and flatly reftised to

"comply" with White's request for a full briefing on human rights. Instead, Du Bois accused the executive secretary of "jumping on the Truman bandwagon" and tying the

Association to the "reactionary, war-mongering, colonial imperialism of the present administration." Clearly, Du Bois asserted, there was a double standard in operation.

White was apparently rewarded with a trip to Paris for his political activity while Du Bois had been told to cease and desist. Du Bois also denounced White's efforts to isolate him from the Association and particularly from the Board of Directors, in effect, denying the

NAACP the expertise it badly needed in foreign policy issues, especially those concerning the colonial world. In his parting shot, Du Bois demanded greater involvement in the

Board of Directors meetings and extensive discussion of the Association's direction on foreign policy m atters.T his intemperate memo jeopardized his continued employment with the NAACP. The fact that the contents leaked to the New York Times, before the

Board of Directors had had a chance to review it, sealed Du Bois's fate.'*'*

Furious, White immediately demanded a full accounting of how much the

Association had spent on Du Bois's salary, research assistants, and travel in the four years since his return. The staggering sum of $36,248.33, or roughly equivalent to over 127

$200,000 in 1992 dollars, was more than White could handle.**’ He expected a little gratitude, or a least loyalty, for financially rescuing Du Bois after the scholar's pensionless dismissal from Atlanta University. In a draft memo that Roy Wilkins urged White to

"ton[e] down," the executive secretai-y began to destroy Du Bois's arguments point by point. White chided Du Bois for his "patent annoyance that someone else. . .was sent to. .

.Paris." Who will and will not represent the Association "is exclusively the prerogative of the Board." White questioned the scholar's motives. Du Bois did not scream about "being

'loaded on the Truman bandwagon'" when he went to the San Francisco Conference in

1945, so why raise the issue now? In White's mind it was an obvious attempt to discredit

Truman and bolster Wallace's sagging chances. White refused to be held accountable for

Du Bois's decisions, including his support for Henry Wallace. He therefore denounced as

"equally false" Du Bois's charge that he had been singled out to stop partisan political activity. White, upon the Board's urging, had already resigned from the liberal — and anti­ communist — Americans for Democratic Action. He therefore charged that Du Bois was censured because, unlike the other officers, he chose to ignore the policy. White also dismissed Du Bois's "ridiculous" charge that the Association blindly supported the administration's foreign policy. The NAACP vigorously disagreed with the U.S. delegation in 1945, White noted, and it would disagree with it in Paris, as well. As for being purposely isolated from the Board of Directors and kept uninformed about the agendas and meetings, Du Bois had no-one to blame but himself. Although all division directors are "expected" to attend Board meetings, for the past year the scholar had willfully chosen to absent himself from those gatherings. Finally, White angrily concluded. 128 if Du Bois had bothered to cooperate with the Association, he would know that whatever went on the Board's agenda, including a discussion about the foreign policy of the

NAACP, was strictly up to the Board to decide.'**’

The Board included Du Bois's "somewhat extraordinary memorandum" on its 13

September agenda.*’ Du Bois quickly denied sending it to the press but added that if the newspapers had asked for a copy, he "would have given it to them." Greatly troubled that

Du Bois had "refused to abide by its directives," the Board voted to fire him.'*'* Even the scholar's "staunchest admirers" agreed that the Board had to take action.**® Roy Wilkins, who had described the scholar as an "irritation" that had cost the Association a lot of money, concluded, somewhat sadly, that Du Bois simply did not fit in with the organization he had helped create.®” Madison Jones hand-delivered a copy of the Board's decision to Du Bois and sent another copy to the scholar's apartment via registered mail.®'

As could be expected, the firing launched a firestorm of protest. The NAACP found itself embroiled in a public battle over Du Bois and its alleged support of Truman's foreign policy. Shirley Graham, Du Bois's future wife, threatened to destroy White's reputation. She gave the Chicago Defender and the New York Post the lengthy correspondence between White and Du Bois on the "non-partisan" policy and encouraged the reporters to "get that s o b. Walter White. "®^

The NAACP's leadership expected some backlash. It definitely expected the Left to accuse the Association of "petty political opportunism" and of being "wedded. . .to the imperialist bi-partisan foreign policy" of the Truman Administration. Similarly, it anticipated the charges that Du Bois's ouster signified a "betrayal of colonial peoples" and 129 an "attempt to silence" the lone voice of dissent within the Association. But the NAACP leadership did not expect some of its branches and members to concur with the Left's harsh assessment.^^

The NAACP "cannot carry the State Department on one shoulder and the cause of oppressed peoples on the other," Henry Arthur Callis charged. Nor can it deny its members and officers the "basic American right to support political candidates," Margaret and Stanley Blumberg declared as they submitted their resignations from the NAACP.

The most comprehensive repudiation of the Board's actions, however, came from the

President of the Indiana State Conference of NAACP Branches, Willard B. Ransom.

Describing Du Bois's firing as "arbitrary" and "incomprehensible," Ransom asserted that

White had linked the NAACP to the Truman Administration. Obviously, Ransom noted,

"the endorsement of Mr. Truman [was] looked upon with favor [while] the endorsement of Mr. Wallace. . .create[d] consternation and fear." Thus, the "mumbo-jumbo" about Du

Bois's insubordination was nothing but a smokescreen. It was much more likely. Ransom charged, that Du Bois was sacrificed "to placate the Truman administration." He further asserted that White's appointment as a consultant to the United States delegation in Paris was "clearly an implied, if not an open, endorsement of [the American] government's foreign policy," which meant that the Association had aligned itself behind the continued

"enslavement and imperialistic exploitation of colonial peoples." Despite White's protests.

Ransom continued, there was simply no comparison between the UN Conference in 1945 and the one in 1948. Whereas in San Francisco, Du Bois's noble role was to "aid. . in the formation of the United Nations," the UN had now devolved into a Cold War circus. 130 thereby making White a barker for American foreign policy. Ransom urged the

Association to reverse the Board's initial decision. Madison Jones assured Ransom that the Board was carefully considering the protests from its membership and would re­ evaluate its stance at the upcoming October 11 meeting.®"*

To ensure that Du Bois was reinstated, Shirley Graham formed an Emergency

Committee to put pressure on the Board to rescind its order. The Emergency Committee flooded the NAACP branches with Du Bois's unrelenting attack on White's scandalous ties with the Truman Administration.®^ Du Bois charged that instead of addressing the critical issues affecting African-Americans, such as a plan for economic self-sufficiency, the 1947

Annual Convention was virtually a "Truman rally." He also charged that White had delayed printing the NAACP's petition. An Appeal to the World, just long enough to allow the President's Commission on Civil Rights to steal its thunder. In Du Bois's eyes. White had sacrificed African-Americans' best chance at human rights for a cheap political stunt to strengthen Truman's popularity in the black community and increase the president's re- election chances. To bolster his claim, Du Bois noted that White continued to fawn over

Truman-appointee, Eleanor Roosevelt, even though she had blocked the NAACP's petition from the General Assembly. Du Bois further charged that White had consistently thwarted his requests to the Board to fund research and publications on Africa and colonialism. The result, Du Bois charged, was that the dictatorially-run Association had no policy research wing and no ability to link its important legal work with the equally important, but neglected, economic and social agenda.®® 131

Coupled with Graham's confrontational tactics, Du Bois's blast made the Board of

Directors even more determined to uphold its initial decision. Graham's reference to

White and Wilkins as "[IJesser men" who had seized "the controls of a bureaucratically run organization," was inflammatory enough. Her continued assertion that they had tried to

"drive [Du Bois] away" with "vindictive" and "petty heckling" further alienated the

NAACP leadership. Graham's final salvo that the Du Bois's firing was a "brazen act" of sheer "political persecution" that "illuminate[d] the archaic and anti-democratic character of the NAACP's structure" gave the Board no face-saving way to rescind its September order.Incensed, Wilkins fired back that it would have been "useless to expect" Graham's committee to provide "accurate information" to the NAACP members. Rather, he said,

Graham's committee relied upon "numerous inaccuracies, distortions and partial truths."^"

Under these circumstances, there was absolutely no way that the Board was going to

"budge an inch." Although Graham predicted that the Association had "fastened a cord about its own neck. . .that [would] eventually strangle it," the September resolution stood.’® The Du Bois contract would not be renewed. Instead, he would soon become, with the help of Henry Wallace and Paul Robeson, the Vice Chairman of the Council on

African Affairs.’®’

Du Bois's ouster was just the beginning of a turbulent year for White. Blinded by his rage and in a very vindictive mood, White informed the UN's Public Relations Officer,

Chester S. Williams, that while in Paris he had "no intention" of pressing for a UN hearing

ÎOX An Appeal to the World. The petition. White said, was Du Bois's "pet project," undertaken by the scholar without the Board's consent. Continuing the angry lie. White 132 noted that it was only because of Du Bois's age and "personal prestige" that the NAACP had lent its name and resources to the petition. He then assured Williams that the NAACP was committed to the "positive work of the Human Rights Commission and the

Declaration on Human Rights."'”' Fueled by revenge and totally unaware that the State

Department was scrambling to find a way to quash the NAACP's petition, White had nonchalantly given away an important weapon for spurring the UN and the United States to protect human rights.'”^

In workman-like fashion, he now began to prepare for the Paris conference. He quickly called on Rayford Logan to serve as a foreign affairs consultant to fill the void left by Du Bois's bitter and messy departure. White asked if Logan would be able to provide him with briefing papers on trusteeships and human rights for the UN meeting.

Undoubtedly flattered, Logan quickly agreed.U nfortunately, Logan got sidetracked by an unrelated request from the Haitian Ambassador and provided neither detailed nor insightful advice. He merely reiterated that the Declaration should be as strong as possible and told White that if he needed further guidance, he should consult Logan's analysis of the State Department's previous meeting on the Declaration and see if any of the items concerning implementation, the right to petition, the right to vote, and the right to publicly-supported education had been addressed.'”'' Badly served by this feeble advice and the maelstrom surrounding Du Bois's ouster. White set sail for Paris.

This expensive, "unbudgeted" trip, turned out to be the waste of time that Du

Bois had predicted. The UN delegations were distracted by the Berlin Crisis and the very real threat that the Soviet Union and the United States were on the brink of war.'“ As a 133 result, human rights were not a high priority. When they were finally discussed, the debates quickly devolved into long, rambling arguments over "the nature of God" or

"quibbling" over the meaning of the word "birth." White painfully acknowledged that it would be a "miracle" if the General Assembly gave itself the authority to sanction human rights violators. The major powers, he observed, are "perfectly willing to. . point the finger" at other nations that violate human rights but unwilling to have that same level of scrutiny directed at themselves. Thus, when the General Assembly finally approved the

International Declaration on Human Rights on 10 December 1948, it was the weak,

"empty gesture" that Roosevelt had fought hard to attain.

White's struggles were just beginning. In June 1949, citing health problems, he asked the Board to accept his resignation as executive secretary of the NAACP. After intense negotiations, the Board finally agreed to a one-year medical leave."’** What White failed to tell his Board, or even his closest aide, Roy Wilkins, was that his health problems were merely a smokescreen. White, in fact, was about to aggravate a major sore spot in the African-American community — the relationship between black men and white women

—, and in the process, he would alienate and antagonize the Association's constituency, and play into the hands of the NAACP's enemies. Walter White's African-American wife of 27 years was divorcing him so that he could wed the white, South African-born Poppy

Cannon.'®^ Wilkins, who found out about the marriage from reporters, remarked that half of the NAACP's members with whom he spoke "wanted to lynch Walter for leaving

Gladys, and the other half wanted to string him up for marrying a white woman."'"* 134

The marriage, some claimed, merely validated the Southern demagogues' contention that the NAACP was fighting to ensure that there would be a white woman in every black man's bed. Columnist J. Robert Smith declared that it would now be difficult for White to "fight the cause of the Negro" by day while "playing pappy with Poppy in the night." Smith concluded that the executive secretary had just "used the race" and the

NAACP "to get what he wanted," a white woman.'" White's choice for a new wife was further complicated by the fact that no one had ever heard of Poppy Cannon, the fashion editor ïox Mademoiselle magazine, in civil rights circles. This was not a woman who had labored long and hard for the cause. Rather, this was a white, married woman who relentlessly pursued a very powerful African-American man and stole him away from his dutiful black wife."^ Just seven days after his wife had obtained a Mexican divorce. White eloped with the recently-divorced Cannon, that "bizarre creature" with three children by three different husbands."^ NAACP member Lucille Miller concluded that this kind of

"philandering" behavior from the leader of a major national organization was grounds for instant dism issal.B oard member Carl Murphy agreed and declared that White had discredited the Association and should be permanently removed as executive secretary.’"

Board member and Governor of the Virgin Islands William H. Hastie called for cooler heads to prevail. He countered that the NAACP could not fire White simply because the man married a white woman. That, he proclaimed, would be capitulating to the same racial prejudice that the NAACP had fought for 40 years. What White did in his private life was no concern of the Board.But not everyone saw it that way. Long-term

Board member Alfred Baker Lewis was thoroughly disgusted with White's recent 135 performance. White's cause was weakened by his article inLook magazine in which he purportedly advocated the use of skin bleaching creams to lighten African-Americans' complexions to allow them to "pass" as whites and end America's racial problems."’

Instead of firing White and generating more publicity, Lewis proposed that the Board simply accept White's resignation when his leave of absence expired in June 1950. The

Association had everything to gain and nothing to lose, Lewis noted, because Roy

Wilkins's efficiency and talent made it clear that the NAACP would not miss a beat, or

Walter White."'

Wilkins's rising star would signal a definite shift in the direction of the NAACP.

More domestically focused, dogmatic, and anti-Communist than White, Wilkins's strength lay in implementing someone else's vision. This was a critical asset for the number two man in an organization, but was a fatal flaw for the one entrusted with setting the

NAACP's direction, tone, and pace. His lack of vision would cause the NAACP to retreat significantly from international issues. He did not understand the international realm, and was not convinced that the Association's efforts in that arena justified the costs."’ He also believed there was little if any connection between the plight of African-Americans and the economic and political troubles of colonial peoples. His point of view surfaced in a venomous response to a speech by Paul Robeson in April 1949 to the World Peace

Congress in Paris.

In Paris, after a speaker declared that the "workers of Britain will not fight. .

.against the Soviet Union," Robeson chimed in that "[w]e shall not make war on anyone.

We shall not make war on the Soviet Union." In its reporting, the Associated Press 136 misquoted and embellished Robeson's remarks. From "We shall not make war on the

Soviet Union," the AP created;

"It is unthinkable that American Negroes would go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations against a country [the Soviet Union] which in one generation has raised our people to the full dignity of mankind."'"*’

Robeson's purported comments caused an uproar in the United States. Congress held hearings on the loyalty of African-Americans, even calling in Brooklyn Dodger Jackie

Robinson to counter Robeson's assertion. Alvin Stokes, the investigator for the House

Un-American Activities Committee, informed HUAC, however, that less than "one-tenth of 1 percent of the entire Negro population of the United States [were] members of the

Communist Party" and that "were it not for the NAACP" that number would have been significantly greater. Stokes declared that "Negroes of this country appreciate the blessings of America" and know that "even down to the poorest sharecropper" they are

"better off than the vast majority of Stalin's subjects." Stokes concluded that "Robeson's voice was the voice of the Kremlin."'^' Indeed, HUAC called in a cavalcade of black leaders to echo that message. Thomas Young, publisher of a black newspaper in Virginia, eagerly complied. He noted that Robeson was "preoccup[ied]" with the Soviet Union and, as a result, had "place[d] in jeopardy the welfare of the American Negro simply to advance a foreign cause in which we have no real interest.

The State Department launched its own campaign to counter Robeson's alleged message. The department quickly lined up Walter White and Mary McLeod Bethune to repudiate Robeson and denigrate his credibility as a spokesperson for African-Americans.

Yet, whereas Bethune declared that Robeson's statements "chilled my blood," White, after 137 carefully disavowing Robeson, moderated his vilification. The executive secretary pointed out that democracy's shortcomings forced all African-Americans, even the wealthy

Robeson, to be "daily subjected to contemptuous or condescending treatment [and] perpetually forced to live under the threat of physical violence." Instead of attacking

Robeson, White concluded, America's energies would be better spent "remov[ing] the causes" that forced the "lack of faith in the American system of government.

Wilkins was not so restrained. Soon after the AP published its misquote, he met with A. Philip Randolph, who was incensed that Robeson had made his swaggering boast at a Communist-sponsored event on foreign soil. Robeson, in their estimation, had done nothing but lend credence to the charge that African-Americans were both "black and red." The two men quickly called a meeting of the African-American leadership and decided that the best strategy would be to issue separate statements so that it would not look as if there had "been an organized effort." Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. announced that "by no stretch of the imagination can Robeson speak for all Negro people." Edgar G. Brown, director of the National Negro Council, described Robeson's speech as "pure Communist propaganda." And Channing Tobias denounced Robeson as both "an ingrate" and "disloyal."'^'*

Wilkins followed up with a blistering editorial in the Crisis, the magazine of the

NAACP. Wilkins blasted Paul Robeson's misplaced priorities and strongly intimated that internationalism and communism were synonymous. "While people in. . Texas and. .

Alabama. . were battling. . and yelling for help," Wilkins wrote, "Robeson was writing and talking about Africa [and] singing Russian work songs." Cloistered away in his 138

"expensive country place in Connecticut," Wilkins charged, Robeson barricaded himself from "ordinary American Negroes" and "lavish[ed]" his services and money on interracial or "all-white, left-wing groups" like the "Communist front" Council on African Affairs,

Robeson, Wilkins concluded, traded the leadership position he could have taken in the

U.S. for a "circle of international intellectuals. . and causes that [barely] touched the

American Negro's plight.

