James W. Ford
Encyclopedia
James W. "Jim" Ford was the Vice-Presidential
candidate for the Communist Party USA
in 1932, 1936, and 1940. A party organizer
from New York City
, Ford was the first African-American to appear on a presidential ticket in the 20th century.
on December 22, 1893, the son of Lymon Forsch. His father, a former resident of Gainesville, Georgia
, had come to Alabama in the 1890s to work in the coal mines and steel mills. He wound up working for 35 years as a coal miner for the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company. His mother earned additional money for the family as a domestic worker
.
Ford got his first job at age 13 working on a railroad track at Enslay, Alabama. He later worked as a blacksmith's helper at a steel plant, a machinist's helper, and as a laborer at a blast furnace
. Ford worked his way through high school before attending Fisk University
.
A few months before graduation in 1917, Ford enlisted in the U.S. Army in support of the American war effort as a new participant in World War I
. He entered the signal corps
in charge of communications for the 86th Brigade of the 92nd Division in France
. At the end of the war, Ford was discharged from the Army and returned to civilian life. He returned to an America in which a black man with telecommunications skills was deemed unemployable in his profession and wound up taking a job as an unskilled laborer at a mattress factory in Chicago.
Ford then landed a job working for the post office as a parcel post dispatcher, joining the Union of Post Office Workers
at that same time. Ford became active in working for his union local, activity which put him into contact with the Communist Party for the first time. This union activity in consort with radicals seems to have brought Ford to the attention of his superiors, and he was ultimately fired from his post office job.
section of the American Negro Labor Congress
(ANLC), established by the Communist Party as a mass organization of black workers. The next year Ford joined the Workers (Communist) Party of America
itself.
As there were few African-American members of the Communist Party in this period, Ford quickly gained recognition as one of the leading black communists in the nation. In 1928 he was sent to the Soviet Union
to represent the American Communist Party at the 4th World Congress of the Red International of Labor Unions (RILU), held in Moscow
during March and April. He was there elected to the RILU Secretariat. Ford did not immediately return to the United States, instead remaining in Moscow to work on RILU matters as a full-time functionary.
In August 1928, Ford attended the 6th World Congress of the Communist International on behalf of the American Communist Party, where he was elected to the Comintern
's Negro Commission. Ford was also elected a delegate to the 1929 World Congress of the League Against Imperialism
, which met in Hamburg, Germany.
In July 1929, Ford attended the 10th Enlarged Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International
(ECCI), at which he delivered two speeches. Later that month, Ford attended the 2nd Congress of the League Against Imperialism
, where he was elected to the General Council and the Executive Committee.
During the ultra-radical "Third Period
" (1929-1933), many in the Comintern advocated that the American Communist Party launch the inflammatory slogan
"Self-determination for the Black Belt" — a call for de facto or even de jure sovereignty of a broad swath of the American South in which black Americans constituted a demographic majority. Ford considered the question of whether American blacks constituted an "oppressed nationality" to be a largely academic matter, in view of the exceedingly limited contact which the Communist Party had with the black community. Nevertheless, the supporters of the ultra-radical idea of "self-determination" for the black people as an "oppressed nationality" (as opposed to fighting for equal rights for an "oppressed racial minority" of Americans) won the day. Thereafter Ford dutifully spoke out on behalf of independence of the American black belt, in accord with the new party line
.
In 1930 Ford organized the Comintern-sponsored 1st International Conference of Negro Workers in Hamburg where he was elected as Secretary of the short-lived International Trade Union Committee for Black Workers as well as editor of its journal, The Negro Worker. There he was supplied with a young mistress (an agent of the Soviet GPU
) and a monthly pension from Soviet intelligence. While in Hamburg, Ford participated in distributing copies of The Negro Worker via couriers to sailors on ships headed to British possessions, including Jamaica
and the Union of South Africa
. In response to an official protest lodged by the British government, German police raided Ford's headquarters in Hamburg. After a botched attempt to escape by bicycle, Ford was arrested in a glare of publicity, and was summarily relieved of his political post with the Comintern.
Ford returned to the United States in 1930, where he assumed the role of Vice President of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, the organizational successor to ANLC.
In 1932 Ford was elected to the governing Political Buro of the CPUSA. He had arrived as a top political leader of the Communist Party of the USA.
