Research Catalog

Details

Additional authors

1. Briggs, Cyril V. (Cyril Valentine), 1888-1966.

Description

1. 9.1 linear ft. (13 boxes)

Summary

1. The Harry Haywood papers, 1930-1989, consist of typescripts of articles, speeches, and book manuscripts; correspondence; photocopies of journal articles; and materials related to the Communist Party USA and several of its offshoots, most frequently concerning their theoretical positions on Blacks in the United States. Correspondence in the CPUSA series include a folder of letters to and from Cyril Briggs, founder of the African Blood Brotherhood. The National Question subseries refers to the CPUSA's position on the right of self-determination for African Americans. The dissatisfaction of Black and Puerto Rican CPUSA members who hoped to build a new Marxist-oriented party is documented in the Provisional Organizing Committee for a Communist Party (POC) subseries as is Haywood's internal party battles with the general secretary of the POC, Armando Roman.
2. In the October League papers are Central Committee and Executive Committee meeting reports and minutes, status reports on student work and Marxist education campaigns, and preparations for a Third Congress in 1975. The Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) series has files dealing with several subjects, including the internal struggles over organization and party leadership, and issues leading up to the Second Congress in May 1981; agendas, minutes, and resolutions from the Afro-American Commission; remarks by Haywood on the National Question (March 1981); and reports on the party's work in the South.
3. The Writing series consists of articles and essays, speeches, and Haywood's autobiography; additionally, there are materials by other authors.

Subject

1. African American communists
2. Black nationalism > United States
3. African Americans > Civil rights
4. Haywood, Harry, 1898-1985
5. Radicalism > United States
6. Civil rights > United States
7. October League (M-L)
8. Speeches
9. Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist : U.S.)
10. Communist parties > United States
11. Communist Party of the United States of America
12. Clippings

Genre/Form

1. Clippings.
2. Speeches.

Call number

1. Sc MG 398

Source (note)

1. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall

Biography (note)

1. Born Haywood Hall in South Omaha, Nebraska, on February 4, 1898, to the formerly enslaved Haywood and Harriet Hall, Harry Haywood changed his name by taking both his parent's first names (Harriet became Harry) when applying for a passport in 1925 to travel to the Soviet Union. In 1917, Haywood was deployed to France during World War I. His return to home soil coincided with the 1919 race riots and thoroughly disillusioned him with the state of race relations in the United States. After brief memberships in the African Black Brotherhood and the Young Workers Communist League, Haywood became a member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) in 1925.
2. Haywood was the first person of African descent to be selected by the CPUSA to study at the Lenin School in Moscow, where he learned Russian and studied Marxist theory. While there Haywood also helped develop a Marxist analysis of the so-called Negro Problem. He became a leading architect and proponent of the theory that Jim Crow and sharecropping oppressed Blacks in the five Southern states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, where they were a majority of the population, and that Blacks had the right of self-determination, including the right to secede and form an independent nation. The Third Communist International (Comintern) adopted this position at its Sixth World Congress in 1928. However, by the 1950s, the CPUSA rejected this position and would eventually expel Haywood from the Party in 1959, due to his continuing battles against this abandonment. After his expulsion, he continued to work with young radicals in the October League (reorganized as the Communist Party [Marxist-Leninist] in 1977) and the Black Power movement. Haywood spent several years writing his autobiography, "Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist," which was published in 1978. Haywood died on January 4, 1985.

Author

1. Haywood, Harry, 1898-1985.

Title

1. Harry Haywood papers, 1930-1989.

Biography

1. Born Haywood Hall in South Omaha, Nebraska, on February 4, 1898, to the formerly enslaved Haywood and Harriet Hall, Harry Haywood changed his name by taking both his parent's first names (Harriet became Harry) when applying for a passport in 1925 to travel to the Soviet Union. In 1917, Haywood was deployed to France during World War I. His return to home soil coincided with the 1919 race riots and thoroughly disillusioned him with the state of race relations in the United States. After brief memberships in the African Black Brotherhood and the Young Workers Communist League, Haywood became a member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) in 1925.
2. Haywood was the first person of African descent to be selected by the CPUSA to study at the Lenin School in Moscow, where he learned Russian and studied Marxist theory. While there Haywood also helped develop a Marxist analysis of the so-called Negro Problem. He became a leading architect and proponent of the theory that Jim Crow and sharecropping oppressed Blacks in the five Southern states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, where they were a majority of the population, and that Blacks had the right of self-determination, including the right to secede and form an independent nation. The Third Communist International (Comintern) adopted this position at its Sixth World Congress in 1928. However, by the 1950s, the CPUSA rejected this position and would eventually expel Haywood from the Party in 1959, due to his continuing battles against this abandonment. After his expulsion, he continued to work with young radicals in the October League (reorganized as the Communist Party [Marxist-Leninist] in 1977) and the Black Power movement. Haywood spent several years writing his autobiography, "Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist," which was published in 1978. Haywood died on January 4, 1985.

Connect to:

1. Finding Aid

Added author

1. Briggs, Cyril V. (Cyril Valentine), 1888-1966.

Research call number

1. Sc MG 398