The attack was so withering and so contrary to the facts that NAACP member

Charles Howard complained that the editorial "just about hit. . .bottom." It was completely "low brow" and demonstrated how the Association had been "side tracked into serving the very interests it was organized to fight." Howard asserted that without even demanding the quid pro quo of equal rights for African-Americans, the NAACP was becoming a front for the Democratic Party. It was bad enough, Howard noted, that the

NAACP had turned its 1947 Annual Convention into a vehicle to "spread the Democratic

Party's propaganda," but now the Association, obviously at the behest of the Truman

Administration, was "being used to destroy" African-American unity.

Wilkins dismissed Howard's criticism, as well as that of Communist New York

City Councilman, Benjamin J. Davis, Jr., as "all in the day's work of running a magazine."'^’ Indeed, through his role as editor, Wilkins had consistently denounced the

Communists and belittled African-American comrades as "dupes." It was obvious,

Wilkins asserted, that the Reds put Communist Party policy above everything else and just

"use[d] the Negro and his problem. . to support" that policy. But because "Negroes 139 were. . .first and foremost Americans," they were too smart and loyal to be seduced by the

Communists' hollow promises, Wilkins proudly announced.'^**

Instead, the NAACP allowed itself to be seduced by the hollow promises of the

Democratic Party, especially as it set out to prove its loyalty to the United States and implement an American-focused agenda. The NAACP leadership took its eyes off the prize and let a presidential election take precedence over human rights and black equality.

The Association leaders jettisoned NAACP co-founder, W.E.B. Du Bois, relinquished their support ïov An Appeal to the World, and embraced a Declaration of Human Rights that their own legal experts denounced as woefully inadequate. In short, the NAACP leaders abandoned their quest for human rights in exchange for the crumbs of promises that Truman threw at their feet. 140

ENDNOTES

1. Chinua Achebe,Things Fall Apart {HQyN York: McDowell, Obolensky, 1959).

2. White to Bernard J. Shell, et al, telegram, 16 September 1946, Box 481, File "President's Committee on Civil Rights Correspondence, General, 1946-October 1947," Papers o f the NAACP', White to Ellis Arnall, letter, 21 September 1946, ibid.; White to William H. Hastie, 26 September 1946, ibid.; Leslie Perry to White, memo, 13 December 1946, ibid.; Walter White, untitledChicago Defender article, 5 April 1948, Box 74, File "Articles: Walter White Chicago Defender, 1948," ibid.; and President's Committee on Civil Rights, To Secure These Rights: The Report o f the President's Committee on Civil Rights (Washington, DC.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947).

3. White, A Man Called White, 347-49. For further discussion about civil rights and the 1948 election see. Harvard Sitkoff, "Harry Truman and the Election of 1948: The Coming of Age of Civil Rights in American Politics," Journal o f Southern History 38, no. 4 (November 1971): 597-616.

4. White, "The Candidates' Record: II-Thomas E. Dewey," 16 September 1948, Box 81, File "Articles: Walter White Syndicated Column, 1948,"Papers o f the NAACP.

5. White, untitled Chicago Defender article, 6 January 1948, Box 82, File "Articles: Walter White Syndicated Column Drafts, 1948," ibid.; idem, "Heni-y Wallace's Supporters," 10 June 1948, Box 81, File "Articles: Walter White Syndicated Column, 1948," ibid.; idem, untitledChicago Defetider article, 9 January 1948, Box 74, File "Articles: Walter White Chicago Defender columns, 1948," ibid.; White to Wilkins and Moon, memo, 6 July 1948, ibid.; and George Streator, "Wallace Attacked by Negro Leader: Accused of'Muddling' Political Waters by Walter White Before NAACP Meeting," New York Times 23 June 1948, 16.

6. White to P.L. Prattis, et al, telegram, 30 December 1947, Box 665, File "Wallace, Henry A—General, 1945-48," Papers o f the NAACP', Clarence Mitchell to White, telegram, 31 December 1947, ibid.; and Clarence Mitchell to White, memo, 2 March 1948, ibid.

7. White to John Fischer, letter, 2 June 1948, Box 665, File "Wallace, Henry A— General, 1948-49," ibid.; Will Alexander to White, 27 May 1948, ibid.; White to Will Alexander, 2 June 1948, ibid.; John Fischer to White, 1 July 1948, ibid.; Lester Granger, "Battle-Ax and Bread," 20 November 1947, ibid.; idem, "Battle- Ax and Bread," 4 December 1947, ibid.; and idem, "Battle-Ax and Bread," 15 January 1948, ibid. 141

8. The organizations that participated in the Declaration of Negro Voters: Civil Rights: National Council of Negro Women; and the NAACP. Business: Negro Newspaper Publishers Association; and National Negro Insurance Association. Religious: National Baptist Convention, Inc.; Fraternal Council of Churches; and Social Action Committee CME Church. Fraternal: Omega Psi Phi Fraternity; Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity; Odd Fellows; Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity; Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority; and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. Labor: National Alliance of Postal Employees; CIO Committee to Abolish Discrimination; Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; and UAW-CIO Fair Employment Practices Department. Professional:National Dental Association; Beauty Culture League; National Medical Association; and National Association of Negro Milliners, Dress Designers, Inc.

9. "Wallace Party Asked to Back Civil Rights," press release, 22 July 1948, Box 665, File "Wallace, Henry A.—General 1948-49," Papers o f the NAACP\ Henry Lee Moon to Wilkins, memo, 20 July 1948, ibid.; and White to Rexford J. Tugwell, letter, 21 July 1948, ibid.

10. "Statement to Republican Platform Committee by Continuations Committee of 21 National Organizations," 18 June 1948, Box 224, File "Declaration by Negro Voters: Form Letters, 1948," ibid.; White, "The Republican Platform," 24 June 1948, Box 81, File "Articles: Walter White Syndicated Column, 1948," ibid.; idem, untitledChicago Defender article, 12 August 1948, Box 74, File "Articles, Walter White CA/crfgo De/g/yc/er Columns, 1948," ibid.; idem, untitledChicago Defender article, 3 August 1948, ibid.; and idem, untitledChicago Defender article, 17 June 1948, ibid.

11. White, untitledChicago Defender article for "Straws in the Wind Department," n.d.. Box 74, File "Articles, Walter White Chicago Defender Columns, 1948," ibid.; "Statement by Continuations Committee of Twenty-One Negro Organizations in Presentation of'Declaration of Negro Voters' to the Democratic National Platform Committee," 8 July 1948, ibid.

12. White, "The Ineptness of Southern Democrats," 15 July 1948, Box 81, File "Articles: Walter White Syndicated Column, 1948," ibid.; and idem, "Democratic Party's Day of Reckoning," 8 July 1948, ibid.

13. White, "President Truman Avows Indebtedness to Negro Vote," 9 December 1948, Box 81, File "Articles: Walter White Syndicated Column, 1948," ibid.; and idem, "Negro Vote Significant in Truman Victory," 11 November 1948, ibid.

14. Robert A. Divine, Foreign Policy and U.S. Presidential Elections: 1940, 1948 (New York: New Viewpoints, 1974), 175-78, 184-88, and 194-200; and David McCullough,Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 632-37. 142

15. Ibid., 632-40.

16. Quoted in ibid., 645; and Nadine Cohodas, Strom Thurmond & the Politics o f Southern Change (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 126-27, 148, and 154- 69.

17. Kenneth O'Reilly, "Racial Matters: " The FBI's Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972 (New York: The Free Press, 1989), 6-7, 12, and 39-40.

18. Wilkins to Wilbur LaRoe, Jr., letter, 5 June 1950, Box 126, File "Loyalty Review Board Cases, 1947-1951," ibid.; "Un-American Organizations listing Dr. Channing Tobias: Fourth Report Un-American Activities in California, 1949," October 1951, ibid.; Clarence Mitchell to White, memo, 17 October 1951, ibid.; Earle Fisher to Clarence Mitchell, memo, 29 September 1950, Box 124, File 'Legislation, Communism, Loyalty, and n-American Activities," ibid.; and Wilkins to Harry S. Truman, letter, 6 February 1951, Box 405, File "Loyalty Boards, Questionnaires, and Oaths, 1950-53," Papers o f the NAACP\

19. Roy Wilkins, Standing Fast: The Autobiography o f Roy Wilkins (New York: The Viking Press, 1982), 210; and "Crisis Editorial Comment: On the 1948 Election," Crisis, December 1948, Box 68, File "Articles: Communism, on—1950-55," Papers o f the NAACP.

20. Dan Burley, "On Black Suddenly Turned Red,"NeM^ York Age, 23 July 1949, Reel 2, Robeson.

21. Strong quoted in, Duberman,Robeson, 317-18; "A Real Program to Combat Communism by Walter White," 2 January 1947, Box 201, File "Communism- General 1940—April 1947," Papers o f the NAACP', and "NAACP Conference Adopts Resolutions," 28 June 1947, Part 1, Reel 12,NAACP. For the pressure on the African-American leadership since the Bolshevik Revolution, see, Robin D.G. Kelly, Hammer & Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990); Record, Radicalism and Reform: The NAACP and the Communist Party, O'Reilly, "Racial Matters, "; Gerald Horne, "Communist Front?"', idem, Black and Red: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War, Delacy Wendell Sanford, Jr., "Congressional Investigation of Black Communism, 1919-1967," (Ph.D. diss., SUNY Stony Brook, 1973); and Jane Cassels Record, "The Red-Tagging of Negro Protest," The American Scholar 26, no. 3 (Summer 1957): 325-33.

22. See, for example, "1948 Declaration of Negro Voters," Box 224, File "Declaration by Negro Voters: Form Letters, 1948," Papers o f the NAACP.

23. Du Bois to Anna Melissa Graves, letter, 9 July 1946, Reel 58,Du Bois', "NAACP Conference Adopts Resolutions," 28 June 1947, Part 1, Reel 12,NAACP', and 143

"UN, Socialism Only Hope for World's Backward Races, Says Dr. Du Bois," Pittsburgh Courier, n.d., (June/July 1947) found in Reel 59,Du Bois.

24. Robeson, "Negroes in the Ranks of the World Front in its Fights for Peace and Progress," Trybuua Ludu (2 June 1949), found in Reel FBI 1, File on Paul Robeson (Wilmington, Delaware, Scholarly Resources, 1987), microfilm. For the debate on what did the Left know about Soviet atrocities and when did it know it see, Eugene D. Genovese, "The Question,"Dissent (Summer 1994): 371-76; Eric Foner, et al, "The Responses," ibid., 377-85; Bernard-Henri Levy, Barbarism with a Human Face, translated by George Holoch, (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1979); and Arthur Koestler, et al,The God That Failed, introduction by Richard Crossman, (New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1949).

25. FBI Report 100-949, 28 October 1946, Reel 2, FBI File on National Negro Congress; Ralph Bunche to Clark M. Eichelberger, letter, 11 April 1944, Reel 2, Bunche; Du Bois to George Padmore, letter, 12 July 1946, Reel 59,Du Bois; and Hollis R. Lynch, Black American Radicals and the Liberation of Africa: The Council on African Affairs, 1937-1955, introduction by St. Clair Drake, Africana Studies and Research Center Monograph Series, No. 5 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978).

26. Logan, diary, 16 November 1947, Logan Papers.

27. Robeson to Council Member, letter, 27 January 1948, Reel 61,Du Bois.

28. Rayford W. Logan, diary, 16 November 1947, Logan Papers.

29. "Statement: Meeting of the Council on African Affairs," 2 February 1948, Reel 61, Du Bois.

30. "STATEMENT OF POLICY to be presented at the Meeting of the Council on African Affairs," 2 February 1948, ibid.

31. "Commie Issue Splits African Affairs Group,"New York World-Telegram, 4 February 1948, found in Box 4, File "Africa—General, 1947-49,"Papers o f the NAACP; and "Tobias Firm in Stand Opposing Leftists," New York Times, 4 February 1948, found in Box 147, File "Board of Directors—Channing Tobias, General—1943-1949," ibid.

32. "Policy and Interim Committee and Definition of Its Functions: Supplementary Statement to the Committee's Progress Report," n.d. [February 1948], Reel 61,Du Bois. (emphasis in original).

33. Lynch, Black American Radicals, 36. 144

34. "Tobias Firm in Stand Opposing Leftists," op.cit.; and "Commie Issue Splits African Affairs Group," op.cit.

35. By 21 April 1948, NAACP Board member Judge Hubert T. Del any, Mae Wright Downs, President, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., William Jay Schieffelin, and John Hammond had also resigned. "Fragment, 1948" [signed by Paul Robeson], Reel6\, Du Bois.

36. Shelton Hale Bishop to Du Bois, letter, 13 Febaiary 1948, ibid.; Du Bois to Hugh Smythe, memo, 14 February 1948, Reel 62, ibid.; Du Bois to Hugh Smythe, letter, 16 February 1948, ibid.; W. Alpheus Hunton to Du Bois, letter, 20 Febmai'y 1948, Reel 61, ibid.; Hunton to Du Bois, letter, 20 February 1948, ibid.; "Notice of Meeting to All Members of the Council on African Affairs," 2 March 1948, ibid.; Hugh Smythe to Du Bois, letter, 5 March 1948, ibid.; Du Bois to Max Yergan, letter, 5 March 1948, ibid.; Yergan to Council Member, letter, 13 March 1948, ibid.; "Notice to All Members of the Council on African Affairs," 7 April 1948, ibid.; Robeson to Council Member, 15 April 1948, ibid.; "Statement authorized at meeting of the Council on African Affairs at 23 West 26th Street, New York," 21 April 1948, ibid.; and Robeson to Du Bois, 26 April 1948, ibid.

37. "Meeting of the Council on African Affairs Held at the Offices of the Council," 25 March 1948, ibid.; "Press Release," 25 March 1948, ibid.; Hunton to Robeson, letter, 27 March 1948, ibid.

38. Duberman,Rohe sou, 325.

39. Robeson to Yergan, letter, 7 April 1948, Reel 61, D/fBois and; "Robeson Disputes Yergan's Charges," 7 April 1948, PM, found in Reel 7,Robeson.

40. Hunton to Du Bois, letter, 7 March 1948, Reel 61, D//Bois', Du Bois to Smythe, letter, 7 March 1948, ibid.; and Du Bois to Robeson, letter, 8 March 1948, ibid.

41. John Latouche, Mary Church Terrell, and Henry Arthur Callis to Robeson, letter, 15 May 1948, ibid.; and Robeson to Members of the Executive Board, letter, 19 May 1948, ibid.

42. Hunton to Council Member, letter, 26 May 1948, ibid.; and FBI Report NY 1 GO- 25857, n.d. (June 1948?), Reel 1,FBI File on Paul Robeson.

43. Lynch, Black American Radicals, 37; and Robeson and Hunton to Friend, letter, 7 October 1948, Box 355, File "Leagues: Council on African Affairs, 1948-55," Papers o f the NAACP.

44. George E. Sokolsky, "Max Yergan," Los Angeles Herald Express 29 July 1953, in Box 675, File "Max Yergan, 1941-53," ibid.,' Max Yergan, "Byrnes Selection 145

Discussed; His Appointment as Delegate to the United Nations Commended," New York Times 3 August 1953, in ibid.; "White and Yergan TifFOver Byrnes' Selection," New York Age 8 August 1953, in ibid.; Max Yergan, "Byrnes and U.N.," New York Herald-Trilnme 2 August 1953, in ibid.; W.O. Walker, "Down the Big Road," ClevelandCall-Post 29 August 1953, in ibid.; "A Dissertation About Views of Max Yergan,"Pitishiirgh Courier 2 \ October 1953, in ibid.; and George E. Sokolsky, "Communism Breeds on Racism," n.d., in ibid.

45. FBI Report 100-896, 5 December 1946, Reel 2, FBI File on National Negro Congress', SAC Detroit to Director, FBI, memo, 15 August 1947, ibid.; J.P. Coyne(?) to D M. Ladd, memo, 10 September 1947, ibid.; D M. Ladd to Director, memo, 31 October 1947, ibid.; FBI File Number 100-896, 8 November 1947, ibid.

46. White to Committee on Administration, memo, 16 November 1946, Box 201, File "Communism—General, 1940 to April 1947," Papers o f the NAACP', White to Noah Griffin, letter, 11 November 1946, ibid.; and White, A Man Called White, 344-347.

47. "Crisis editorial comment," April 1948, Box 68, File "Articles: Communism, on— 1950-55," Papers o f the NAACP.

48. White to Branch Officer, letter, 6 May 1948, Box 143, File "Board of Directors Political Action, 1944, 1950-53," ibid.; "Report of the Committee on Re- Statement of the Association's Principles Re Participation in Politics," 13 March 1944, ibid.; and White to Staff memo, 25 February 1948, Reel 62,Du Bois.

49. Hugh H. Smythe to Du Bois, letter, 25 February 1948, ibid.

50. Du Bois to Board of Directors, draft memo, (n.d.) 27 Februaiy 1948, ibid.; Du Bois to Arthur Spingarn, letter, 27 February 1948, ibid.; Du Bois to Board of Directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, memo, 8 March 1948, Box 241, File "W.E.B. Du Bois—General (Jan-Sept 1948)," Papers o f the NAACP.

51. Arthur Spingarn to Du Bois, letter, 2 March 1948, Reel 62,Du Bois.

52. White to Du Bois, letter, 11 March 1948, ibid.; and White to Spingarn, letter, 12 March 1948, Box 241, File "W.E.B. Du Bois—General (Jan-Sept 1948),"Papers o f the NAACP.

53. Du Bois to Hugh Smythe, letter, 16 March 1948, Reel 62,Du Bois', Du Bois to Arthur Spingarn, letter, 2 April 1948, ibid.