Ford's status as one of the nation's most recognizable black Communists was further cemented in 1932 when he was named by the CPUSA as its candidate for Vice President of the United States, running on the ticket with Presidential nominee William Z. Foster
. The placing of a black man near the top of the Communist ticket was symbolic of the party's self-declared commitment to racial equality
and its commitment to advance blacks to its own leadership. Historian Mark Solomon notes that this was part of a broader campaign:
In all, the Foster-Ford ticket tallied 102,991 votes in 1932 — a tiny total but a major step forward when gauged against the organization's performance during its first two electoral efforts in 1924 and 1928.
In 1933 Ford was made the new head of the Harlem
Section of the Communist Party, a move designed both to tighten party discipline in the organization and to lessen the place of the more freewheeling, nationalist-inclined agitators like Cyril Briggs
and Richard B. Moore
. The ultra-left "Third Period" slogan of "Self-determination for the Black Belt" was drawing to a close, in favor of a new effort to build bridges with liberals and fighting for the solution of practical problems through the New Deal
. The Harlem Communists sought to join with church and civic groups in a "Provisional Committee against Discrimination" in an effort to eliminate racism in job hiring and firing. Building the so-called "Popular Front" would be the new slogan of the day.
store on 125th Street grabbed a black teenager for allegedly stealing a knife. The boy was dragged into the basement by police before being released through a back door. Black customers believed the boy was being beaten, however, and a rumor started to spread that the boy had been killed. An angry crowd formed, a rock was thrown through the chain store
window, and police broke up the spontaneous street meeting that had developed. Within an hour, not a window was left intact on 125th Street and rampant looting had broken out. In the end, one person was killed, several others injured, and more than 200 were jailed in the so-called "Harlem Race Riot."
While the immediate response of the press was to blame the Communists for fomenting racial unrest, two months of hearings followed in which Ford's Harlem Section of the Communist Party was able to highlight the area's plight. The Communist Party established connections with a number of the area's labor, religious, and political leaders in the aftermath of the March 19th event.
As historian Mark Naison notes:
In 1936, Ford was again placed on the CPUSA's ticket as its Vice Presidential hopeful, running this time with the CPUSA's General Secretary, Earl Browder
.
Ford traveled to Spain
in 1937 along with other American Communists in support of the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War
.
The 1940 campaign saw a renewal of the Browder/Ford ticket by the Communist Party, the third and final time James Ford appeared in that capacity.
Earl Browder, reading too much into the dissolution of the Communist International in May of 1943 and the wartime alliance of the Soviet Union with America, dissolved the Communist Party in 1944, replacing it with a "Communist Political Association." James Ford was chosen as the Vice President of this new formation. When in April 1945 Moscow signaled its intense displeasure in the decision to dissolve the Communist Party, Browder was cashiered, expelled from the reconstituted party in July. Although Ford made a public self-criticism
of his alleged errors, he was nevertheless demoted from the top echelon of Communist Party leaders, not re-elected to the National Committee of the party and supplanted in his de facto role as "America's leading black Communist" by Benjamin J. Davis
.
Ford was not targeted by the US Department of Justice in its 1948 prosecution of the top leadership of the CPUSA.
. Retrieved September 23, 2009.
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
candidate for the Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
in 1932, 1936, and 1940. A party organizer
Party organizer
A party organizer or local party organizer is a position in some political parties in charge of the establishing a party organization in a certain locality.Herbert Ames wrote in his 1911 article "Organization of Political Parties in Canada" :...
from New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Ford was the first African-American to appear on a presidential ticket in the 20th century.
Early years
James W. Ford was born in Pratt City, AlabamaAlabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
on December 22, 1893, the son of Lymon Forsch. His father, a former resident of Gainesville, Georgia
Gainesville, Georgia
-Severe Weather:Gainesville sits on the very fringe of Tornado Alley, a region of the United States where severe weather is common. Supercell thunderstorms can sweep through any time between March and November, but are concentrated most in the spring...
, had come to Alabama in the 1890s to work in the coal mines and steel mills. He wound up working for 35 years as a coal miner for the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company. His mother earned additional money for the family as a domestic worker
Domestic worker
A domestic worker is a man, woman or child who works within the employer's household. Domestic workers perform a variety of household services for an individual or a family, from providing care for children and elderly dependents to cleaning and household maintenance, known as housekeeping...
.
Ford got his first job at age 13 working on a railroad track at Enslay, Alabama. He later worked as a blacksmith's helper at a steel plant, a machinist's helper, and as a laborer at a blast furnace
Blast furnace
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally iron.In a blast furnace, fuel and ore and flux are continuously supplied through the top of the furnace, while air is blown into the bottom of the chamber, so that the chemical reactions...
