Harry Haywood and Gwendolyn Midlo Hall
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816679058
- eISBN:
- 9781452947686
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816679058.003.0011
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
In this chapter, Harry Haywood reflects on his work with the Sharecroppers Union to mobilize poor farmers in the deep, Black Belt South during the early 1930s. In the spring of 1933, Haywood ...
More
In this chapter, Harry Haywood reflects on his work with the Sharecroppers Union to mobilize poor farmers in the deep, Black Belt South during the early 1930s. In the spring of 1933, Haywood Patterson of the Scottsboro Boys was declared guilty in relation to the alleged rape of two white girls in Alabama in 1931. His conviction sparked a a wave of indignation among Black communities across the country. Mass protest rallies, demonstrations of all sorts, and parades culminated in the Free the Scottsboro Boys March on Washington on May 7–9, 1933.Less
In this chapter, Harry Haywood reflects on his work with the Sharecroppers Union to mobilize poor farmers in the deep, Black Belt South during the early 1930s. In the spring of 1933, Haywood Patterson of the Scottsboro Boys was declared guilty in relation to the alleged rape of two white girls in Alabama in 1931. His conviction sparked a a wave of indignation among Black communities across the country. Mass protest rallies, demonstrations of all sorts, and parades culminated in the Free the Scottsboro Boys March on Washington on May 7–9, 1933.
Harry Haywood
Gwendolyn Midlo Hall (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816679058
- eISBN:
- 9781452947686
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816679058.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
Mustering out of the U.S. army in 1919, Harry Haywood stepped into a battle that was to last the rest of his life. Within months, he found himself in the middle of one of the bloodiest race riots in ...
More
Mustering out of the U.S. army in 1919, Harry Haywood stepped into a battle that was to last the rest of his life. Within months, he found himself in the middle of one of the bloodiest race riots in U.S. history and realized that he’d been fighting the wrong war—the real enemy was right here at home. This book is an eloquent account of coming of age as a black man in twentieth-century America and of his political awakening in the Communist Party. For all its cultural and historical interest, this story is also noteworthy for its considerable narrative drama. The son of parents born into slavery, the text tells of how Haywood grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, found his first job as a shoeshine boy in Minneapolis, then went on to work as a waiter on trains and in restaurants in Chicago. After fighting in France during the war, he studied how to make revolutions in Moscow during the 1920s, led the Communist Party’s move into the Deep South in 1931, helped to organize the campaign to free the Scottsboro Boys, worked with the Sharecroppers Union, supported protests in Chicago against Benito Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia, fought with the International Brigades in Spain, served in the Merchant Marines during World War II, and continued to fight for the right of self-determination for the Afro-American nation in the United States until his death in 1985.Less
Mustering out of the U.S. army in 1919, Harry Haywood stepped into a battle that was to last the rest of his life. Within months, he found himself in the middle of one of the bloodiest race riots in U.S. history and realized that he’d been fighting the wrong war—the real enemy was right here at home. This book is an eloquent account of coming of age as a black man in twentieth-century America and of his political awakening in the Communist Party. For all its cultural and historical interest, this story is also noteworthy for its considerable narrative drama. The son of parents born into slavery, the text tells of how Haywood grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, found his first job as a shoeshine boy in Minneapolis, then went on to work as a waiter on trains and in restaurants in Chicago. After fighting in France during the war, he studied how to make revolutions in Moscow during the 1920s, led the Communist Party’s move into the Deep South in 1931, helped to organize the campaign to free the Scottsboro Boys, worked with the Sharecroppers Union, supported protests in Chicago against Benito Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia, fought with the International Brigades in Spain, served in the Merchant Marines during World War II, and continued to fight for the right of self-determination for the Afro-American nation in the United States until his death in 1985.