54. Ibid. 146

55. White to Du Bois, letter, 29 March 1948, ibid.; and Du Bois to White, letter, 31 March 1948, ibid.

56. White to Du Bois, memo, 9 July 1948, ibid.

57. Du Bois to White, memo, 9 July 1948, ibid.; "Excerpts from Speech Delivered by Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois," 16 June 1948, ibid. For an example of the columns that infuriated Du Bois, see, Walter White, "The Candidates' Record: III-Harry S. Truman," 23 September 1948, Box 81, File "Articles; Walter White Syndicated Column, 1948,"Papers o f the NAACP', idem, "President Truman and Civil Rights," 29 July 1948, ibid.; idem, "The South vs. President Truman," 26 Februaiy 1948, ibid.; idem, "Governor Dewey's on the Negro Question," 4 March 1948, ibid., (emphasis in original); and idem, "The President Means It," 12 February 1948, ibid.

58. Madison Jones to White, memo, 20 July 1948, Box 241, File "W.E.B. Du Bois— General (Jan-Sept 1948)," ibid.

59. White to Committee on Administration, memo, 12 July 1948, ibid.

60. White to Spingarn, letter, 28 July 1948, ibid.

61. White to Du Bois, letter, 22 September 1944, Box 240, File "William E.B. Du Bois: General, 1943-44," ibid.; Du Bois to White, memo, 10 April 1945, Reel 57, Du Bois, Du Bois to Vada Somerville, letter, 13 April 1945, Reel 57, ibid.; "Statement of Expenses for Secretarial Expenses at UNCIO, San Francisco, California," 18 May 1945, ibid.; Wilkins to White, letter, 27 May 1945, Box 639, File "United Nations—UNCIO—General, 1945—May 11-June," Papers o f the NAACP', Wilkins to White, memo, 7 June 1945, Reel 57, Du Bois", Du Bois to Logan, letter, 21 June 1945, ibid.; Du Bois to White, memo, 26 June 1945, Box 240, File "William E.B. Du Bois: General 1945," Papers o f the NAACP', White to Du Bois, memo, 27 June 1945, ibid.; Du Bois to White, memo, 2 July 1945, Part 1, Reel 3, NAACP', Cathryn Dixon to Roy Wilkins, letter, 10 July 1945, Reel 57, Du Bois', White to Du Bois, memo, 12 July 1945, ibid.; White to Du Bois, memo, 12 July 1945, ibid.; Wilkins to Du Bois, memo, 17 July 1945, ibid.; White to Du Bois, memo, 18 July 1945, ibid.; White to Du Bois, letter, 21 December 1945, ibid.; and Rayford Logan, diary, 18 September 1945, Logan Papers.

62. E(dna) M W(asem) to White, memo, 29 January 1948, Box 635, File "United Nations General Assembly, 1946-August 1948,"Papers o f the NAACP.

63. Edward R. Dudley to White, memo, 4 February 1948, ibid.

64. UNESCO, "Human Rights Commission: Report of the Commission on Human Rights to the Economic and Social Council," 11 Feb. 1947, Part 2, Reel 28, NNC. 147

65. Quoted in, Howard Tolley, Jr., The il.N. Commission on Human Rights (Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1987): 16, 18.

66. Abraham Isserman to Yergan, letter, 20 February 1947, Part 2, Reel 28,NNC.

67. United Nations Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities, "Proposal Submitted by Mr. Jonathan Daniels (U.S.A.): Procedures for Handling 'Urgent Problems'," found in Box 635, File "United Nations General Assembly, 1945-August 1948,"Papers o f the NAACP.

68. White to Eleanor Roosevelt, telegram, 28 November 1947, Box 637, File "United Nations Petition (NAACP): 1947, Nov-Dee," ibid.; and Milton Konvitz to White, letter, 30 November 1947, Box 637, File "United Nations Petition (NAACP), 1948-49," ibid.

69. United Nations Commission on Human Rights Drafting Committee, Press Release SOC/504, 4 May 1948, found in Box 634, File "United Nations: General, 1948- 49," ibid.; United Nations Commission on Human Rights Drafting Committee, Press Release SOC/521, 11 May 1948, found in ibid.; and United Nations Commission on Human Rights Drafting Committee, Press Release SOC/523, 11 May 1948, found in ibid.

70. White to Du Bois, letter, 12 March 1948, Box 635, File "United Nations General Assembly, 1946-August 1948," ibid.; Francis H. Russell to White, letter, 13 February 1948, ibid.; and Logan to White, memo, 8 March 1948, ibid.

71. Marginalia from William Dean to Channing Tobias. Written on "Press Release SOC/504, Commission on Human Rights Drafting Committee," 4 May 1948, ibid.; and White to Wilkins, memo, 10 May 1948, ibid.

72. Wilkins to White and Thurgood Marshall, memo, 17 May 1948, ibid.; and Channing Tobias to Roy Wilkins, memo, n.d. (May 1948), ibid.

73. Secretary (White) to Committee on Administration, memo, 13 July 1948, Box 635, File "United Nations General Assembly, 1946-August 1948," ibid.

74. White to Chester S. Williams, letter, 29 July 1948, ibid.

75. Rayford Logan, diary, 10 September 1948, Logan Papers.

76. White to Eleanor Roosevelt, letter, 18 August 1948, Box 635, File "United Nations General Assembly, 1946-August 1948,"Papers o f the NAACP', and White to Du Bois, memo, 20 August 1948, Reel 62,Du Bois. 148

77. White, A Man Called White, 359.

78. Du Bois to White, letter, 24 November 1947, Reel 61, Dn Bois.

79. White to Rayford Logan, letter, 17 February 1948, Box 635, File "United Nations General Assembly, 1946-August 1948,"Papers o f ihe NAACP', and White to Du Bois, memo, 25 February 1948, ibid.

80. For a synopsis of the meeting between Roosevelt and Du Bois see, Du Bois to White, memo, 1 July 1948, Box 241, File "W.E.B. Du Bois—General (Jan-Sept 1948)," ibid.

81. Du Bois to White, memo, 23 August 1948, ibid.

82. White to Du Bois, memo, 24 August 1948, Reel 62,Du Bois.

83. Du Bois to The Secretary (White) and Board of Directors of the N.A. A.C.P., memo, 7 September 1948, Box 241, File "W.E.B. Du Bois—General (Jan-Sept 1948), Papers o f the NAACP.

84. White to Board of Directors, memo, 13 September 1948, ibid.

85. White to Lillian H. Waring, memo, 8 September 1948, ibid.; and Lillian H. Waring to White, memo, 9 September 1948, ibid. The $9,000 in salaries and expenses would be equivalent to over $50,000 per year in 1992 dollars.

86. White to Du Bois, memo, 8 September 1948, ibid.; Heni-y Moon to White, memo, 8 September 1948, ibid.; White to James Loeb, Jr., letter, 18 February 1947, Box 17, File "Americans for Democratic Action, 1947, January-February," ibid.; and James Loeb, Jr., to White, letter, 25 February 1947, ibid.

87. White to Du Bois, memo, 13 September 1948, Box 241, File "W.E.B. Du Bois— General (Jan-Sept 1948)," ibid.

88. Motion Passed by NAACP Board of Directors, 13 September 1948, ibid.; "Statement by Arthur B. Spingarn, President of the NAACP," 13 September 1948, ibid.; and Wilkins to White, letter, 14 September 1948, ibid.

89. Ibid.

90. Ibid.

91. Louis T. Wright to Du Bois, letter, n.d., (13 September 1948), ibid.

92. White to Wright, Spingarn, Hastie, et al, memo, 10 September 1948, Box 240, File "William E.B. Du Bois: Dismissal—Individuals, 1948," ibid. 149

93. W. Alpheus Hunton to Arthur B. Spingarn, letter, 14 September 1948, Reel 62, Du Bois-, W. Alpheus Hunton (as Secretary, Council on African Affairs) to Arthur B. Spingarn, letter, 20 September 1948, Reel 61, ibid.; George Canon, Ewart Guinier, et al to Louis T. Wright, letter, 6 October 1948, Box 240, File "William E. B. Du Bois—Dismissal: Board of Directors—Branches, 1948-49," Papers o f the NAACP', and Madison Jones to Wilkins, memo, 29 June 1949, Box 241, File "William E.B. Du Bois: General, 1949-55," ibid.

94. Henry Arthur Callis to Du Bois, letter, 8 October 1948, Reel 61,Du Bois-, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Blumberg to NAACP, letter, 27 September 1948, Box 241, File "William E.B. Du Bois—General, Oct-Dec 1948,"Papers o f the NAACP', Thomas L. Dabney to Du Bois, letter, 24 September 1948, Reel 61, D//Bois', Willard B. Ransom to Roy Wilkins, letter, 30 September 1948, Box 240, File "William E.B. Du Bois—Dismissal: Board of Directors—Branches 1948-49," Papers o f the NAACP', Madison S. Jones, Jr., to Willard B. Ransom, letter, 5 October 1948, ibid.; and "Letter to Board Members for October Board Meeting," (n.d.). Box 241, File "William E.B. Du Bois—General, Oct-Dec 1948," ibid.

95. Hugh Smythe to Du Bois, letter, 14 September 1948, Reel 62, Du Bois', Lil (Murphy) to Hugh Smythe, letter, 29 September 1948, ibid.; George B. Murphy, Jr., to Shirley Graham, memo, 8 October 1948, Reel 61, ibid.; and White to Wilkins, memo, 11 October 1948, Box 635, File "United Nations General Assembly, October 1948,"Papers o f the NAACP.

96. W.E.B. Du Bois, "My Relations with the NAACP," Box 241, File "William E.B. Du Bois—General, Oct-Dec 1948," ibid.

97. Shirley Graham (Secretary, National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions) to Arthur Spingarn, letter, 11 October 1948, Box 240, File "William E.B. Du Bois: Dismissal—Individuals, 1948," ibid.; and "Resolution Passed by the National Council, ASP, at the Academic Freedom Rally, in the Case of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois," 10 October 1948, ibid.

98. Wilkins to Shirley Graham, letter, 13 October 1948, ibid.

99. [Shirley Graham] to Clyde Miller, letter, 18 October 1948, Reel 62,Du Bois.

100. Wilkins to A.R. Traylor, letter, 19 October 1948, Box 240, File "William E.B. Du Bois—Dismissal: Board of Directors—Branches, 1948-49," Papers o f the NAACP', Du Bois to Mrs. [Anita] Blaine, draft letter, n.d.. Reel 61,Du Bois', Du Bois to Mrs. [Anita] Blaine, letter, 15 December 1948, ibid.; and Doxey Wilkerson to Du Bois, 25 December 1948, ibid.

101. Chester S. Williams to Mrs. Roosevelt, et al., memorandum of conversation, 9 September 1948, Box 78, File "1948-49, Discrimination: Race," RG 84. 150

102. "Position Paper: Discrimination Against Negroes in the United States," 30 August 1948, SD/A/C.3/76, Box 173, File "Instructions to the United States Delegation to the Third Regular Session of the General Assembly: Committee 3 (Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural)," ibid.; and "Comment Paper: Discrimination Against Negroes in the United States," 30 August 1948, SD/A/C.3/75, Box 175, File "Background Book: Committee III (Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural), Volume IV," ibid.

103. Rayford Logan, diary, 10 September 1948, Logan Papers.

104. Rayford Logan to White, letter, 11 September 1948, Box 635, File "United Nations General Assembly, October 1948,"Papers o f the NAACP.

105. Walter White, untitled Chicago Defender article, 14 September 1948, Box 74, File "Articles—Walter White Chicago Defender Columns, 1948," ibid.

106. Walter White, "World Insecurity Mirrored at U.N. Assembly," 30 September 1948, Box 81, File "Articles: Walter White Syndicated Column, 1948,"ibid.

107. Wilkins to [Arthur] Spingarn, letter, 15 September 1948, Box 635, File "United Nations—General Assembly, Sept. 1948," ibid.; White to the Office, 17 September 1948, ibid.; "Broadcast over UN Radio from Paris, by Walter White," October 1948, Box 635, File "United Nations General Assembly, October 1948," ibid.; "Report from Mr. White in Paris Received 10/11/48 (on UN General Assembly)," ibid.; "Report to the Office Not for Publication Until Later, Received from Walter White," 19 October 1948, ibid.; "Report on the Progress of the Efforts to Secure Action First on a Declaration on Human Rights by the General Assembly," 19 October 1948, ibid.; and Jason Berger,A New Deal for the World: Lüeanor Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, Social Science Monographs (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 68.

108. White to Branch President, letter, 24 June 1949, Box 610, File "Staff: Walter White, Leave of Absence, 1949," ibid.; and Louis T. Wright to Carl Murphy, draft letter, 1 September 1949, ibid.

109. "New Love for Walter?" Pittsburgh Courier 16 July 1949; "Walter Whites Divorced," 'Q&\ûmovQ Afro-American 16 July 1949; "Wife Divorces Walter White: Mexican Decree Ends Marriage of 27 Years," Chicago Defender 16 July 1949; "Walter White, Poppy Cannon Said Married," Atlanta Daily World 28 July 1949; "Did Walter White Marry his White Sweetheart?" New York Amsterdam NeM’s (n.d.); "Hint Walter White Romance," New York Amsterdam News 9 July 1949; and Wilkins, Standing Fast, 203-04.

110. Ibid., 205. 151

111. J. Robert Smith, "California Writer Raps Walter White for Taking White Bride," St. Paul Recorder 12 August 1949; and "C.C. Spaulding Chides Walter White for his Recent Marriage," Chicago Defender 3 September 1949.

112. Wilkins, Standing Fa.st, 204-05.

113. W. (from Washington D C.) to NAACP, postcard, 23 August 1949, Box 610, File "Staff: Walter White Marriage, \949,"Paper.s o f the NAACP.

114. Lucille Miller to Louis Wright, letter, 2 August 1949, ibid.; and S.K. Biyson to NAACP, letter, 15 October 1949, ibid.

115. Carl Murphy to Palmer Weber, letter, 31 August 1949, Box 610, File "Staff: Walter White, Leave of Absence, 1949," ibid.; and Carl Murphy to Palmer Weber, letter, 6 September 1949, ibid.

116. William H. Hastie to Carl Murphy, letter, 3 October 1949, ibid.; Palmer Weber to Carl Murphy, letter, 1 September 1949, ibid.; and Wilkins,StandingFa.st, 205.

117. Walter White, "Has Science Conquered the COLOR LINE?" Box 79, File "Article: Walter White Look magazine, 1949," Papers o f the NAACP.

118. Alfred Baker Lewis to Carl Murphy, letter, 30 August 1949, Box 610, File "Staff; Walter White, Leave of Absence, 1949," ibid.

119. Wilkins to Logan, telegram, 7 June 1949, Box 404, File "Rayford Logan, 1948- 49," ibid.; and Wilkins to Spingarn, letter, 15 September 1948, Box 635, File "United Nations—General Assembly, Sept. 1948," ibid.

120. Quoted in Duberman,Robe.son, 341-42.

121. Congress, House, Committee on Un-American Activities, Hearmgs Regarding Communist Infiltration o f Minority Groups, 81st Cong., 1st sess., 13 July 1949, 426-28.

122. Ibid., 454-55.

123. Marilyn Smith (Department of State) to White, letter, 21 April 1949, Box 511, File "Paul Robeson, Re: Statements, 1949,"Papers o f the NAACP\ and Walter White, "Paul Robeson's Declaration," 28 April 1949, ibid.

124. Duberman,Robeson, 343-44.

125. Hunton to Council Member, letter, 23 May 1949, Reel 7,Robeson, and [Roy Wilkins],"Robeson Speaks for Robeson," Crisis Vol. 56, no. 5 (May 1949): 137. 152

126. Charles Howard to Roy Wilkins, letter, 26 May 1949, Box 511, File "Paul Robeson, Re: Statements, 1949,"Papers o f the NAACP\ and Charles Howard to Louis Wright, letter, 27 May 1949, ibid.;

127. Benjamin Davis to White, letter, 28 May 1949, ibid.; and Wilkins to White, memo, 6 June 1949, ibid.

128. Wilkins, Standing Fast, 211. CHAPTER V

American Negro vs. Red Negro: The Disappearance of Human Rights from the African- American Agenda for Equality

One ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body.... W.E.B. Du Bois*

The early Cold War period — punctuated by the rise of McCarthyism, the explosion of the Soviets' first atomic device, and the onset of the Korean Conflict — was a time of great fear. Fear of communism, fear of internal subversion, fear of traitors.

These fears led the NAACP to waver in its support of human rights, brandish its disdain of the African-American Left, and play the role of the "good Negro" for the State

Department. The Association defined itself first and foremost as "an American organization" and set out to prove it — in Korea, in the UN, and over and over again in its dealings with the African-American Left.

In Korea, the NAACP waffled. Unlike the Second World War when the African-

American leadership put enormous pressure on the White House to abolish Jim Crow, the

NAACP now approached the president as a supplicant. The Association swaddled its complaints about racism in patriotic gibberish.^ It pleaded with the political leadership to end Jim Crow, not because it was just plain wrong but because the Soviets exploited this gaping wound in democracy to lure the emerging Third World into the Eastern Bloc. This

153 154 was neither a strategic nor a tactical move on the Association's part. Rather, it represented the NAACP's warped vision of African-American civil rights as a bulwark against Soviet encroachment.^ In short, the Association became so fixated on communism that it lost sight of the full range of issues affecting African-Americans.

Nowhere was this more apparent than in the United Nations. Previously, the

NAACP had been visionary and persistent in pursuing human rights through the UN

Charter. Now the Association floundered. More intent on achieving equality solely through the Constitution, the Association lost interest in the UN debates on human rights.

It assigned a consultant, who stood on the periphery of the organization, to provide advice on human rights on an "as needed" basis. Without strong foreign policy leadership, the

NAACP drifted. The Association appeared baffled about what policy stance to take on a

U.S. proposal to insert states' rights into the Covenant on Human Rights.** And, at one point, the consultant, Rayford Logan, argued that the way to overcome U.S. insistence on two covenants — one political and the other economic — was, in fact, to insert the states' rights clause. The Senate was sure to ratify it then, he proudly (and tragically) crowed. ^

Thus, the NAACP, which once clearly understood the centrality of human rights in its quest for black equality, now seemed adrift. Sadly, the Association would only show its former fire in the UN when trying to prove to the State Department that it was an

American organization.

