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THE AMENIA CONFERENCES                    DIGGS

In 1930 the Communist Party helped organize the League of Struggle for Negro Rights. The NAACP and the Urban League did not join with them. The Depression had changed the emphasis in Negro writing from the "race problem" to the class oppression. During the 1930s periodicals such as New Masses and the Nation were among the few to accept manuscripts from Blacks which gave white audiences the view of Blacks.

In 1932 no mention of Blacks was made in the platforms of the Democratic, Farmer-Labor, Prohibition or Socialist Labor parties. The Republican Party platform stated:

"For 70 years the Republican Party has been the friend of the American Negro. Vindication of the rights of the Negro citizen to enjoy the full benefits of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is traditional in the Republican Party, and our party stands pledged to maintain equal opportunity and rights for Negro citizens. We do not propose to depart from that tradition nor to alter the spirit or letter of that pledge."

The Communist Party platform read:

"The Communist Party is the political party of the oppressed masses of the people-the industrial workers, the persecuted Negroes, the toiling farmers. The Communist Party enters this election campaign explicitly to rally the toilers of the city and country, Negro and white, in a united struggle for jobs and bread, for the fight against imperialist war. . . .The Negro people, always hounded, persecuted, disfranchised and discriminated against by capitalist America, are, during this period of crisis, oppressed as never before. They are the first to be fired when layoffs take place. They are discriminated against when charity rations are handed out to the unemployed. They are cheated and robbed by the Southern white landlords and evicted from their homes and lands when their miserable income does not enable them to pay rent. When they protest against this unbearable oppression and persecution they are singled out for police attacks in the North and for lynch victims in the South. Over 150 Negroes have been barbarously lynched at the instigation of the white ruling class. . . ."

In this platform the Negro reform leaders were attacked as "shamelessly aiding the white master class in these vicious attacks." James W. Ford, a Negro, was the Vice Presidential candidate on the Communist ticket. In the presidential election, Franklin D. Roosevelt

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