Second volume of the Communist Interventions series, collecting debates between Black revolutionaries in the US.

This has been available on Libcom as a previous version, posted at https://libcom.org/library/black-radical-tradition. This version here is the same content, but with fewer typos and better formatting.

From the preface:

This is the second installation of the Communist Interventions series, following up on the first volume which addresses European socialism and communism. The third volume, which incidentally has already been released, concerns revolutionary feminism. Further volumes on other subjects should follow, as well. We hope that these readers will provide the foundation for seminars and reading groups.

No person in the United States can deny that Black liberation remains a pressing issue today. The unrest in Baltimore, Ferguson, etc. underscores the persistent social ills in the USA that Blacks have been unable to escape. The task of attempting to address these grievances within a revolutionary tradition is also—however less well-known—not a new phenomenon. Radical groupings within the USA have grappled with how to emancipate American Blacks from their oppression even prior to the Russian Revolution, although the Bolsheviks’ attempt to export revolution around the globe unquestionably accelerated these efforts. It is this history which we present in the current volume, through primary sources.

Table of contents:

1 Slavery And Capitalism

1.1 W.E.B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction (1935)

2 Socialism, Communism and the Negro Question

2.1 Marcus Garvey, An Appeal to the Conscience of the Black Race to See Itself (1923)

2.2 Hubert Harrison, What Socialism Means to Us (1917)

2.3 The African Blood Brotherhood, Program of the African Blood Brotherhood (1922)

2.4 Claude McKay, Report on the Negro Question(1922)

2.5 W.E.B. Du Bois, Application for Membership in the Communist Party (1961)

3 The Black Belt

3.1 Harry Haywood, The Negro Nation (1948)

4 Domestic Work

4.1 Claudia Jones, An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman! (1949)

5 Independent Struggles

5.1 C.L.R. James, The Revolutionary Answer to the Negro Problem in US (1948)

5.2 Richard S. Fraser, For the Materialist Conception of the Negro Struggle (1955)

6 Nationalism, Internal Colonialism and the Black Bourgeoisie

6.1 Harold Cruse, Revolutionary Nationalism and the Afro-American (1962)

6.2 Harry Haywood with Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Is the Black Bourgeoisie the Leader of the Black Liberation Movement? (1966)

7 Automation and the Outsiders

7.1 James Boggs, The American Revolution (1963)

8 Black Power

8.1 Malcolm X, Message to the Grassroots(1963)

8.2 Stockily Carmichael, Black Power(1966)

8.3 Revolutionary Action Movement, The 12 Point Program of RAM (1964)

8.4 Robert F. Williams, Speech in Beijing(1966)

8.5 Martin Luther King, Jr., Beyond Vietnam(1967)

9 Frantz Fanon

9. Frantz Fanon, The Pitfalls of National Consciousness (1961)

10 The Black Panther Party

10.1 Huey P. Newton, The Correct Handling of a Revolution(1967)

10.2 Fred Hampton, Power Anywhere Where There’s People (1969)

10.3 Eldridge Cleaver, On the Ideology of the Black Panther Party (1969)

10.4 Huey P. Newton, On The Defection of Eldridge Cleaver from the Black Panther Party

and the Defection of the Black Panther Party From the Black Community (1971)

10.5 George Jackson, Prison Letters(1970)

11 White-Skin Privilege

11.1 Ted Allen and Noel Ignatiev, White Blindspot (1967)

11.2 Noel Ignatiev, Without a Science of Navigation We Cannot Sail in Stormy Seas (1969)

12 The League of Revolutionary Black Workers 303

12.1 James Forman, Liberation Will Come from a Black Thing (1967)

12.2 League of Revolutionary Black Workers, General Program (Here’s Where We’re Coming From) (1970)

12.3 Ken Cockrel, From Repression to Revolution(1970)

13 Black Feminism

13.1 Frances M. Beal, Black Women’s Manifesto; Double Jeopardy: To be Black and Female (1969

13.2 Angela Davis, Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves (1972)

13.3 Combahee River Collective, The Combahee River Collective Statement (1977)

14 Reinvention and Critique of the Black Nation Thesis

14.1 Communist League, Negro National Colonial Question (1972)

14.2 Racism Research Project, Critique of the Black Nation Thesis (1975)

14.3 Congress of African People, Revolutionary Review: The Black Nation Thesis (1976)

15 The Nation Thesis Spreads

15.1 Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Organization, National Liberation of Puerto Rico and the Responsibilities of the U.S. Proletariat(1974)

15.2 I Wor Kuen, Revolution, The National Question and Asian Americans (1974)

15.3 August Twenty-Ninth Movement, Chicano Liberation and Proletarian Revolution (1976)

Further Reading

Appendix