The African-American Left struggled with its own version of duality. And, in its internal war between black and red, red won. The black Left denounced the NAACP at every turn, elevated the legal struggle of the Communist Party USA over the trials of 155

African-Americans, and dutifully consulted with CPUS A chief, William Z. Foster, to ensure that a petition charging the U.S. with genocide met the "organization's needs."

Although Gerald Horne would fervently disagree, the African-American Left's first priority was the Communist Party. The black Left believed that defending the rights of

Communists was "the first line of defense for civil liberties in the United States." In its estimation, civil rights foes always used the Communists as the opening wedge to pry away civil rights from other beleaguered groups.^ But that perspective was both historically convenient and inaccurate. African-Americans were disfranchised and exploited centuries before the first Communist set foot on American soil. Addressing the issue of communism was not going to address the issue of equality for African-Americans.

Unfortunately, that was not how the African-American leadership saw it.

Declaring that it refused to let the Communists "capture. . .split and wreck the

NAACP " the Association purged suspected Communists from its organization, revoked the charter of its leftist San Francisco branch, and limited its support for victims of federal and state loyalty programs to those whose patriotism was questioned solely because of race or membership in the NAACP.’ Wilkins and White asserted that the NAACP wanted to "clean out our organization" and "make sure that the Communists were not running it."

NAACP Labor Secretary Clarence Mitchell registered strong concerns that the

Association's purge, despite its best intentions, could quickly spiral out of control.

Already he had witnessed delegates at the Annual Convention attempting to eject Jack

Greenburg of the Legal Defense Fund from a meeting. Mitchell quickly discovered that because Greenburg was white, the delegates automatically assumed that he was a 156

Communist. "We must be careful," Mitchell cautioned because the anti-Communist game was fraught with perils.* But it was a game the leadership of the NAACP was all too willing to play. In a McCarthyist version of a united front, the Association banned the

Left from an NAACP-sponsored Civil Rights Mobilization.

Roy Wilkins conceived of the mobilization as a method for bringing together leaders from major civil rights and labor organizations to develop a common legislative civil rights strategy.® He also determined that this would be a "by-invitation-only" event.

The NAACP's first order of business, therefore, was defining who was a true liberal and who was not. Wilkins trusted the CIO, which was going through its own red purge, to determine which unions were acceptable and allowed to participate. One excluded union denounced the NAACP for becoming embroiled in the CIO's internal struggle and still worse, for "subjecting participants in the conference to the measuring rod of the House

Un-American Activities Committee."'® In many ways, that yardstick appealed to Wilkins.

He was determined to weed out "irresponsible" organizations whose concern about civil rights was only a "sideline" to something more sinister." He therefore developed an elaborate credentialling/registration scheme that required organizations to have the stamp of approval from a hand-picked cabal of true liberals.'^

The only stamp that the decidedly leftist Civil Rights Congress (CRC) could get, however, was "return to sender d o Moscow." In Wilkins's estimation, the CRC was

Kremlin in blackface. He vividly remembered the vicious ideological battles between the

NAACP and the CRC's legal predecessor during the Scottsboro case and declared that the

Association would "have no truck" with the CRC. Moreover, Wilkins asserted, the black 157

Left's complete abandonment of the "Double V" campaign after the Nazis attacked the

Soviet Union was something that the "NAACP cannot forget."'^ The mobilization will have nothing to do with "apologists for Soviet foreign policy," Wilkins declared.He was emphatic that the mobilization was for America and American citizens only and for "no other state." As a result, the Communists had to be kept from trying to "crash the gate."'^

The NAACP used its exclusion of the CRC and other left-wing organizations as an example of its patriotism and loyalty to the American ideal.'® Conversely, the CRC wore the NAACP's ostracism like a badge of honor"' In retaliation for being blacklisted from the Civil Rights Mobilization, William Patterson, Executive Secretary of the CRC, authored a deftly crafted letter that he widely distributed to publicize the NAACP's red­ baiting tactics. Patterson eloquently pleaded for the NAACP to get off the McCarthyist bandwagon and join with all true liberals, especially the CRC, to fight for civil rights. "We must have unity," Patterson declared.**

Wilkins coldly responded with his own well-publicized open letter. The NAACP understood "the real purpose" of Patterson's communication, Wilkins wrote. It was not a genuine offer of unity and conciliation, but pure Communist drivel on what the CRC

"chooses to classify as civil rights" and what it chooses to define as unity. There was no unity at Scottsboro. There was no unity after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

There was no unity in the Scottsboro-like case of the Martinsville Seven, where the CRC stated that the Association "should be put out of business." The Civil Rights Mobilization,

Wilkins asserted, was to ensure that minorities were more ftilly integrated into the

"American concept of democracy." For Wilkins that clearly was not Patterson's goal and 158 the CRC's inclusion into the Mobilization, he brusquely concluded, would be a "distinct handicap." The answer was "no" and "no" it remained throughout subsequent

Mobilizations.*® This was a policy that pleased the House Un-American Activities

Committee, which sent Wilkins its own report on the Civil Rights Congress to use as he saw fit.^“ "First-class job," Board member Alfred Baker Lewis said in congratulating

Wilkins.^*

The NAACP leadership was well on its way to building an impenetrable barrier between it and the Left.^^ The most harrowing example of this was the NAACP's complete abandonment of the venerable Du Bois, who had been charged by the U.S.

Justice Department with being an agent of a foreign government. Following the April

1949 World Peace Congress, Du Bois threw himself into the "peace offensive." He was convinced that atomic weapons were instruments of incalculable death, served as an unnecessary barrier to easing Cold War tensions, and created a dangerous arrogance in

U.S. foreign policy.^^ He reasoned that if the people only understood the deadly implications of America's atomic superiority, they would demand that all atomic materials come under UN control. The fact that Du Bois's beliefs aligned with Soviet attempts to neutralize America's primary area of military dominance, set him on a collision course with the State and Justice Departments.

The "phony" peace offensive, according to State Department officials, was the

Soviets' attempt to make the free world look as if it were "afraid that peace will break out."^'* Those who supported this Soviet stunt were therefore openly vulnerable to "attack as Communist inspired and controlled."^’ For Secretary of State Acheson, the Stockholm 159

Peace Appeal, was the Soviets' sickest but most seductively benign and enticing ploy. The

Appeal, which emerged from the 1949 World Peace Congress and had already been signed by millions, called for international control of atomic weapons and denounced as a war criminal any nation that would use atomic weapons in a first-strike capacity. This placed the U.S. in an untenable position. The Americans already had Nagasaki and Hiroshima notched on their gunbelt and had strongly repelled Soviet attempts to place their atomic arsenal under the UN's aegis. The Soviet-sponsored Stockholm Peace Appeal had created a foreign policy nightmare for the U.S.^*^

Du Bois walked head-on into this Superpower maelstrom when he and a small coterie of leftist friends launched the Peace Information Center in New York City.^’ The

Center widely disseminated the Stockholm Peace Appeal throughout the U.S., publicized the location and results of worldwide peace conventions, and helped provide the pro­ peace plank for Du Bois's U.S. Senate candidacy. The Justice Department, trying to clamp down on suspected Communists, demanded that all Peace Information Center officers, including Du Bois, who was in Prague at the time, register as agents of a foreign government.^*

Denouncing the Justice Department's request as "absurd," Du Bois and his colleagues refused. Indeed, they tried to convince William E. Foley, Chief of the Foreign

Agents Registration Section, that the financially troubled Peace Information Center was simply a group of American citizens terrified that the Cold War would "burst into a terrible conflagration which might well snuff out civilization as we know it.""^ But the stalling tactic and Du Bois's attorney's demand that the department identify the Center's 160 alleged foreign sponsor only served to infuriate Justice Department officials. It was obvious to everyone, Foley contended, that the Peace Information Center was in "direct support of Soviet foreign policy" and created solely to undermine the U.S. government.

Declaring that they had wasted enough time in a protracted duel of words, Foley demanded that the Center register immediately. When Du Bois and several officials of the now disbanded and bankrupt Peace Information Center refused, the government issued an indictment.^”

As 83 year old Du Bois faced the full force and fury of the U.S. government, the

NAACP membership voted overwhelmingly to support the co-founder of their organization.^* The Association leadership, however, felt no obligation to do so. Walter

White, who had schemed his way back into the executive secretaryship,^" decided that the peace offensive was "Communist-inspired propaganda" and did not want the NAACP anywhere near it — especially if that meant he could withhold the considerable legal resources and prestige of the NAACP from his bitter enemy, W.E.B. Du Bois.^^ White convinced his Board that the Justice Department had solid proof that "money from Russia was behind the Peace Information Center" and that HUAC would question the NAACP's patriotism if it jumped into this fight. Appropriately frightened, several Board members insisted that the Association confine itself to racial discrimination cases and avoid the Du

Bois issue at all costs. After all, one Board member noted, Du Bois got himself into this mess without consulting the NAACP, he could get himself out the same way.^"* White was more than willing to follow this directive and approved a policy statement that the 161

NAACP would not provide any legal, financial, or moral resources to aid the aging and recently widowed Du Bois/^

Once again, however. White's personal vendetta blinded him to the facts. There was no money trail, no interlocking secretariat, no formal agreements. There simply was no proof that the Peace Information Center was a front for the Soviet Union. The government's main witness, O. John Rogge, former fellow traveler and born again

American, could produce no documentation of a definitive link between the Center and the

USSR. Desperately, the Justice Department tried to prove that the literature from the

Peace Information Center sounded just like the propaganda of other Soviet-inspired peace advocates. Disgusted, Judge James McGuire, a political conservative, refused to accept the government's arguments and dismissed the case even before the defense could call its first witness.^® Wearied by the ordeal and distraught by the NAACP's "malignant behavior," Du Bois declared that it "was a bitter experience and I bowed before the storm.

. but I did not break.

Instead, it was the NAACP that broke. The pressures of the Cold War and the

Korean War had snapped the moral and ideological compass of the Association in two.

Despite Truman's 1948 executive order desegregating the armed forces, the army was, for all intents and purposes still Jim Crow. And the mockery of fighting yet another war for democracy with a perpetually segregated army did not escape anyone's attention. The

Association was pummelled with complaints of racial abuse against African-American soldiers in the South's boot camps and in the battlefields of Korea.^* One NAACP member asked how the U.S. could "reconcile democracy with the stupid practice of two 162 kinds of American soldiers — soldiers and Negro soldiers." And even the highly-respected

Ralph Bunche deplored the "hypocrisy" of black soldiers fighting "to protect rights and privileges for the Koreans which the Negroes who fight and die have never enjoyed at home."^®

Besieged by complaints, the Association sent its chief counsel, Thurgood Marshall, to Korea to investigate. He uncovered a trail of racial abuse. African-Americans accounted for 88 percent of all soldiers charged with cowardice. Worse yet, not only were they court-martialed at an appallingly higher rate than white soldiers, they were also sentenced to much stiffer penalties. At the time of Marshall's investigation, more than two-thirds had received jail terms of over 20 years; one, in fact, had received the death penalty. At the same time no white soldier had been sentenced to more than five years in prison.**” Marshall did what he could; he met with ranking officers and filed reports. But in the end his efforts were hamstrung by the Association itself.

Starting in 1948, the NAACP had rushed headlong down an ideological course that greatly constricted its range of responses to American racism. For example, the

NAACP's vilification of Paul Robeson, had, in essence, equated mass black dissent and international protest with communism. Wilkins's intemperate stance that blacks would willingly fight for democracy against a Communist foe destroyed the leverage that A.

Philip Randolph used just a decade earlier in extorting equal employment concessions from President Roosevelt during the Second World War. Thus, when the Korean war broke out, Walter White proudly declared that African-Americans were "dying in Korea to protect the outer ramparts of democracy" from Communist aggression.*" That kind of 163 unstinting support for the war effort and the NAACP's glowing praise for U.S.-led collective security as an efficient method to stop Soviet expansion, essentially neutralized the Association's effectiveness.

Indeed, Walter White saw the NAACP's role as advising U.S. policy leaders on how to win not only the war but the loyalty of the emerging Third World in the process.

He strongly suggested to UN Ambassador Warren Austin that the U.S. pay for damages to Korean property and thereby counter Communist charges that American troops were wantonly destroying the Korean countryside. White, in fact, was irritated that the U.S. government seemed to be completely inept at parrying Soviet propaganda and that the

U.S. appeared docile in the face of Soviet taunts about American democracy. Winning the war would require not only armies and matériel, he railed, but also a full-scale publicity campaign. We must, he told members of Congress, "take the job away from the Kremlin" that has been filling the Third World's head with "tragic distortions.

What was tragically distorted was American democracy and White knew it. But the democracy he wanted publicized was replete with tales of free elections and free speech and a Constitution that had a magical self-correcting mode to address any shortcomings. He certainly did not want the oft-told Kremlin tale of lynching, terror-filled elections, and a segregated Washington, D C broadcast throughout the world. White fully acknowledged that American democracy had hideously soiled areas but he now believed that these problems could be taken care of in-house. Sounding amazingly like

Eleanor Roosevelt in 1947, White concluded that America's dirty laundry certainly did not need to be aired in an international forum like the United Nations. 164

The African-American Left, led by William Patterson and the CRC, did not agree and "America's shame" would soon spill out once again onto the international scene. Even before the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Patterson began drafting the CRC's petition to the Unlike the National Negro Congress's and the NAACP's petitions that accused the United States of violating African-Americans' human rights, the Civil Rights Congress charged the U.S. with genocide.'*'* Patterson and a small team of writers, including author Howard Fast and scholar Oakley Johnson, painstakingly and shrewdly compiled data from the 1948

President's Committee on Civil Rights report, from the NAACP's publications, and from other non-Communist sources. The facts on lynching, segregation, unequal education, housing and health care had already been told brilliantly in An Appeal to the World. The difference was that the CRC set out to prove governmental intent. The lynchings were not just random acts of violence, the consistent violation of the 14th and 15th amendments was not haphazard, and Jim Crow was not an aberrational strand of America's economic and political culture. All of these, Patterson argued, were the result of a willful and deliberate government policy to destroy African-Americans. The result of these policies, the CRC declared, was that each year 30,000 more African-Americans die than would have been the case had they enjoyed the same quality health care, jobs, education, and housing as whites. Patterson wrote:

Out of the inhuman black ghettos of American cities, out of the cotton plantations of the South, comes this record of mass slayings on the basis of race, of lives deliberately warped and distorted by the willful creation of conditions making for premature death, poverty, and disease. It is a 165

record that calls aloud for condemnation, for an end to . . .the ever-increasing violation of United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.'*’

To drive home his point. We Charge Genocide began with a gruesome photo of two black men, lifeless, bound, swollen, and dangling from a grand old tree in Mississippi. Patterson was intent, however, in not trodding all of the same factual ground as the NAACP and the

National Negro Congress. The CRC focused only on incidents of mob violence and police terror since 1945; that is to say, since America proclaimed itself the leader of the "free world." The charge of genocide, in the wake of the Holocaust, was devastating; it was more wrenching under the klieg lights of the Korean War and American platitudes about democracy. And everyone knew it.

Patterson and William Z. Foster, Chairman of the Communist Party USA, proudly discussed the "remarkably effective weapon" the CRC had created. We Charge Genocide, they concluded, would have enormous "ideological. . and organizational value."

Patterson lamented that the authors could not fully explore the impact of governmental policies on poor whites and the white working class, but, he concluded, this volume, by necessity, had to focus on the plight of African-Americans.'*® In short, the CRC played the black card in order to advance its red hand.

Columnist Drew Pearson accurately predicted the reaction of "Walter White, the patriotic Negro leader." White, he said, was furious and would fire a "scathing blast" at the CRC for "publishing Communist propaganda. . .that the south [was] massacring

Negroes."'*^ At the behest of the State Department, White, believing that the NAACP had 166 an obligation to do whatever it could to aid the U.S. in its anti-Communist crusade, eagerly penned a stinging rebuttal."’® He sought first to undermine the credibility of the

CRC by defining We Charge Genocide as "a gross and subversive conspiracy" done by

"prominent American Communists." He also impugned the research itself. White described the 50 pages of lynching and racist incidents as "alleged instances" designed to

"set the Negroes of America against their fellow citizens, . . .destroy the comity of interracial relations in [the United States],. . and suborn the allegiance of Negro citizens.

. to their foremost loyalty — loyalty to the United States of America. After it became clear that the CRC had, in fact, meticulously verified each incident. White tried another tactic. The "facts are true" he lamented, but "like all indictments drafted by a prosecutor,"

We Charge Genocide is one-sided and "paints only the gloomiest picture of American democracy and the race question." Then White set out to present the defense's case. The

Executive Secretary of the NAACP saw "phenomenal gains in civil rights." White heralded as achievements the "marked reduction" in segregation in the U.S. Army, the lessening of disfranchisement in the South, and the measurable reduction in racial bigotry in the United States. Yet, the disgracefully disproportionate large number of black soldiers charged and convicted of cowardice in the Korean War, the 1946 killing of Macio

Snipes for daring to vote in a Georgia election, and the 1951 assassination of Florida

NAACP official Harry T. Moore and his wife told another tale. "Patriotic Negro" White, however, just chalked these incidents up to the "unfinished business of democracy."^”

This was too much even for Roy Wilkins, the staunchest anti-Communist in the

NAACP. "How can we 'blast' a book that uses our records as source material," Wilkins 167 asked. This was awkward, he told White. How can the NAACP officially criticize a book that describes the "mistreatment of Negroes in America" when that mistreatment is the central premise of the Association? The entire array of NAACP initiatives — to get a federal ban on lynching; to secure equal employment legislation; and to end Jim Crow in education — had as its initial starting point the mistreatment of Negroes in America.