. Ford worked his way through high school before attending Fisk University
Fisk University
Fisk University is an historically black university founded in 1866 in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. The world-famous Fisk Jubilee Singers started as a group of students who performed to earn enough money to save the school at a critical time of financial shortages. They toured to raise funds to...
.
A few months before graduation in 1917, Ford enlisted in the U.S. Army in support of the American war effort as a new participant in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. He entered the signal corps
Signal Corps
The Signal Corps is a military branch, usually subordinate to a country's army, responsible for the military communications .Many countries have a Signal Corps, whose main function is usually communication .* Arma de Comunicaciones, signals branch of the Argentine Army* Arma delle...
in charge of communications for the 86th Brigade of the 92nd Division in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. At the end of the war, Ford was discharged from the Army and returned to civilian life. He returned to an America in which a black man with telecommunications skills was deemed unemployable in his profession and wound up taking a job as an unskilled laborer at a mattress factory in Chicago.
Ford then landed a job working for the post office as a parcel post dispatcher, joining the Union of Post Office Workers
Union of Communication Workers
The Union of Communication Workers was a trade union in the United Kingdom for workers in the post office and telecommunications industries. It was founded in 1919 as the Union of Post Office Workers by the merger of the Postmen's Federation, Postal and Telegraph Clerks' Association and the...
at that same time. Ford became active in working for his union local, activity which put him into contact with the Communist Party for the first time. This union activity in consort with radicals seems to have brought Ford to the attention of his superiors, and he was ultimately fired from his post office job.
Political career
In 1925, Ford was recruited into the ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
section of the American Negro Labor Congress
American Negro Labor Congress
The American Negro Labor Congress was established in 1925 by the Communist Party as a vehicle for advancing the rights of African-Americans, propagandizing for communism within the black community and recruiting African-American members for the party...
(ANLC), established by the Communist Party as a mass organization of black workers. The next year Ford joined the Workers (Communist) Party of America
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
itself.
As there were few African-American members of the Communist Party in this period, Ford quickly gained recognition as one of the leading black communists in the nation. In 1928 he was sent to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
to represent the American Communist Party at the 4th World Congress of the Red International of Labor Unions (RILU), held in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
during March and April. He was there elected to the RILU Secretariat. Ford did not immediately return to the United States, instead remaining in Moscow to work on RILU matters as a full-time functionary.
In August 1928, Ford attended the 6th World Congress of the Communist International on behalf of the American Communist Party, where he was elected to the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
's Negro Commission. Ford was also elected a delegate to the 1929 World Congress of the League Against Imperialism
League against Imperialism
The League against Imperialism was founded in the Egmont Palace in Brussels, Belgium, on February 10, 1927, in presence of 175 delegates, among which 107 came from 37 countries under colonial rule. The Congress aimed at creating a "mass anti-imperialist movement" at a world scale, and was...
, which met in Hamburg, Germany.
In July 1929, Ford attended the 10th Enlarged Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International
Executive Committee of the Communist International
The Executive Committee of the Communist International, commonly known by its acronym, ECCI, was the governing authority of the Comintern between the World Congresses of that body...
(ECCI), at which he delivered two speeches. Later that month, Ford attended the 2nd Congress of the League Against Imperialism
League against Imperialism
The League against Imperialism was founded in the Egmont Palace in Brussels, Belgium, on February 10, 1927, in presence of 175 delegates, among which 107 came from 37 countries under colonial rule. The Congress aimed at creating a "mass anti-imperialist movement" at a world scale, and was...
, where he was elected to the General Council and the Executive Committee.
During the ultra-radical "Third Period
Third Period
The Third Period is a ideological concept adopted by the Communist International at its 6th World Congress, held in Moscow in the summer of 1928....
" (1929-1933), many in the Comintern advocated that the American Communist Party launch the inflammatory slogan
Slogan
A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a political, commercial, religious and other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose. The word slogan is derived from slogorn which was an Anglicisation of the Scottish Gaelic sluagh-ghairm . Slogans vary from the written and the...
"Self-determination for the Black Belt" — a call for de facto or even de jure sovereignty of a broad swath of the American South in which black Americans constituted a demographic majority. Ford considered the question of whether American blacks constituted an "oppressed nationality" to be a largely academic matter, in view of the exceedingly limited contact which the Communist Party had with the black community. Nevertheless, the supporters of the ultra-radical idea of "self-determination" for the black people as an "oppressed nationality" (as opposed to fighting for equal rights for an "oppressed racial minority" of Americans) won the day. Thereafter Ford dutifully spoke out on behalf of independence of the American black belt, in accord with the new party line
Party line (politics)
In politics, the line or the party line is an idiom for a political party or social movement's canon agenda, as well as specific ideological elements specific to the organization's partisanship. The common phrase toeing the party line describes a person who speaks in a manner that conforms to his...
