revolutionary action movement (ram) - Michael Schwartz Library

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its members told to join the National Farmers Union . 28 The Negro Li berator
was discontinued .
In 1935, the Joint Committee on National Recovery, a coalition of
twenty-three black organizations, met at Howard University and discussed
the idea of forming a national congress (Black united front) . 29 The
National Negro Congress (NNC) met in February, 1936 in Chicago .
There
were 817 delegates present, representing 585 organizations from twentyeight
states . A . Phillip Randolph was elected president of the NNC and
within a year, thirty local councils of the NNC were formed around the
country .
The NNC forged an alliance with the CIO and was effective in
helping to organize Black steelworkers .
Through the NNC support of the CIO,
Black workers viewed the automobile sit-down strikes in the late 30's as
a progressive development . A second meeting of the National Negro Congress
was held in Philadelphia in 1937 . A youth group, the Southern Negro Youth
Congress, was also set up in that year .
In 1939, the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression peace pact with
Nazi Germany . With the change in foreign policy of the Soviet Union, the
line of the CPUSA changed also . Overnight the line of the CPUSA shifted
from organizing a popular front against fascism to attacking Franklin D .
Roosevelt and keeping the United States out of an imperialist war .
In the National Negro Congress, a showdown occurred between A . Phillip
Randolph and the Communists . The Communists seized control of the NCC and
railroaded their denunciation of Roosevelt's war preparation and
British
28Mark E . Naison, "Black Agrarian Radicalism in the Great Depression :
The Threads of a Lost Tradition," Journal of Ethnic Studies, (Fall 1973),
pp . 49-65 .
29Mark E . Naison, "Harlem Communists and the Politics of Black Protest,"
Marxist Perspe ctives , Vol . l, No . 3, (Fall 1978), p . 37 .