Certainly, Wilkins added, the "State Department cannot expect that we will. . .assume the role of'blaster'" of a document that goes to the very core of our organization.^'

Board Member Judge Hubert T. Delany was even more blunt. White was on the wrong side. The CRC book accused the U.S. government of nothing more than the very atrocities that the NAACP detailed in An Appeal to the World just four short years ago.

Let the State Department do its own dirty work and defend the U.S. government, Delany asserted. That was not the NAACP's job. Just as troubling for Delany was the content of

White's rebuttal. White's statement was dripping with platitudes about democracy and all of the progress African-Americans had made. Delany therefore felt compelled to level his own blast. "If we issue the statement, it means that instead of our being a militant organization fighting for first-class citizenship for the Negro, we are saying to the very people who are denying us the rights which we seek, that we are in effect satisfied with the progress we are making toward attaining those rights. That, he told White, was not an accurate depiction of reality.

Despite these warnings. White rushed to the defense of the United States.

Unfortunately, he had strong support within the Association. White's most important ally was Board member Dr. Channing Tobias, who now served as an alternate member of the 168

U.S. delegation at the UN meeting in Paris where the CRC planned to present its petition.

Tobias contended that the UN had no authority to demand internal changes in the way a state treated its citizens and he was incensed by the We Charge Genocide petition.^^

White also enlisted the support of Association consultant Rayford Logan, whose work on international issues for the NAACP had dwindled to almost nothing. This CRC battle was perfect for Logan's pugilistic temperament. Logan was anxious to get back into the fray and he had already intended on being in Paris as a Fulbright scholar. The strategy was simple. In answer to the charge of genocide, Logan and Tobias would provide the

American Negroes', as opposed to Red Negroes', point of view. They also vowed to work closely with the U.S. delegation and State Department officials in Paris to either block the presentation or refute the charges. White would take care of the homefront.^‘* The

Executive Secretary of the NAACP used his syndicated column to malign the CRC, denigrate the charges, and glorify American democracy. He proposed writing a book extolling the enormous progress African-Americans had made in attaining equality in the

United States. And, in a rebuttal which sounded strangely like Jonathan Daniels's attack on the NAACP's petition to the UN, White challenged the CRC to detail Soviet atrocities as well.”

Patterson's answer was simple. "Our fight against genocide begins at home."”

The CRC was not to be out-maneuvered. Patterson anticipated that the U.S. government would bring out the big names to discredit the CRC but he defiantly replied that "neither the State Department, nor its hired apologists" could stop the petition from being heard.”

Patterson boldly sent White and Roger Baldwin of the American Civil Liberties Union a 169 personal copy of We Charge Genocide so that they would be able to do a "most effective hatchet job" on the petition.’® He also had a few celebrities of his own — W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson — supporting his efforts. But the State Department, which initially suspected that Robeson was the principal author ofWe Charge Genocide, would not allow him to get to the UN Conference in France where he would have an opportunity to humiliate the United States. As Walter White knew well in advance, the State Department planned to deny Robeson a passport and keep the entertainer bound to American soil.’®

Unable to get to Paris, Robeson was forced to deliver a copy of the petition to a

"subordinate subordinate in the Secretariat's office" in New York.“

Government pressure was also beginning to take its toll on Du Bois. He was ready and eager to lead the CRC contingent to Paris and present the petition to the General

Assembly. Earlier, Du Bois had warned that "there is still possible a massacre of Negroes here worse than what 6,000,000 Jews suffered in Germany. The way to meet it is not to grin and bow. It is not to run and hide when somebody whispers 'Communist'. . .No.

Stand and be counted."®' Du Bois was ready to take his stand. He anticipated the inevitable passport problems with the State Department but did not foresee the warnings from his attorney as well as from his new wife, Shirley Graham. They cautioned him that just after winning that bitter and expensive legal battle against the Justice Department, it would not be wise to provoke another indictment. Bitterly disappointed, Du Bois informed Patterson that he was re-evaluating his initial decision. Patterson pleaded that the scholar was the only one who had the international stature to "expose the machinations" of Channing Tobias, Ralph Bunche, Max Yergan, and the other State 170

Department hired guns. But Du Bois held fast. "I have decided not to go to Paris," he solemnly replied.

Paris was, in fact, anti-climatic. True to form, the UN refused to do anything with the petition. Channing Tobias and Rayford Logan diligently and effectively carried the standard for the U.S. government.®^ In fact, Patterson bitterly noted, Tobias was "the main stooge for the American government in preventing the whole question of the genocidal policy of this government from getting an airing before the people of the world."®"* Was it not about time, Patterson offered in an open letter to the NAACP leadership, that we "end once and for all the pitting of Negro against Negro?"®®

The problem, however, was that Negro was not pitted against Negro. Rather,

Soviet Negro was pitted against American Negro. As a result, no-one was clearly and forcefully articulating the needs of African-Americans. William Patterson frankly stated to his comrades that the CRC's first priority was overturning anti-Communist legislation and

"then the fight for Negro rights."®® Of course, in his earlier public debate with Roy

Wilkins, Patterson proffered a decidedly different agenda for the Civil Rights Congress.

There is not a "domestic question that takes precedence over the matter of lynching, jimcrowism and segregation, and the impoverishment of millions of Negro citizens,"

Patterson implored. Yet, in reality when the CRC arrayed its finite resources to address those domestic issues most important to it, the Communists consistently came first.®’ The

CRC's priorities quickly crystallized after the U.S. government found a powerful old law, the Smith Act, that allowed the Justice Department to virtually outlaw the Communist 171

Party. The U.S. government's conviction and subsequent sentencing of eleven ranking members of the Communist Party USA clarified everything tor the CRC.®*

Overturning the Smith Act became the CRC's raison d'etre. In response to a request for the Civil Rights Congress to participate in an anti-Jim Crow campaign. Public

Relations Director, Kevin Mullen noted that the "priority civil rights case" for the CRC was freeing the eleven Communist leaders. The Civil Rights Congress, Mullen added, simply did not have the financial or personnel resources to mount both an anti-Jim Crow drive and a campaign for the Communist Eleven.

In another instance, when asked to list the most pressing and important civil rights cases in the United States, Aubrey Grossman, CRC National Organizational Secretary, responded in a manner fully consistent with the Civil Rights Congress's pro-Communist agenda: overturn the Smith Act and clear away all of its remnants. Grossman's list was the synopsis of the CRC's agenda:

" 1. The Supreme Court decision on the Smith Act 2. Local Smith Act prosecutions 3. The case of the CRC Trustees [jailed for trying to bail out the Communist Eleven] 4. Exorbitant Smith Act bail 5. Bail loyalty oaths. 6. The un-American Committee Contempt cases 7. The contempt cases against the lawyers for the Communists 8. The case of William L. Patterson [for contempt of Congress] 9. The case of Dr. Du Bois and associates [for the Peace Information Center] 10. The case of Rosa Lee Ingram."™

Although the Rosa Lee Ingram case made Grossman's top ten, it was not because this was yet another sickening example of Southern Justice. Rather, the CRC twisted this case — where a black woman and her sons were wrongfully convicted of murdering a 172 white man and sentenced to death — so that it took on a decidedly red tone. In pressing for Ingram's release, Patterson counseled that her race and gender had to be "subordinated to the major struggle in America, the struggle of American workers to free themselves." It is the "hellish roots of capitalist society that lead to Negro oppression," he wrote.

Therefore, any gender or racial equality movements "must gear [themselves] whenever and wherever possible" to the fight to overthrow capitalism.^’ In short, the struggle for communism was paramount. Walter White railed at the Civil Rights Congress's "insulting and. . callous" use of Negro murder cases to fundraise for the Communist Party and

"ridicule the American judicial system." But while White castigated the CRC for its failings, the NAACP was riddled with its own flaws.

Lacking a strong voice from the Left to articulate and lead the fight for broadly- defined human rights, it fell to the NAACP alone to demand true black equality. Yet, the

Association was stymied by its quest for acceptance as an organization of and for true

Americans. That quest had led the NAACP to derail the genocide petition and this same quest led to an unfocused, catch-as-catch-can policy on human rights. The NAACP'S foreign policy coherence began to unravel under Wilkins's stewardship. He consistently failed to confer with Rayford Logan and increase his "meager knowledge" of international affairs. Wilkins repeatedly overlooked State Department announcements about meetings concerning the drafting of the Covenant on Human Rights. The situation became so embarrassing that he confided that his "face would be red if [he] did not have so much melanin." Even after Walter White's ignoble return, Wilkins, still responsible for setting the agenda for the Annual Conventions, severely limited and de-emphasized foreign policy 173 issues. For example, Wilkins turned down requests to have an expert on Truman's foreign aid program, Point IV, speak at the NAACP Annual Convention. The members would be incensed, he concluded, if asked to sit in a hot, segregated Atlanta hotel and listen to a speech about "how our government is relieving misery and encouraging better living standards in other lands."”

White's re-ascendancy, moreover, did not mean the re-emergence of a prominent, independent foreign policy stance — even though immediately after his return. White asked the Board for approval to meet with Secretary of State Dean Acheson to discuss U.S. foreign policy in the emerging Third World. In sheer disbelief Board member Earl

Dickerson demanded to know the point of going "just to talk about the fact that we don't have a policy."” White could not counter Dickerson's pointed observation. It was true.

Thus, although the NAACP still had an interest in human rights. White had to admit, it simply did not have the resources or the expertise "to attack barbarity in Nigeria as well as in Mississippi."” There is much yet to be done. White told the NAACP faithful, but the

Association must focus on domestic matters.’® Indicating the NAACP's priorities. White relegated and delegated the entire issue of human rights to the Association's part-time consultant, Rayford Logan.

The NAACP's first priority was to prove its loyalty to American democracy. The

"cardinal principle of the NAACP is to support and strengthen American democracy," the

Association membership declared.” As such, the leadership repeatedly described its agenda as "striving for democracy. . within the framework of the Constitution."” By establishing that priority, however, the NAACP had effectively adopted a framework 174 whose initial premise was African-American inequality. Each fight in the battle for black rights would be fought through the filter of Constitutional interpretation constructed by an often hostile Supreme Court. By "mapping [its] civil rights fight according to the guarantees of [the] American Constitution,"’’ the NAACP leadership could offer no guarantees. Instead, it came on bended knee begging for a slice of the American pie. In a meeting with President Truman, African-American leaders stressed that they came "not as

Negroes defending Negroes. . .[but] as American Citizens pleading for our country and concerned chiefly with advancing the cause of democracy in the United States and the world. African-Americans, Walter White noted, would advance their stmggle "not as hyphenated Americans but as American Citizens."**

Thus, in its rush for Cold War acceptability, the NAACP redefined itself as an

"American organization" protecting the black community from Communist infiltrators, and constricted its program for black equality to a civil rights platform that was inadequate to address over 300 years of oppression. Just as troubling, the African-American Left embroiled itself in the legal battles of the Communist Party of the USA, proselytized for the Soviet Union's illusory "ethnic democracy,"*’ and subordinated the needs of black

America to the needs of the Party. Clearly, the onset of the Cold War and McCarthyism shattered the human rights vision of a once united African-American leadership, and left it struggling with "two warring ideals in one dark body."*’ 175

ENDNOTES

1. W.E.B. Du Bois,The Souls o f Black Folks, 45.

2. Testimony of Clarence Mitchell Before the Preparedness Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, 24 January 1951, Box 141, File "National Defense Military Service, 1950-51," Papers o f the NAACP Washington Bureau (hereafter Papers o f the NAACP Washington)-, Thurgood Marshall to Office, 30 January 1951, ibid.; Anne Beadenkopf to Truman, 18 December 1950, ibid.; Monthly Report of Washington Bureau, 4 April 1951, Box 163, File "Monthly and Annual Reports, 1949-1951," ibid.; Donald Jones to Branch President, 20 March 1951, Box 655, File "Universal Military Training—March-April 1951," Papers o f the NAACP', White to Thurgood Marshall et al, memo, 5 March 1951, ibid.; Clarence Mitchell to Congressman, letter, 6 April 1951, ibid.

3. Walter White to Joseph Johnson, letter, 24 September 1951, Box 404, File "Rayford Logan, 1950-51," ibid.

4. White to Roger Baldwin, letter, 27 February 1951, Box 355, File "Leagues: American Association for the United Nations, Inc., 1950-51," ibid.

5. Department of State Instruction, to the United States Delegation to the Fifth Regular Session of the General Assembly, 5 September 1950, FRUS'W 1950 (Washington, DC.: Government Printing Office, 1976), 509-16; Minutes of the Briefing Session of the United States Delegation to the General Assembly, Washington, September 8, 1950, ibid., 516-18; United States Delegation Working Paper, 16 October 1950, ibid., 519-20; Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for United Nations Affairs (Hickerson) to the Secretary of State, 9 February 1953, FRUS'Wl 1952-54 (Washington, D C.: Government Printing Office, 1979), 1542-46; and Logan to White, letter, 5 December 1951, Box 404, File "Rayford Logan, 1950-51," Papers of the NAACP.

6. Horne, Communist Front? The Civil Rights Congress, 1946-1956, 99.

7. Clarence Mitchell to Louis E. Hosch, letter, 1 March 1950, Box 126, File "Loyalty Review Board Cases, 1947-1951," Papers o f the NAACP Washington-, Statement for the Press by Roy Wilkins, press release, 23 June 1950, Box 201, File "Communism: General, 1949-1950," Papers o f the NAACP', Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Directors, 22 June 1950, Part 1, Reel 3NAACP', Resolutions Adopted by the 41st Annual Convention, 23 June 1950, Part 1, Reel 12, ibid.; NAACP Moves to Ban 176

Communist Activity, press release, 24 June 1950, ibid.; Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Directors, 11 December 1950, Reel 3, NAACP LC\ and Clarence Mitchell to Arthur L. Johnson, letter, 18 April 1951, Box 126, File "Loyalty Review Board Cases, 1947-1951," Papers o f the NAACP Washington.

8. Wilkins to White, memo, 21 July 1950, Box 22, File "Communism, 1950,"Wilkins Papers’, White to NAACP Branches, memo, 29 August 1950, Box 369, File "Leagues; Civil Rights Congress, 1948-50," Papers o f the NAACP’, and Clarence Mitchell to White, letter, 28 June 1950, Box 124, File "Legislation, Communism, Loyalty, Un-American Activities," Papers o f the NAACP Washington.

9. Statement of Policy Objectives; NAACP Civil Rights Committee, 15 October 1949, Box 193, File "Civil Rights Mobilization 1950; Planning Meeting, 1949," Papers of the NAACP.

10. Bernard J. Mooney to Madison S. Jones, Jr., letter, 12 January 1950, Box 193, File "Civil Rights Mobilization 1950, Organizations Not Accepted—General, 1949-1950," ibid.

11. All Sponsoring Organizations in Civil Rights Mobilization, n.d.. Box 193, File "Civil Rights Mobilization 1950; Planning Meeting, 1949," ibid.; and Wilkins and Arnold Aronson to All Sponsoring Organizations, letter, 21 December 1949, ibid.

12. All Sponsoring Organizations in Civil Rights Mobilization, January 1950, ibid.

13. Wilkins to William Patterson, letter, 22 November 1949, Box 193, File "Civil Rights Mobilization 1950; Organizations not Accepted—Civil Rights Congress, 1949-50," ibid.

14. Article by Roy Wilkins, Chairman, National Emergency Civil Rights Mobilization and Acting Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, for publication in THE NEW LEADER, Januaiy' 1950, Box 186, File "Civil Rights Mobilization, 1950 Article," ibid.

15. Henry Lee Moon, "Mobilizing for Civil Rights," 20 January 1950, ibid.

16. Wilkins to Hugh Baillie, letter, 1 December 1949, Box 186, File "Civil Rights Mobilization 1950; Communist Influence, 1949-50," ibid..

17. Patterson to Wilkins, letter, 29 November 1949, Box 193, File "Civil Rights Mobilization 1950; Organization not Accepted—Civil Rights Congress, 1949-50," ibid.

18. Patterson to Wilkins, letter, 14 November 1949, ibid. Ill

19. Wilkins to Patterson, letter, 22 November 1949, ibid. Wilkins received advice on the tone and content of his response from Thurgood Marshall, see Marshall to Wilkins, memo, 16 November 1949, ibid.

20. Benjamin Mandel to Wilkins, letter, 6 December 1949, ibid.

21. Alfred Baker Lewis to Wilkins, letter, 9 December 1949, ibid.

22. Wilkins to NAACP Branches, memo, 22 March 1950, Box 124, File "Legislation, Communism, Loyalty, Un-American Activities," Papers o f the NAACP Washington, Thurgood Marshall to Herman Katzen, letter, 5 July 1950, Box 369, File "Leagues: Civil Rights Congress, 1948-50," Papers o f the NAACP', Thurgood Marshall to Patterson, letter, 9 June 1950, Box 369, File "Leagues: Civil Rights Congress, 1948- 50," ibid.; Patterson to Wilkins, letter, 7 June 1950, ibid.; White to Henry L. Moon, memo, 8 August 1950, ibid.; Walter White, "The Negro and the Communists,"Crisis (Aug-Sept 1950), Box 68, File "Articles: Communism, on—1950-55," ibid.; Wilkins to W. Alpheus Hunton, letter, 14 September 1950, Box 4, File "Africa: General, 1950-51," ibid.; Patterson to Friend, letter, 19 October 1950 (marginalia from Walter White and Thurgood Marshall), Box 117, File "Bills: McCarran Bill—General, 1950- 52," ibid.; White to NAACP Branches, Youth Councils and College Chapters, memo, 7 March 1951, Box 369, File "Leagues: Civil Rights Congress, 1951," ibid.; Wilkins to Philleo Nash, memo, 18 January 1952, Box 352, File "Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 1952: Correspondence-Political," ibid.; Credentials Sent Following Organizations for Participation in 1952 Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, 30 January 1952, Box 352, File "Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 1952: Correspondence—Organizations, January 1952," ibid.; and White to Jacob Javits, letter, 6 March 1952, Box 117, File "Bills: McCarran Bill—General, 1950-52," ibid.

