Reframing Randolph. Andrew E. Kersten
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But the relationship went both ways. “Debs had great admiration” for the black socialists too, “because it was a new phenomenon to find Negroes leading in the Socialist movement.”50 The Randolphs spent “time with him,” dining together at various downtown restaurants and talking philosophy and politics in Harlem. At no point did Randolph perceive any racial condescension in their exchanges. Debs “was a man who was absolutely convinced of the principle of equality among human beings, regardless of race, color, religion or anything else. And he practiced it and he demonstrated it by his work.”51
Debs was not the only white socialist who favorably impressed Randolph.52 As Randolph took to soapboxes in Manhattan, he came into contact with the hitherto unknown but vibrant world of Jewish immigrant socialism and labor radicalism. The encounter was enlightening for both sides. “These people were really converted to us, because we were black,” Randolph later explained. “They had never seen any black people on a soapbox . . . this was altogether new to them.” The staff of the Jewish Daily Forward, in particular, found the young black radicals compelling. “They said, ‘I think you ought to be supported. You’re doing for our country that which ought to be done, that is, giving them knowledge about the history of man, the history of the struggle of civilization.” The Jewish socialists provided Randolph and the Messenger with modest financial assistance over the years.53 But more than money was involved. “All of us Negroes know that, on the whole, the Jews are the fairest and most friendly people in the United States in their dealings with the Negroes,” the Messenger declared in its first issue in November 1917. “Despised and oppressed through centuries, the Jews know what oppression means, and consequently they have always been tender and sympathetic toward the Negroes who have been their companions in drinking the bitter dregs of race prejudice.”54 In subsequent years, Randolph would appreciate the struggles of Jewish trade unionists in the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union; he would become a strong supporter of the state of Israel.
What, then, was socialism to Randolph? What, specifically, did he think it would do for blacks? Why did he think that blacks should vote for the party? Another reason that the Socialist Party drew Randolph’s support stemmed from his belief that neither of the principal political parties had anything to offer black America. With the pre–New Deal Democratic Party attracting little black support, he castigated the black electorate for its “slavish and foolish worship of the Republican Party,” whose sole gesture was granting the occasional patronage post to a few prominent black politicos while offering them “no voice in the government.” Those obedient “Negro peanut politicians”—“political palliators, acquiescers and compromisers”—did their white masters’ bidding. With “hat in hand,” the hand-picked black official, the “old, archaic, fossilized Negro political” parasite “sermonizes, prates and apps about the grand, old Republican Party being the ‘ship and all else the sea” in exchange for “a crum [sic] from the political dinner table.”55 The Republicans shared the blame for all that afflicted black America: “Jim Crowism, segregation, lynching, disfranchisement and discrimination.” And since the overwhelming number of African Americans were working people, they had “nothing in common” with the “party of plutocracy, of wealth, of monopoly, of trusts, of big business.”56
In the first issue of the Messenger, which appeared shortly before the 1917 mayoral election in New York City, Randolph put a positive spin on the Socialist Party’s race record. The SP “does not even hold race prejudice in the South,” the journal declared; the following year, it echoed that claim by declaring that the “Socialist party has always . . . opposed all forms of race prejudice.”57 Were the editors being disingenuous? Or were they ignorant of the party’s mixed record? Although they left no clues to help historians resolve the matter, it is possible to believe that their standard of evaluation was different than that of Du Bois or Harrison; that they simply did not judge the party as a totality; that they ignored the party’s practical shortcomings, and embraced the more progressive New York variant, which they very much found to their liking.
Whatever the case, the Messenger’s socialist pitch to black readers was largely class-based. Mayoral candidate Morris Hillquit would reduce the high cost of living; provide free food and clothing to school children “as a matter of right,” not charity; build public housing; eliminate food speculators by establishing public markets to sell fresh food to people “at cost”; end the practice of jailing war critics; and promote municipal ownership of subway, telephone, gas, and electric service. African Americans, who suffered from exorbitant rents, high subway fares, and the escalating costs of living, would directly benefit: The Socialist Party, the journal explained, “is the Party of the workingman” and “99 per cent. of Negroes are working people.” Hence, logically, blacks should vote the socialist ticket.58
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