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Black Communist women throughout the early to mid-twentieth century fought for and led mass campaigns in the service of building collective power in the fight for liberation. Through concrete materialist analysis of the conditions of Black workers, these women argued that racial and economic equality can only be achieved by overthrowing capitalism.
The first collection of its kind, Organize, Fight, Win brings together three decades of Black Communist women's political writings. In doing so, it highlights the link between Communism and Black liberation. Likewise, it makes clear how Black women fundamentally shaped, and were shaped by, Communist praxis in the twentieth century.
Organize, Fight, Win includes writings from card-carrying Communists like Dorothy Burnham, Williana Burroughs, Grace P. Campbell, Alice Childress, Marvel Cooke, Esther Cooper Jackson, Thelma Dale Perkins, Vicki Garvin, Yvonne Gregory, Claudia Jones, Maude White Katz, and Louise Thompson Patterson, and writings by those who organized alongside the Communist Party, like Ella Baker, Charlotta Bass, Thyra Edwards, Lorraine Hansberry, and Dorothy Hunton.
List of contents
Introduction
Charisse Burden-Stelly and Jodi Dean
Section 1: The Early Years
Editors' introduction
Grace P. Campbell, "Women Offenders and the Day Court"
Williana Burroughs, "Negro Work Has Not Been Entirely Successful"
Grace P. Campbell (writing as Grace Lamb), "How Shall the Negro Woman Vote?"
Williana Burroughs, "Trade Union Work Report"
Williana Burroughs, "Work Among Negro Women", "Woman and Child Labor in the Colonies", "Negro Women in Industry"
Section 2: Labor, Militancy and Organizing
Editors' introduction
Maude White, "Special Negro Demands"
Thyra Edwards, "Let Us Have More Like Mr. Sopkins"
Williana Burroughs, "Women's Department"
Ella Baker & Marvel Cooke, "The Bronx Slave Market"
Louise Thompson, "Toward a Brighter Dawn"
Thyra Edwards, "Attitudes of Negro Families On Relief - Another Opinion"
Marvel Cooke, "She Was in Paris and Forgot Chanel"
Louise Thompson, "Negro Women in Our Party"
Thyra Edwards, "Food Gets Scarcer and Scarcer On Spanish Front, Says Writer Miss Thyra Edwards Tells Dramatic Story of Experiences in the War-Torn Country; Winter Rushing On"
Louise Thompson Patterson, "Excerpt from Memoirs on Scottsboro Boys Organizing"
Esther Cooper Jackson, "The Negro Women Domestic Worker in Relation to Trade Unionism"
Section 3: Against Fascism
Editors' introduction
Esther Cooper Jackson, "Negro Youth Organizing for Victory"
Thelma Dale, "Reconversion and the Negro People"
Claudia Jones, "On the Right to Self-Determination for the Negro People in the Black Belt"
Thelma Dale, "The Status of Negro Women in the United States of America"
Claudia Jones, "For New Approaches to Our Work Among Women"
Claudia Jones, "International Women's Day and the Struggle for Peace"
Section 4: International Peace Activism
Editors' introduction
Vicki Garvin, "Union Leader Challenges Progressive American"
Sojourners for Truth and Justice, "Proclamation of the Sojourners for Truth and Justice"
Dorothy Hunton, "Where Are YOU Hiding"
Lorraine Hansberry, "Egyptian People Fight for Freedom"
Sojourners for Truth and Justice, "Our Cup Runneth Over"
Lorraine Hansberry, "'Illegal' Conference Shows Peace Is the Key to Freedom"
Eslanda Goode Robeson, "Southern Officers Treat Korean POWS Like Negroes in the South"
Dorothy Burnham, "Southern Tenants and 'Croppers Talk About Need for Organizing"
Yvonne Gregory, "Pearl Bailey Incident Recalls Life and Death of Bessie Smith"
Charlotta Bass, "Acceptance Speech of Mrs. Bass"
Esther Cooper Jackson, "This is My Husband: Fighter for His People, Political Refugee"
Section 5: Struggling Against White Supremacy and Anti-Communism
Editors' introduction
Eslanda Goode Robeson, "Unrest in Africa Due to Oppression"
Dorothy Burnham, "American Women Join World Peace Crusade"
Alice Childress, "A Conversation From Life"
Eslanda Goode Robeson, Introduction to Ben Davis: Fighter for Freedom
Claudia Jones, Excerpt from Ben Davis: Fighter for Freedom
Vicki Garvin, "White Advocates of Negro Freedom Continue Tradition of John Brown"
Vicki Garvin, "New Hope for Negro Labor"
Dorothy Hunton, "Prison: The Bail Fund Affair"
Charlotta Bass, "In Retrospect: An Attack - An Answer"
About the author
Jodi Dean teaches political, feminist, and media theory in Geneva, New York. She has written or edited thirteen books, including The Communist Horizon and Crowds and Party, both published by Verso.Charisse Burden-Stelly is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science at Carleton College. She is the author, with Gerald Horne, of W. E. B. Du Bois: A Life in American History.
Summary
The first collection of the writing of Black communist women.
Report
Charisse Burden-Stelly is a sharp engaged radical thinker, representing the best of the Black radical tradition. Along with co-editor Jodi Dean, Burden-Stelly has curated a powerful and enormously valuable collection of writings by Black socialist and communist women, rightly placing their voices at the center of U.S. and international left histories. A great teaching tool and a much needed source of inspiration for contemporary activists. Barbara Ransby, historian, author and activist