23. Du Bois, "I Speak for Peace," speech, 24 September 1950, Reel 65, Du Bois.

24. The Acting Secretary of State to the United States Representative at the United Nations (Austin), telegram, 14 September 1950, FRUS.ll (1950), fnl, 396; and United States Delegation Working Paper: Tentative Staff Views on Tactics for Dealing with Vishinsky Resolution, 30 September 1950, ibid., 401.

25. The Ambassador of the Soviet Union (Kirk) to the Department of State, 31 March 1951, FRUS'. 11(1951), 464.

26. The Acting Secretary of State to the United States Representative at the United Nations (Austin), telegram, 14 September 1950, FRUS.ll (1950), 397-97; The Acting Secretary of State to the United States Representative at the United Nations (Austin), telegram, 21 September 1950, ibid., 397-98; United States Delegation Working Paper: Tentative Staff Views on Tactics for Dealing with Vishinsky Resolution, 30 September 1950, ibid., 398-403; The United States Representative at the United 178

Nations (Austin) to the Secretary of State, telegram, 14 October 1950, ibid., 404-05; United States Delegation Working Paper: Staff Views on Substitute Resolution on Soviet Item, 17 October 1950, ibid., 407; Extract from Daily Secret Summary of Decisions Taken at United States Delegation Meeting, October 18, 1950, ibid., 408; United States Delegation Working Paper: Alternate Substitute for Soviet "Peace" Declaration, 19 October 1950, ibid., 408-09; The Secretary of State to the United States Representative at the United Nations (Austin), 19 October 1950, ibid., 409-10; Secret Daily Summary of Decisions Taken at United States Delegation Meeting, New York, October 20, 1950, ibid., 410-11; The United States Representative at the United Nations (Austin) to the Secretary of State, 21 October 1950, ibid., 413-14; The Secretary of State to the United States Representative at the United Nations (Austin), 23 October 1950, ibid.; 415-16; The Secretary of State to Certain Diplomatic and Consular Offices, 17 February 1951,FRUS:ll (1951), 455-56; The Acting United States Representative at the United Nations (Gross) to the Secretary of State, 15 March 1951, ibid., 463-64; and The Secretary of State to Certain Diplomatic and Consular Offices, 28 April 1951, ibid., 472-76.

27. Minutes—Provisional Committee Americans for World Peace, 3 April 1950, Reel 64, Du Bois

28. William E. Foley to Gentlemen, letter, 11 August 1950, Reel 65, ibid. Du Bois to State Department Passport Division, letter, 1 August 1950, ibid.; and Du Bois to Anson Phelps-Stokes, 18 September 1950, ibid..

29. Peace Information Center News Release, 24 August 1950, ibid.; Gloria Agrin to William E. Foley, letter, 14 September 1950, ibid.; and Foley to Agrin, letter, 3 October 1950, ibid.

30. Gloria Agrin to Abbott Simon, letter, 31 August 1950, ibid.; William E. Foley to Gloria Agrin, letter, 19 September 1950, ibid.; Minutes Executive Board Meeting Peace Information Center, 14 September 1950, ibid.; and Executive Board Meeting, 12 October 1950, ibid.

31. A Statement to the President and Attorney General of the United States, n.d.. Reel 2, Robeson.

32. Wilkins to White, letter, 16 March 1950, Box 30, File "Eleanor Roosevelt, 1949-50," Wilkins Papers', Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Directors, Part 1, Reel 3, NAACP', Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Directors, 3 March 1950, Reel 3, NAACP LO, Channing H. Tobias to Louis T. Wright, letter, 2 May 1950, Box 34, File "Walter White Return to Duty, 1949-50,"Wilkins Papers', A. Maceo Smith to Wilkins, letter, 21 April 1950, Box 616, File "Staff: Roy Wilkins, Statement Concerning Role of Executive Secretary, 1950,"Papers o f the NAACP', Wilkins to A. Maceo Smith, letter 2 May 1950, ibid.; Wilkins to Branch Officers, memo, 8 May 179

1950, Box 34, File "Walter White Return to Duty, 1949-50,"Wilkins Papers', Fred A. Jones to Arthur Spingarn, letter, 5 May 1950, ibid.; William Lloyd Imes to Board of Directors NAACP, memo, 5 May 1950, ibid.; Clotild S. Ferguson et al to Arthur Spingarn, telegram, 4 May 1950, ibid.; Presley S. Winfield to Arthur Spingarn, telegram, 3 May 1950, ibid.; Digest of News Releases, April 16-May 15, 1950, "Secretary's Return," Box 610, File "Staff; Walter White Leave of Absence, 1950," Papers o f the NAACP; Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Directors, 8 May 1950, ibid.; and "Recalled to Office, White Asks Support for NAACP Program," ibid.

33. Ruby Hurley to White, memo, 7 September 1950, Box 201, File "Communism: General, 1949-50," ibid.

34. Minutes of the Meetings of the Board of Directors, 13 Feb. 1951, Reel 3, NAACP LC, and Minutes of the Meetings of the Board of Directors, 12 March 1951, ibid.

35. Gloster Current to NAACP Branches, memo, 29 October 1951, Box 241, File "William E.B. Du Bois: General, 1949-55," Papers o f the NAACP.

36. Manning MàXikAt, W.E.B. Du Bois: Black Radical Democrat, T-wtniXeih- Century American Biography Series, ed. John Milton Cooper, Jr., (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1986), 187.

37. Ibid., 187, 189.

38. White to George Marshall et al, telegram, 9 January 1951, Box 141, File "National Defense Military Service, 1950-51," Papers o f the NAACP Washington

39. Anne Beadenkopf to Truman, letter, 18 December 1950, ibid.; and Address by Ralph J. Bunche at the 42nd Annual Convention of the NAACP, 1 July 1951, Box 45, File "Annual Convention: Speeches, 1951," Papers o f the NAACP.

40. Thurgood Marshall to Office, memo, 12 February 1951, Box 141, File "National Defense Military Service, 1950-51," Papers o f the NAACP Washington.

41. White to Senator Albert Thomas, letter, 6 July 1950, Box 1, File "Agreements with Foreign Governments, 1948-1953," ibid.

42. White to Senator Albert Thomas, letter, 6 July 1950, ibid. For a full discussion of America's cultural publicity campaign see Frank A. Ninkovich,The Diplomacy of Ideas: U.S. Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations, 1938-1950 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1981).

43. Patterson to Jefferson Hurley, letter, 25 October 1948, Part 2, Reel 1, Papers o f the Civil Rights Congress (Washington, DC.: University Publications of America, 1989). microfilm, (hereafter CRC). 180

44. Patterson to Oakley C. Johnson, letter, 6 May 1952, Part 2, Reel 3, ibid.

45. Civil Rights Congress, We Charge Genocide, xi; and Aubrey Grossman to Friend, letter, 15 July 1951, Part 2, Reel 8,CRC.

46. Patterson to William Z. Foster, letter, 16 November 1951, Part 2, Reel 1, ibid.; and Foster to Patterson, letter, 23 November 1951, Part 2, Reel 2, ibid.

47. Drew Pearson script, 23 November 1951, Box 636, File "United Nations: Genocide, 1947-51, " Papers o f the NAA CP......

48. Wilkins to Committee on Administration, memo, 20 November 1951, ibid.; and White to Wilkins, memo, 23 November 1951, ibid.

49. Untitled statement to John Pauker—Voice of America, 16 November 1951, ibid.

50. Statement by Walter White Made upon Request of the U.S. State Department, n.d. (November 1951), ibid.

51. Wilkins to White, memo, 21 November 1951, ibid.

52. Hubert T. Delany to White, letter, 23 November 1951, ibid.

53. Minutes of Thirty-sixth Meeting of the United States Delegation to the General Assembly, Paris, December 21, 1951,FRUS.ll (1951), 856-59.

54. Logan to White, letter, 19 November 1951, Box 404, File "Rayford Logan, 1950-51," Papers o f the NAACP', Channing Tobias to White, letter, 4 December 1951, Box 636, File "United Nations: Genocide, 1947-51," ibid.; White to Tobias, letter, 12 December 1951, ibid.; Logan to White, letter, 28 December 1951, Box 404, File "Rayford Logan, 1950-51," ibid.; and White to Mrs. G. Willard Hales, letter, 7 February 1952, Box 636, File "United Nations: Genocide, 1952-53," ibid.

55. White to Paul Hoffman, letter, 27 November 1951, Box 636, File "United Nations: Genocide, 1947-51," ibid.; White to Lessing J. Rosenwald, letter, 30 November 1951, Box 161, File "Ralph Bunche Dinner, 1950-51," ibid.; White to Tobias, letter, 12 December 1951, Box 636, File "United Nations, 1947-51," ibid.; White to Harry W. Seamans, letter, 14 December 1951, ibid.; White to George Cornish, letter, 17 December 1951, ibid.; and White to George Cornish, letter, 20 December 1951, ibid.;

56. Patterson to Editor AW York Times, letter, 26 November 1951, Part 2, Reel 1, CRC.

57. Civil Rights Congress news release, 20 November 1951, Box 636, File "United Nations: Genocide, 1952-571," Papers o f the NAACP. 181

58. Patterson to Roger Baldwin, letter, 21 November 1951, Part 2, Reel 1, CRC; Patterson to White, letter, 10 November 1951, Box 369, File "Leagues; Civil Rights Congress, 1951," Papers o f the NAACP; and Patterson to Ben Gold, letter. Part 2, Reel 2, CRC.

59. Logan to White, letter, 19 November 1951, Box 404, File "Rayford Logan, 1950-51," Papers o f the NAACP.

60. Aubrey Grossman to Patterson, letter, 17 December 1951, Part 2, Reel 3,CRC.

61. Quoted in, "Address by Paul Robeson to be Delivered at National Council of American Soviet Friendship," 10 November 1949, Part 2, Reel 7, ibid.

62. Du Bois to Patterson, memo, 27 November 1951, Part 2, Reel 1, ibid.; Patterson to John Adams Kingsbury, 28 November 1951, Part 2, Reel 3, ibid.; Patterson to Du Bois, memo, 28 November 1951, Part 2, Reel 1, ibid.; Patterson to Du Bois, letter, 29 November 1951, ibid.; and Du Bois to Patterson, letter, 30 November 1951, ibid.

63. White to Channing Tobias, letter, 11 February 1952, Box 147, File "Board of Directors: Channing Tobias—General, 1950-53," Papers o f the NAACP.

64. Patterson to Roscoe Dunjee, letter, 14 January 1952, Part 2, Reel 1, CRC; and Patterson to Christopher Bates, letter, 1 February 1952, Part 2, Reel 2, ibid.

65. "Let us end once and for all the pitting of Negro against Negro. . .," Washmgton Afro-American, 23 February 1952, Box 636, File "United Nations—Genocide, 1952- 53," Papers o f the NAACP.

66. Patterson to D. Pritt, letter, 28 August 1951, Part 2, Reel 2,CRC. (emphasis added).

67. For an alternate view on the motivations of the Civil Rights Congress, see Gerald Horne, Communist Front?

68. Aubrey Grossman to Frederick V. Field, letter, 11 October 1950, Part 2, Reel 2, CRC; "CRC Appeals for $60,000 to Fight McCarran, Smith Acts," news release, Part 2, Reel 8, ibid.; National Office to All Chapters and Organizations, memo, 19 December 1950, ibid.; and Patterson to Australian Communist Party, letter, 22 March 1951, Part 2, Reel 2, ibid.

69. Kevin Mullen to Frank Marshall Davis, letter, 15 November 1948, Part 2, Reel 1, ibid.

70. Aubrey Grossman to Charles Keller, letter, 5 September 1951, Part 2, Reel 3, ibid.

71. Patterson to Halois Moorehead, letter, 11 October 1951, Part 2, Reel 1, ibid.; and Patterson to Percival Prattis, letter, 27 March 1950, ibid. 182

72. "Address by Walter White, Executive Secretary National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Closing Session, 42 Annual Convention," 1 July 1951, Box 45, File "Annual Convention: Speeches, 1951," Papers o f the NAACP.

73. Wilkins to Rayford Logan, letter, 22 August 1949, Box 404, File "Rayford Logan, 1948-49," ibid.; Wilkins to Logan, letter, 24 March 1950, Box 404, File "Rayford Logan, 1950-51," ibid.; Wilkins to Logan, letter, 29 May 1950, ibid.; Wilkins to Logan, letter, 16 June 1950, ibid.; and Wilkins to White, memo, 16 March 1951, Box 44, File "Annual Convention: Program 1951," ibid.

74. Minutes of the Board of Directors, 22 June 1950, Box 617, File "State Department- General, 1950," ibid.

75. White to Boyo Fazemi, letter, 18 July 1950, Box 4, File "Africa: General, 1950-51," ibid.

76. "Remarks by Walter White, Closing Session, 41st Annual Conference, NAACP," Part 1, Reel 12, NAACP.

77. Resolution on Communism, 30 June 1951, Box 201, File "Communism: General, 1949-50," Papers o f the NAACP.

78. George E C. Hayes to Howard J. McGrath, letter, 7 February 1952, Box 126, File "Loyalty Cases, 1952-54," Papers o f the NAACP Washington.

79. Information from the Files of the Committee on Un-American Activities: U.S. House of Representatives, n.d.. Box 201, File "Communism: General, 1949-50,"Papers of the NAACP.

80. "Statement to President Truman at the White House Conference on February 28, 1951," Box 31, Folder "White House Conference: Truman Correspondence (M-W), 1951," Papers o f Asa Philip Randolph, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

81. "Remarks by Walter White, Closing Session, 41st Annual Conference, NAACP," Part 1, Reel 12, NAACP.

82. "Address by Paul Robeson to be Delivered at the National Council of American Soviet Friendship," 10 November 1949, Part 2, Reel 7, CRC.

83. Du Bois,Souls o f Black Folks, 45. CHAPTER VI

Conclusion

Fm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table does not make you a diner. . .being here in America doesn't make you an American. Malcolm

The immediate postwar period held enormous promise for African-Americans.

Blacks could point to Roosevelt's Atlantic Charter as the roadmap to a new world order.

Because they had finally established a foothold in better-paying jobs in the defense industry, they assumed they had tangible proof that better days lay ahead. The political savvy of African-American leaders reinforced that feeling. A. Philip Randolph demonstrated the power of African-American unity and indignation with his threat to march 50,000 black people down the streets of Washington, D C. if President Roosevelt continued to allow discrimination in the defense industries. African-American organizations had bridged their ideological divides and had started to articulate a unified vision of African-American demands for equality that included not just civil rights, but fully incorporated human rights as well. Prior to the 1944 Democratic and Republican national conventions, 25 black organizations, representing over 8 million African-

Americans, joined together in presenting a list of demands to the two parties. The organizations demanded an end to lynching, election day terrorism, colonialism, and economic inequality. The NAACP, after first seeking the advice of African-American

183 184 organizations and representatives from colonial lands, spearheaded an effort to incorporate this vision into the UN Charter.

The Allies, of course, had their own agenda at the UNCIO, and it certainly did not match the NAACP's version of what world politics should be. As the Grand Alliance collapsed over the issue of Poland, it became very evident to U.S. foreign policymakers that they would have to construct a postwar world that neutralized the Red Army's power and greatly limited the expansion of Soviet influence. The U.S. therefore sought to woo a number of allies into its camp. Secretary of State Stettinius consistently reassured the

French that the Americans had no intention of creating a UN organization that would strip

France or any other imperial power of its colonies. In fact, the growing fissure between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and the desire for strategic military bases, compelled the

War Department to demand that the U.S. have its own colonial empire in the Pacific.

The Holocaust gave the issue of human rights a greater sense of urgency than did the question of decolonization alone, but it was not sufficient to overcome the united opposition of the Big Three on the issue of UN enforcement powers. If the United

Nations could enforce human rights, John Foster Dulles declared, it might engage in

"promiscuous" international action and roll over the sacred tenet of national sovereignty.

Still, the Holocaust made it impossible for the Allies to simply ignore human rights.

Instead, they shrewdly devised a plan to make human rights an unattainable and unenforceable international principle. Moreover, the obstacles to human rights and black equality were further buttressed by the disproportionate power of the Southern-dominated

Congress that effectively blocked federal civil rights legislation and stood poised to strike 185 down the UN Charter if the provisions on human rights were antithetical to their white supremacy beliefs.

Nor were these the only obstacles to a successful crusade on behalf of global human rights. Other obstacles existed within the black community, and these quickly became apparent. As the Grand Alliance crumbled, the fundamental, ideological differences that had kept the NAACP from working with the black Left in the 1930's, began to re-emerge. This was an ominous sign. Max Yergan's denunciation and manhandling of Walter White at the UNCIO symbolized the beginning of the tragic re­ orientation of African-American leaders from the international Southern axis, to one that fit snugly into the Cold War's East/West straitjacket.

Yergan's National Negro Congress was so intent on meeting the demands of the

Communist Party, USA, that it surrendered its viability along with the organizational and financial resources it needed to push for black equality in the United Nations. This hampered the success of its petition to the UN, which detailed the political, economic, and social oppression of African-Americans and demanded UN intervention. Although the petition was a bold, creative stroke, it was not enough to overcome the NNC's debilitating alliance with the CP.

