Reginald White

History 112 Final (Extra Credit)

May 5, 2014

Communism in the African-American Community
Growing up, my thoughts of communism were cookie cutter, to say the least. I thought
it was undesirable, and that communists were to be feared. However, from junior year onward, I
started to see the communism was not exactly as terrible as I had been led to believe: in fact,
American fear of communism was surely worse that the actual philosophy itself. However, I
could never align personally with the philosophy; it seemed like a white person problem.
Reading Richard Wrights novel Black Boy changed that view.
According to Wright himself, he subscribed to communism for a while. Wrights
independence and intelligence gave him the desire to leave his family, who were like the vast
majority of African Americans: strictly religious, and completely opposed to creativity and free
thought. Knowing nowhere else to go, Wright turned to communism, which was actually rather
prominent in the black community. After being brought to America as slaves, and then being
forced to be segregated afterwards, blacks in America may have seen themselves as the next
epoch in history. Indeed, Karl Marxs theory could be aligned with such a desire to revolt against
the American power structure. However, it was not the time to do so.
Other preeminent African Americans declared themselves communists. W.E.B. DuBois,
a prominent African American thinker, was also branded as a communist. He was even noted as
saying that capitalism could not reform itself and that communism attempted to ask of each
the best they can contribute. Marcus Garvey, another supposed black communist, created the
UNIA, designed to provide economic support to impoverished African Americans. A. Philip
Randolph, a member of the Socialist Party, led the National Negro Congress, whose aim it was
to unite other black organizations in the process of unionizing industries that employed African
Americans. This influx of communist African American leaders may not have succeeded in
toppling American capitalism, but they have embraced new ways of thinking that were not
common among their people.
Throughout the semester in History 112, I have discovered that blacks have not always
been either liberal or conservative. The diversity of thought in the African American community
has opened my eyes to other philosophies and other influences in my thought processes. It has
also led me to further critically think about the American bipartisan system and why it is not
effective, but that is for another paper. As a budding economist, I find it interesting to explore the
economic reasons for pursuing a certain political philosophy, and communism has become no
different than 21
st
century conservatism and liberalism. In my own personal quest for knowledge
for the sake of knowledge, History 112 has allowed me to expand my proverbial horizons as well
as enabled me to reconcile my own thoughts with famous figures in history, and in doing so, I
feel much more confident in not only my own abilities, but the education that I am getting at this
institution.