The NAACP also began to cave in under pressure from its own enervating alliance with the Democratic Party. The Association's petition. An Appeal to the World, clearly outlined the sorry state of the black condition in America and ably traced that condition back to the limits of the Constitution and the unwillingness of the American government to live up to its ideals. As David R. Colburn has noted, how the U.S. treats its African- 186

American population is the "issue upon which the nation's commitment to democracy and equality are ultimately tested."^ State Department officials were well aware that America had flunked that test. But it was more important to the U.S. government to quell dissent than to solve the problem. As time would show, it was a lot easier as well. Eleanor

Roosevelt's well-placed pressure on Walter White convinced the leadership of the NAACP that it had overstepped its reach, jeopardized American foreign policy goals, and made the

Association vulnerable to charges of being a "Communist front." As a result, the NAACP agreed to seek black equality through means more acceptable to traditional liberal

Americans.

By the time of the bitter 1948 presidential election, the NAACP had begun to redefine success and black equality. It had recently won a series of important Supreme

Court decisions on voting rights and the desegregation of higher education, and after a quadruple lynching, had persuaded President Truman to investigate the status of civil rights. The NAACP leadership saw its role in the domestic arena of civil rights and sought a much closer alliance with the Democratic Party. As it moved closer into the

Democrats' orbit, the NAACP distanced itself from its earlier alliances with leftist organizations and, even more tragically, disavowed An Appeal to the World.

As a result of the NAACP's turn to the right, the 1948Declaration of Negro

Voters was in stark contrast to the 1944 gathering of African-American organizations. In a move that would set the tone for the Civil Rights Mobilizations in the 1950's, groups from the Left, although they had been well represented in 1944, were purposely removed from the invitation list. Two of the most obvious omissions were the Council on African 187

Affairs and the NNC's successor, the Civil Rights Congress. Another glaring difference between the 1944 and 1948 meetings was the quality and tone of the Declarations that emerged from the organizations' deliberations. The hallmark of the 1944 Declaration of

Negro Voters was that it placed African-American equality clearly within the framework of the global struggle for human rights. In contrast, the 1948 Declaration was an obvious political tool designed to ensure a Truman victory. Not only had the NAACP missed this critical opportunity to articulate a global vision of equality, it also seriously undermined that vision. Walter White sacrificed Du Bois on the altar of the 1948 election, and eagerly handed over /f » Appeal to the World as a token of NAACP's commitment to securing civil rights through the Constitution and the American democratic process.

As another sign of its commitment, the NAACP launched a vigorous internal purge to uncover and root out Communists within the Association. It closed the branch in San

Francisco, gave the Board of Directors power to expel suspected Communists from any

NAACP affiliate, and raised complaints about the loyalty boards in only the most egregious examples of race-inspired persecution. The leadership of the NAACP knew that it was walking a tightrope. On the one hand, non-Communist members were getting caught in the dragnet, on the other hand, the government continued to question African-

Americans' loyalty. Truman's Loyalty Review Board, which the president established to weed out Communists from the federal government, consistently used agitation for civil rights or membership in the NAACP as proof of disloyalty.^ In fact, John Foster Dulles declared that there was "practically no negro, even Ralph Bunch (sic), who could come 188 through an FBI check lily white, because all of their organizations had been infiltrated at one time or another."'*

The NAACP, however, was anything but disloyal to U.S. officials and their policies. Roy Wilkins eagerly savaged Paul Robeson after the 1949 World Peace

Congress. The NAACP coldly abandoned Du Bois after his questionable indictment for being a Soviet agent. The Association fully supported American efforts in the Korean

War and heralded UN intervention as one of the most effective ways to stop Soviet aggression. And, after the Civil Rights Congress charged the United States with genocide, the Department asked Walter White and the NAACP to present the loyal

American Negro's point of view at the UN meeting in Paris. Walter White felt honored by the invitation and to took the opportunity to recite the "enormous progress" African-

Americans had made in attaining civil rights in the United States. Of course, Emmitt Till's bludgeoned body had not yet been thrown into the Tallahatchie River, the bomb had not yet exploded in the Birmingham church, and the dogs of Selma had not yet been unleashed’ — but absolutely nothing had happened to change the conditions that perpetuated systematic oppression of African-Americans, despite the boasts which the executive secretary of the NAACP made about America's wonderful democracy. Indeed, while Channing Tobias and Rayford Logan were extolling the virtues of the U.S. at the

United Nations meeting in Paris, the Ku Klux Klan was brutally assassinating Florida

NAACP official Harry T. Moore and his wife. Tobias later lamented that the Klan had just made his job that much more difficult and wondered if the Communists had hired the

Klan to provide gory details for the Soviets' propaganda mill. 189

The Communists, of course, already had a willing accomplice in the Civil Rights

Congress. The CRC focused the lion's share of its resources on freeing Communist Party leaders, who had been convicted under the Smith Act of plotting to overthrow the government. When faced with making a direct choice between the Communist Party and

African-Americans, the CRC consistently chose the party. Even the well-crafted documentWe Charge Genocide was a deliberate attempt to use the plight of African-

Americans to advance the Communist cause. Civil Rights Congress Executive Secretary

William Patterson worked closely with deported trade unionist Ferdinand Smith to have the petition translated into all of the Eastern European and Slavic languages. Patterson dutifully sought Communist Party leader William Z. Foster's advice on the petition to ensure that it met the organization's needs.

The epilogue to this story of a "watershed" opportunity lost forever is equally sad.

The NAACP's internationalist fire returned in 1953 when South Africa, with American support, tried to become the trustee for Southwest Africa. By then, however, the unity that had once made African-American leaders a potent force had been shattered. Max

Yergan conveniently overlooked the brutality of apartheid and fully supported South

Africa's claim. He argued that South Africa's staunch anti-communism made it an invaluable asset in the Cold War, which, in his mind, outweighed any concerns about racism or human rights. Yergan also argued that the appointment of avowed segregationist James Byrnes as UN Ambassador was a brilliant move. Byrnes's excellent anti-Communist credentials, Yergan declared, made the former secretary of state a worthy opponent for the Soviets and would keep them from running rampant in the United 190

Nations. The NAACP tried to counter Yergan but just as the State Department had earlier used the Association against the Civil Rights Congress, so the U.S. now touted

Yergan's warped perspective as representative of a true American Negro. The NAACP, cowered by the critique and hard pressed to develop an alternative rationale that did not undermine U.S. foreign policy, retreated from international and economic issues altogether. Thus, by the 1955 Bandung Conference, in which emerging Third World countries declared their non-aligned status, the NAACP stood well on the periphery and sent only perfunctory "fraternal greetings" to the participants. And by December of that year, Rosa Parks would refuse to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, thereby opening another important if limited chapter in the struggle for black equality. 191

ENDNOTES

1. Malcolm X, February 1965: The Final Speeches, 97.

2. David R. Colburn, "The Perpetual Dilemma?" reviews ofCrusaders in the Courts: How A Dedicated Band o f Lawyers Fought for the Civil Rights Revolution, by Jack Greenburg,Inside Agitators: White Southerners in the Civil Rights Movement, by David Chappell, and Race in America: The Struggle for Equality, by Herbert Hill and James E. Jones, Jr, inReviews in American History 23, no. 1 (March 1995); 104.

3. Wilkins to Wilbur LaRoe, Jr., letter, 5 June 1950, Box 126, File "Loyalty Review Board Cases, 1947-1951," Papers o f the NAACP Washington', "Un-American Organizations listing Dr. Channing Tobias: Fourth Report Un-American Activities in California, 1949," October 1951, ibid.; Clarence Mitchell to White, memo, 17 October 1951, ibid.; Earle Fisher to Clarence Mitchell, memo, 29 September 1950, Box 124, File "Legislation, Communism, Loyalty and Un-American Activities," ibid.; and Wilkins to Harry S. Truman, letter, 6 February 1951, Box 405, File "Loyalty Boards, Questionnaires, and Oaths, 1950-53," Papers o f the NAACP.

4. Dulles, telephone conversation with Leonard Hall, 6 May 1953, Box 1, File "Telephone Memoranda (excepting to and from the White House) May-June 1952 (2). Minutes of Telephone Conversations of John Foster Dulles and of Christian Herter (1953-1961). Telephone Conversation Series, Papers o f John Foster Dulles, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas.

5. Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer, Voices o f Freedom: An Oral History o f the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s (New York: Bantam Books, 1990), 1-15, 171-76, and 209-40. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Archival Material

Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana

Papers of Mary McLeod Bethune, 1923-1942

Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, Ohio

Papers of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights

Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, Kansas

Papers of John Foster Dulles

Library of Congress, Washington, D C.

Papers of Rayford Whittingham Logan

Papers of the NAACP General Office File, 1940-1955

Papers of the NAACP Washington Bureau

Papers of A. Philip Randolph

Papers of Roy Wilkins

National Archives of the United States, Washington, D C.

Record Group 59, General Records of the Department of State

Record Group 59, Records of Harley A. Notter

192 193

Washington National Records Center, Suitland, Maryland

Record Group 84, Records of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations

Published Government Papers

Herbert Brownell, Jr., Attorney General o f the United States, Petitioner v. Civil Rights Congress, Respondent: Official Report o f Proceeding Before the Subversive Activities Control Board. Washington, D C. : Alderson Reporting Co., 1954.

FBI File on the National Negro Congress. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources. Microfilm. 1987

FBI File on Paid Robeson. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources. Microfilm. 1987.

Notter, Harley. Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation, 1939-1945. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, 1950.

Subversive Activities Control Board. Annual Reports o f the Subversive Activities Control Board, 1950-1962. Washington, DC.: Government Printing Office, 1951-1963.

To Secure These Rights: The Report o f the President's Committee on Civil Rights. Washington, D C : Government Printing Office, 1947.

United Nations Information Organization. Documents o f the United Nations Conference on International Organization. 22 vols. Vol. 3, Dumbarton Oaks Proposals: Comments on Proposed Amendments. New York: United Nations, 1945.

______. Yearbook o f the United Nations: 1946-47. Lake Success, NY: United Nations, 1947.

U.S. Congress. House. Committee on House Un-American Activities. Hearings Regarding Communist Infiltration o f Minority Groups. 81 st Congress, 1 st sess., 13 July 1949.

U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations. The Charter o f the United Nations for the Maintenance o f International Peace and Security, Submitted by the President o f the United States on Jidy 2, 1945. 79th Congress, 1st sess., 1945. 194

U.S. Department of State. Foreign Relations o f the UtiHed States, 1945. Vol. 1, General: The United Nations. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967.

_ . Foreign Relations o f the United States, 1947. Vol. 3, The British Commonwealth, Europe. Washington, D.C.; Government Printing Office, 1972.

_ . Foreign Relations o f the United States, 1947. Vol. 5, The Near East and Africa. Washington, D C.: Government Printing Office, 1971.

. Foreign Relations o f the United States, 1948. Vol. 3, Western Europe. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1974.

. Foreign Relations o f the United States, 1949. Vol. 4, Western Europe. Washington, D C.: Government Printing Office, 1975.

. Foreign Relations o f the United States, 1950. Vol. 2, The United Nations; The Western Hemisphere. Washington, D C.: Government Printing Office, 1976.

. Foreign Relations o f the United States, 1950. Vol. 5, The Near East, South Asia, and Africa. Washington, DC.: Government Printing Office, 1978.

. Foreign Relations o f the United States, 1951. Vol. 2, The United Nations; The Western Hemisphere. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1979.

. Foreign Relations o f the United States, 1952-54. Vol. 3, United Nations Affairs. Washington, D C.: Government Printing Office, 1979.

Published Papers

Papers o f Ralph Bunche. Los Angeles, CA; University of California, Los Angeles. Microfilm. 1980.

Papers o f the Civil Rights Congress. Washington, DC.: University Publications of America. Microfilm. 1989.

W.E.B. Du Bois Papers. Sanford, North Carolina: Microfilming Corporation of America. Microfilm. 1980.

Papers o f the NAACP: 1909-1950. Washington, DC.: University Publications of America. Microfilm. 1982. 195

NAACP Board o f Directors Meeting, 1944-1953. Washington, DC.: Library of Congress. Microfilm.

Papers o f the National Negro Congress. Washington, D C . . University of Publications of America. Microfilm. 1988.

The Paul Robeson Collection. Washington, DC.: University Publications of America. Microfilm. 1989.

Diaries and Memoirs

Byrnes, James F. Speaking Frankly. New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1947.

Du Bois, William E. B. The Autobiography o f W.E.B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing my Life From the Last Decade o f its First Century. New York: International Publishers, 1968.

______. Dusk o f Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography o f a Race Concept. New York: Schocken Books, 1968.

Patterson, William L. The Man Who Cried Genocide: An Autobiography. New York: International Publishers, 1971.

Truman, Harry S. Memoirs o f Harry S. Truman: Year o f Decisions. Vol. 1. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1955.

______. Memoirs o f Harry S. Truman: Yearsof Trial and Hope. Wo\. 2. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1956.

White, Walter. A Man Called White: The Autobiography o f Walter White. New York: The Viking Press, 1948.

Wilkins, Roy. Standing Fast: The Autobiography o f Roy Wilkins. New York: The Viking Press, 1982.

Contemporary Periodicals

New York Amsterdam News

Chicago Defender

Chicago Herald Tribune 196

Crisis

Detroit News

New Africa

New York Times

People's Voice

Pittsburgh Courier

P.M.

New York Age

St. Paul Recorder

Secondary Sources

Things Fall Apart. New York: McDowell, Obolensky, 1959.

Allen Robert L. Reluctant Reformers: Racism and Social Reform Movements in the United States. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1974.

Anderson, Alan B. and George W. Pickering. Confronting the Color Line: The Broken Promise o f the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986.

Anthony, David H. III. "Max Yergan in South Africa: From Evangelical Pan-Africanist to Revolutionary Socialist," African Studies Revieu' 34 (September 1991): 27-55.

The Annals o f America. Vol. \6, 1^40-1949: The Second World War and After. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1968.

Autrey, Dorothy A. "The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Alabama, 1913-1952." Ph.D., diss.. University of Notre Dame, 1985.

Banks, Samuel L. "The Korean Conflict," Negro History Bulletin 36, no. 6 (October 1973): 131-32. 197

Barton, Keith M. "The Dumbarton Oaks Conference." Ph.D., diss., Florida State University, 1974.

Belfrage, Cedric. The American Inquisition: 1945-1960, A Profile o f the "McCarthy Era." Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973.

Belhabib, Cherifa. "The United Nations Trusteeship System, 1945-1961." Ph.D., diss.. University of Cincinnati, 1991.

Benedicks, William, Jr. "The San Francisco Conference On International Organization, April - June 1945." Ph.D., diss., Florida State University, 1989.

Berger, Jason. A New Deal fo r the World: Eleanor Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy. Social Science Monographs. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.

Berman, William C. The Politics o f Civil Rights in the Truman Administration. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 1970.

Bloom, Jack M. "Civil Rights: The Emergence of a Movement." Ph.D., diss.. University of California, Berkeley, 1980.

Borstlemann, Thomas. Apartheid's Reluctant Uncle: The UtUted States and Southern Africa in the Early Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Boyer, Paul. By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn o f the Atomic Age. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985.

Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63. New York and London: Simon and Schuster, 1988.

Bullock, Alan. Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary, 1945-1951. London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1984.

Bunche, Ralph. Peace and the United Nations. Leeds, England: University of Leeds, 1952.

______. A World View o f Race. Washington, DC.: The Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1974.

Campbell, Thomas M. Masquerade Peace: America's UN Policy: 1944-45. Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1973. 198

and George C. Herring, eds. The Diaries o f Edward R. Stetiinius, Jr., 1943- 1946. New York: Franklin Watts, 1975.

Carson, Clayborne. In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening o f the 1960s. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981.

Carter, Dan T. Scottsboro: A Tragedy o f the American South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969.

Cayton, Horace R. "The Negro's Challenge," The Nation \57, 3 July 1943, 10-12.

Chafe, William H. Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.

Charles, Cleophus. "Roy Wilkins, the NAACP and the Early Struggle for Civil Rights: Towards the Biography of a Man and a Movement in Microcosm, 1901-1939." Ph.D., diss., Cornell University, 1981.

Chick, C.A., Sr. "The American Negroes' Changing Attitude Toward Africa," Journal of Negro Education 31, no. 4 (Fall 1962): 531-35.

Civil Rights Congress. America's "Thought Police": Record of the Un-American Activities Committee. New York: The Congress, 1979.

______. The Case o f Willie McGee: A Fact Sheet. New York: Civil Rights Congress, 1950.

. Free Speech or the Smith Act? Honolulu: Civil Rights Congress, 1951.

. Voices for Freedom: Second Collection o f Opinions on the Supreme Court Decision to Uphold the Smith Act. New York: Civil Rights Congress, 1951.

. We Charge Genocide: The Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relief From a Crime o f the United States Government Against the Negro People. New York: Civil Rights Congress, 1951.

Colburn, David R. "The Perpetual Dilemma?" Reviews ofCrusaders in the Courts: How A Dedicated Band o f Lawyers Fought for the Civil Rights Revolution, by Jack Greenburg,Inside Agitators: White Southerners in the Civil Rights Movement, by David Chappell, and Race in America: The Struggle for Equality, by Herbert Hill and James E. Jones, Jr. InReviews in American History 23, no. 1 (March 1995): 103-09. 199

"The Colored Americans in France." Crisis 17 (February 1919): 167-68.

Cohodas, Nadine. Strom Thurmond & the Politics o f Southern Change. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.

Connell-Smith, Gordon. The United States in Latin America: An Historical Analysis o f Inter-American Relations. London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1974.

Contee, Clarence Garner. "W.E.B. Du Bois and African Nationalism: 1914-1945." Ph.D., diss., American University, 1969.

Council on African Affairs. Current Data Concerning British, French, and Belgian Colonies in Africa. New York: Council on African Affairs, 1950.

. Proceedings o f the Conference on Africa: New Perspectives, at the Institute for International Democracy—April 14, 1944. New York: Council on African Affairs, 1944

______. The San Francisco Conference and the Colonial Issue: Memorandum Preparedfor Consideration in Relation to the Establishment o f the Charter o f a World Organization at the San Francisco Conference o f the United Nations. New York: Council on African Affairs, 1945.

______. United Nations Charter: Text and Analysis o f the Colonial Provisions. New York: Council on African Affairs, 1945.

. What Does San Francisco Mean for the Negro? New York: Council on African Affairs, 1945.

Cruse, Harold. The Crisis o f the Negro Intellectual: A Historical Analysis o f the Failure o f Black Leadership. Foreword by Bazel E. Allen and Ernest T. Wilson, III. New York: Quill, 1984

Dalhume, Richard M. Desegregation in the United States Armed Forces: Fighting on Two Fronts, I939-I953. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1969.

______. "The 'Forgotten Years' of the Negro Revolution," Journal of American History 55, no. 1 (June 1968): 90-106.

Davis, Benjamin J. "On the Use of Negro Troops in Wall Street's Aggression Against the Korean People," Political Affairs 29 (1950): 47-57. 2 0 0

Digging, John Patrick. The Proud Decades: America in War and in Peace, 1941-1960. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1988.

Divine, Robert A. Foreign Policy and U.S. Presidential Elections: 1940, 1948.'Hew York: New Viewpoints, 1974.

Dower, John W. War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.

Drake, Willie Avon. "From Reform to Communism: The Intellectual Development of W.E.B. Du Bois." Ph.D., diss., Cornell University, 1985.

Dudziak, Mary L. "Desegregation as a Cold War Imperative," StatjfordLaw Review 41, no. 1 (November 1988): 61-120.

Du Bois, William E. B. Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1945.

______. Forty-Two Years o f the U.S.S.R. Chicago: Baan Books, 1959.

______. Peace is Dangerous. New York: National Guardian, 1951.

______. Socialism and the American Negro. Recording. Folkway Records, 1972.

. The Souls o f Black Folks. Introduction by Nathan Hare and Alvin Poussaint. New York: New American Library, 1969.

. I Take my Stand for Peace. New York: Masses & Mainstream, 1951.

. To Live or to Die: The H-Bomb Versus Mankind. New York: New Century Publishers, 1957.

. The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part which Africa has Played in World History. New York: Viking Press, 1947.

Duberman, Martin Bauml.Paul Robeson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.

Eagles, Charles W , ed. The Civil Rights Movement in America. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1986.

Edsall, Thomas Byrne. The New Politics o f Inequality. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1984. 201

Emerson, Rupert and Martin Kilson. "The American Dilemma in a Changing World: The Rise of Africa and the Negro American," Daedalus 94, no. 4 (Fall 1965); 1055-84.

Fairclough, Adam. To Redeem the Soul o f America: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987.

Fraser, Steven and Gary Gerstle, eds. Rise and Fall o f the New Deal Order, 1933-1980. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.

Fried, Richard M. Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Gaddis, John L. The United States and the Origins o f the Cold War, 1941-47. New York: Columbia University Press, 1972.

Gardner, Lloyd C. Architects o f Illusion: Men and Ideas in American Foreign Policy, I94I-I949. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970.

Garrow, David J. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., atid the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. New York: William Morrow, 1986.

______, ed. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. 18 vol. New York: Carlson Publishing, 1989.

Genovese, Eugene D. "The Question,"Dissent (Summer 1994): 371-76

Gentry, Curt. J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets. New York; Norton, 1991.

Gill, Gerald Robert. "Afro-American Opposition to the United States' Wars of the Twentieth Century: Dissent, Discontent and Disinterest." Ph.D., diss., Howard University, 1985.

Gillon, Steven Michael. "Liberal Dilemmas: The ADA and American Liberalism, 1947- 1968." Ph.D., diss.. Brown University, 1985.

Giroux, Vincent Arthur, Jr. "Theodore G. Bilbo: Progressive to Public Racist." Ph.D., diss., Indiana University, 1984.

Graham, Shirley. Paid Robeson: Citizen o f the World. Westport, Connecticut: Negro Universities Press, 1971 (reprint.) 2 0 2

Griffith, Robert. The Politics o f Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1970.

Hampton, Henry and Steve Payer. Voices o f Freedom: An Oral History o f the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s. New York and other cities: Bantam Books, 1990.

Hero, Alfred O., Jr. "American Negroes and U.S. Foreign Policy: 1937-1967," Journal of Conflict Resolution 13, no. 2 (June 1969): 220-51.

Herring, George C. America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950- 1975. 2d edition. America in Crisis Series, ed. Robert A. Divine. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979, 1986.

Hilderbrand, Robert C. Dumbarton Oaks: The Origins o f the United Nations and the Search for Postwar Security. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990.

Hine, Darlene Clark. "The NAACP and the Destruction of the Democratic White Primary: 1924-1944." Ph.D., diss., Kent State University, 1975.

Hooker, James R. Black Revolutionary: George Padmore's Path from Communism to Pan-Africanism. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967.

Hoover, J. Edgar. Communism. New York: Random House, 1969.

______. A Study o f Communism. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1962.

Home, Gerald. Black and Red: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War, 1944-1963. SUNY Series in Afro-American Society Series, eds. John Howard and Robert C. Smith. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986.

______. Black Liberation/Red Scare: Ben Davis and the Communist Party. London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1994.

. Communist Front? The Civil Rights Congress, 1946-1956. London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1988.

. Studies in Black: Progressive Views and Reviews o f the African-American Experience. Dubuque, lA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1992. 203

Hughes, Cicero Alvin. "Toward a Black United Front; The National Negro Congress Movement." Ph.D., diss., Ohio University, 1982.

Hunt, Michael H. Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987.

Hunton, Dorothy. Alphaeiis Hunton: The Unsung Valiant. [New York]: n.p., 1986.

Immerman, Richard H. The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy o f Intervention. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982.

Iriye, Akire. Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, I94I-1945. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981.

Isaacs, Harold R. "World Affairs and U.S. Race Relations: A Note on Little Rock," Public Opinion Quarterly 22, no. 3 (Fall 1958): 364-70.

James, Robert Rhodes, ed. Winston S. Churchill His Complete Speeches: 1897-1963, Vol. 7: I943-I949. New York and London: Chelsea House Publishers, 1974.

Janken, Kenneth Robert. Rayford W. Logan and the Dilemma o f the African-American Intellectual. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993.

Johnson, Sterling. "Nation-State and Non-State Nations: The International Relations and Foreign Policies of Black America." Ph.D., diss., The Ohio State University, 1979.

Keller, William Walton. The Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover: The Rise and Fall o f a Domestic Intelligence State. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1989.

Kelley, Robin Davis Gibran. Hammer 'n' Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990.

Kent, John. The Internationalization o f Colonialism: Britain, France, and Black Africa, 1939-1956. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.

Koestler, Arthur, et al. The God That Failed. Introduction by Richard Crossman. New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1949.

Kin, Sam Gon. "Black Americans' Commitment to Communism: A Case Study Based on Fiction and Autobiographies by Black Americans." Ph.D., diss.. University of Kansas, 1986. 204

Kirby, John B. Black Americans in the Roosevelt Era. Knoxville; University of Tennessee Press, 1980.

Kolko, Gabriel. Confronting the Third World: United States Foreign Policy, 1945- 1980. New York; Pantheon Books, 1988.

Kuniholm, Bruce Robellet.The Origins o f the Cold War in the Near East: Great Power Conflict and Diplomacy in Iran, Turkey, and Greece. Princeton, NJ; Princeton University Press, 1980.

LaFeber, Walter. America, Russia, and the Cold War: 1945-1975. America in Crisis Series, ed. Robert A. Divine. New York; John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1967.

Lauren, Paul Gordon.Power and Prejudice: The Politics and Diplomacy o f Racial Discrimination. Boulder, Colorado; Westview, 1988.

Lawson, Steven F. "Freedom Then, Freedom Now: The Historiography of the Civil Rights Movement," American Historical Review 96, no. 2 (April 1991): 456-71.

Leffler, Melvyn P. A Preponderance o f Power: National Security, the Truman Admmistration, and the Cold War. Stanford; Stanford University Press, 1992.

______. "Presidential Address; New Approaches, Old Interpretations, and Prospective Reconfigurations," Diplomatic History 19, no. 2 (Spring 1995); 173-96.

Levy, Bernard-Henri. Barbarism with a Human Face, translated by George Holoch. New York; Harper & Row Publishers, 1979.

Lewis, David Levering. W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography o f a Race, 1868-1919. New York; Holt, 1993.

Logan, Rayford W. The African Mandates in World Politics. Washington, D C. . Public Affairs Press, 1948.

______. "Charter Will Not Prevent Wars." Pittsburgh Courier July 2\, 1945.

. The Negro and the Post-War World: A Primer. Washington, D C.; The Minorities Publishers, 1945.

. The Operation o f the Mandate System in Africa, 1919-1927 with an Introduction on the Problem o f the Mandates in the Post-War World. Washington, D C.; The Foundation Publishers, Inc., 1942. 205

. "The System of International Trusteeship." The Journal o f Negro History 18 (1933): 33-38.

. Series on the founding of the United Nations and an analysis of the UN Charter. Pittsburgh Courier April 28, May 5, 12, 19, 26, June 2, 9, 16, 1945.

, ed. What the Negro Wants. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1944.

ed. W.E.B, Du Bois: A Profile. New York: Hill and Wang, 1971.

with P.L. Prattis. "Race Equality at Conference." Pittsburgh Courier May 5, 1945.

Louis, William Roger. The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945-1951: Arab Nationalism, the United States, and Postwar Imperialism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984.

______. Imperialism at Bay: The United States and the Decolonization o f the British Empire, 1941-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Lynch, Hollis R. Black American Radicals and the Liberation of Africa: The Council on Africa.n Affairs, 1937-1955. Introduction by St. Clair Drake. Alficana Studies and Research Center Monograph Series, No. 5. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978.

Mahoney, Richard D. JFK: Ordeal in Africa. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Malcolm X. February 1965: The Final Speeches. Steve Clark, ed. New York: Pathfinder, 1992.

Marable, Manning. W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Radical Democrat. Twayne's Twentieth- Century American Biography Series, no. 3. Boston: Twayne, 1986.

______. Race, Reform and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction in Black America, 1945-1982. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1984.

Marks, George P. III. The Black Press Views American Imperialism: 1898-1900. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1971.

May, Elaine Tyler. Homeward Boimd: American Families in the Cold War Era. New York: Basic Books, 1988. 206

McAdam, Doug. Freedom Summer. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

McAuliffe, Mary Sperling. Crisis on the Left: Cold War Politics and American Liberals, 1947-1954. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1978.

McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.

McMahon, Robert J. Colonialism and Cold War: The United States and the Struggle fo r Indonesian Independence, 1945-49. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981.

Meier, August.Negro Thought in America: 1880-1915, Racial Ideologies in the Age o f Booker T. Washington. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963, 1966.

______and Elliott Rudwick. CORE: A Study in the Civil Rights Movement, 1942-1968. Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975.

Meron, Theodor. Human Rights Law-Making in the United Nations: A Critique o f Instruments and Process. Oxford Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, 1986.

Mezerik, A.G. "Negroes at U.N.'s Door," The Nation 165 (13 December 1947): 644-46.

Miller, Jake C. The Black Presence in American Foreign Affairs. Washington, DC.: University Press of America, 1978.

Morris, Aldon Douglas. The Origins o f the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change . New York: Free Press, 1984.

Myrdal, Gunnar. An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. Twenty Fifth Anniversary Edition. New York: Harper & Row, 1962.

"The Negro: His Future in America," The New Republic \% {Octohev \9A'iy. 535-50.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. An Appeal to the World! A Statement on the Denial o f Human Rights to Minorities in the Case o f Citizens o f Negro Descent in the United States o f America and an Appeal to the United Nations for Redress. New York: NAACP, 1947.

______. Civil Rights in the United States in 1948. New York: NAACP, 1948.

National Negro Congress. Negro Workers after the War. New York: National Negro Congress, 1945. 207

______. A Petition to the United Nations on Behalf of 13 Million Oppressed Negro Citizens o f the United States o f America. New York: National Negro Congress, 1946.

Ninkovich, Frank A. The Diplomacy of Ideas: U.S. Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations, 1938-1950. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

O'Reilly, Kenneth. "Racial Matters: " The FBI's Secret File on Black America, 1960- 1972. New York: The Free Press, 1989.

Ovington, Mary White. The Walls Came Tumbling Down: A History o f the National Association fo r the Advancement o f Colored People. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1947.

Pastor, Robert A. Condemned to Repetition: The United States and Nicaragua. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987.

Pemberton, William E. Harry S. Truman: Fair Dealer and Cold Warrior. Twayne's Twentieth-Century American Biography Series, ed. John Milton Cooper, Jr. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989.

Pittman, John. "War on Korea: Point IV in Action," Political Affairs 29 (1950): 40-50.

Prosser, Gifford and William Roger Louis, eds. The Transfer o f Power in Africa: Decolonization, 1940-1960. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1982.

Rabe, Stephen G. Eisenhower and Latin America: The Foreign Policy of Anticommunism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.

Record, Jane Cassels. "The Red-Tagging of Negro Protest," The American Scholar 26, no. 3 (Summer 1957): 325-33.

Record, Wilson. Race and Radicalism: The NAACP and the Communist Party in Conflict. Communism in American Life Series, ed. Clinton Rossiter. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1964.

Riggs, Robert E. "Overselling the UN Charter—Fact and Myth." International Organization 14 (1960): 277-90.

Riley, Dorothy Winbush, ed. My Soul Looks Back, 'less I Forget: A Collection o f Quotationshy People of Color. New York: Harper Collins, 1993. 208

Roark, James L. "American Black Leaders: The Response to Colonialism and the Cold War, \9A'i-\952," African Historical Sti4dies no. 2 (1971): 253-70.

Robeson, Paul.For Freedom and Peace. New York: Council on African Affairs, 1949.

______. Forge Negro-Labor Unity fo r Peace and Jobs. New York: Harlem Trade Union Council, 1950.

. The Negro People and the Soviet Union. New York: New Century Publishers, 1950.

. Paul Robeson Speaks: Writings, Speeches, Interviews, 1918-1974. Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1978

Robins, Dorothy B. Experiment in Democracy: The Story o f U.S. Citizen Organizations in Forging the Charter o f the United Nations. New York: The Parkside Press, 1971.

Robinson, Armstead L. and Patricia Sullivan, eds. New Directions in Civil Rights Studies Carter G. Woodson Institute Series in Black Studies. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1991.

Ruchames, Louis.Race, Jobs, & Politics: The Story o f FEPC. Westport, Connecticut: Negro Universities Press, 1971 (reprinted).

Rudwick, Elliott M. W.E.B. Du Bois: A Study in Minority Group Leadership. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1960.

______. W.E.B. Du Bois: Voice o f the Black Protest Movement. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982.

Russell, Ruth B., with Jeannette E. Muther.A History o f the United Nations Charter: The Role o f the United States, 1940-1945. Washington, DC.: The Brookings Institution, 1958.

Sanford, Delacy Wendell, Jr. "Congressional Investigation of Black Communism: 1919- 1967." Ph.D., diss.. State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1973.

Schwark, Stephen J. "The State Department Plans for Peace, 1941-1945." Ph.D., diss.. Harvard University, 1985.

Sitkoff, Harvard. "The Detroit Race Riot of 1943," Michigan History 53, no. 3 (Fall 1969): 183-206. 209

"Harry Truman and the Election of 1948: The Coming of Age of Civil Rights in American Politics," Journal o f Southern History 38, no. 4 (November 1971): 597-616.

. A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence o f Civil Rights as a National Issue. Vol. 1, The Depression Decade. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

. The Struggle for Black Equality: 1954-1980. American Century Series, ed. Eric Foner. New York: Hill and Wang, 1981.

Smith, Charles Pope. "Theodore G. Bilbo's Senatorial Career: The Final Years, 1941- 1947." Ph.D., diss.. The University of Southern Mississippi, 1983.

Stephanson, Anders. Kennan and the Art o f Foreigti Policy. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 1989.

Streater, John Baxter, Jr. "The National Negro Congress, 1936-1947." Ph.D., diss.. University of Cincinnati, 1981.

Strong, Edward E. "On the 40th Anniversary of the NAACP," Political Affairs 29 (1950): 23-32.

Tate, Merze, ed. Trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories: Papers and Proceedings o f the Tenth Annual Conference o f the Division o f the Social Sciences, the Graduate School, Howard University, April 8 and9, 1947. Washington, D C.: Howard University Press, 1948.

Theoharis, Athan G. The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988.

Thome, Christopher. Allies o f a Kind: The United States, Britain, and the War Against Japan, 1941-I945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Tolley, Howard, Jr. The UN. Commission on Human Rights. Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1987.

Urquhart, Brian. Ralph Bunche: An American Life. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1993.

Walker, Richard L. The American Secretaries o f State and Their Diplomacy, Vol 14, Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. Edited by Robert H. Ferrell and Samuel F. Bemis. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1965. 2 1 0

Webster, Charles K. "The Making of the Charter of the United Nations." History 32 (March 1947); 16-38.

Weisbord, R. "Africa, Africans and the Afro-American: Images and Identities in Transition," Race 10, no. 3 (January 1969): 305-21.

White, Walter. "Behind the Harlem Riot," The New Republic \09 (16 August 1943):

220- 22.

______. How Far the Promised Land? New York: Viking Press, 1955.

Wilkins, Roy. Stalin's Greatest Defeat. New York: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1951.

Williams, Charles. "Harlem at War," The Nation 156 (16 January 1943): 86-88.

Wittner, Lawrence S. American Intervention in Greece, 1943-1949. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.

Yergan, Max. Africa in the War. New York: Council on African Affairs, 1942.

Yergin, Daniel. Shattered Peace: The Origins o f the Cold War and the National Security State. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977.

Zangrando, Robert L. NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909-1950. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980.

Zinn, Howard. SNCC, the New Abolitionists. Boston: Beacon Press, 1965.