.
In 1930 Ford organized the Comintern-sponsored 1st International Conference of Negro Workers in Hamburg where he was elected as Secretary of the short-lived International Trade Union Committee for Black Workers as well as editor of its journal, The Negro Worker. There he was supplied with a young mistress (an agent of the Soviet GPU
State Political Directorate
The State Political Directorate was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1934...
) and a monthly pension from Soviet intelligence. While in Hamburg, Ford participated in distributing copies of The Negro Worker via couriers to sailors on ships headed to British possessions, including Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
and the Union of South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. In response to an official protest lodged by the British government, German police raided Ford's headquarters in Hamburg. After a botched attempt to escape by bicycle, Ford was arrested in a glare of publicity, and was summarily relieved of his political post with the Comintern.
Ford returned to the United States in 1930, where he assumed the role of Vice President of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, the organizational successor to ANLC.
In 1932 Ford was elected to the governing Political Buro of the CPUSA. He had arrived as a top political leader of the Communist Party of the USA.
Ford's status as one of the nation's most recognizable black Communists was further cemented in 1932 when he was named by the CPUSA as its candidate for Vice President of the United States, running on the ticket with Presidential nominee William Z. Foster
William Z. Foster
William Foster was a radical American labor organizer and Marxist politician, whose career included a lengthy stint as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA...
. The placing of a black man near the top of the Communist ticket was symbolic of the party's self-declared commitment to racial equality
Racial equality
Racial equality means different things in different contexts. It mostly deals with an equal regard to all races.It can refer to a belief in biological equality of all human races....
and its commitment to advance blacks to its own leadership. Historian Mark Solomon notes that this was part of a broader campaign:
"In 1932 the CP ran dozens of black candidates in every region for everything from aldermanAldermanAn alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council...
and mayorMayorIn many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
to lieutenant governorLieutenant governorA lieutenant governor or lieutenant-governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction, but is often the deputy or lieutenant to or ranking under a governor — a "second-in-command"...
and governorGovernorA governor is a governing official, usually the executive of a non-sovereign level of government, ranking under the head of state...
to member of Congress. All the Party candidates stressed the issues of unemployment insurance and racial equality. Getting elected was not a serious goal. Campaigns were 'mass actions,' political sounding boards; in Ford's words, they were a means 'to mobilize workers in the struggle for their immediate needs.' When asked about chances for the Party's black candidates, Ford replied, 'The Communist Party is not stupid; we know that better than 4 million Negroes in this country cannot vote...and besides this, there is a great anti-Negro sentiment which the Party goes up against when it puts forth Negroes as their candidates.'"
In all, the Foster-Ford ticket tallied 102,991 votes in 1932 — a tiny total but a major step forward when gauged against the organization's performance during its first two electoral efforts in 1924 and 1928.
In 1933 Ford was made the new head of the Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
Section of the Communist Party, a move designed both to tighten party discipline in the organization and to lessen the place of the more freewheeling, nationalist-inclined agitators like Cyril Briggs
Cyril Briggs
Cyril Valentine Briggs was an African Caribbean and African-American writer and communist political activist born in the West Indies. He was influenced by political ideas which emerged during and after the First World War.Briggs was born in 1888 in Nevis, a Caribbean island of the West Indies...
and Richard B. Moore
Richard B. Moore
Richard Benjamin Moore was an African Caribbean civil rights activist and prominent communist.-Early years:RIchard Benjamin Moore was a Barbadian writer born on August 9, 1893 in Barbados, West Indies to Richard Henry Moore and Josephine Thorne Moore. In Barbados, the Richard Henry and Josephine...
. The ultra-left "Third Period" slogan of "Self-determination for the Black Belt" was drawing to a close, in favor of a new effort to build bridges with liberals and fighting for the solution of practical problems through the New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
. The Harlem Communists sought to join with church and civic groups in a "Provisional Committee against Discrimination" in an effort to eliminate racism in job hiring and firing. Building the so-called "Popular Front" would be the new slogan of the day.
The 1935 Harlem riot and its aftermath
On March 19, 1935, Harlem was torn by a riot, caused when a manager at a KressS. H. Kress & Co.
S. H. Kress & Co. was the trading name of a chain of "five and dime" retail department stores in the United States, which operated from 1896 to 1981....
store on 125th Street grabbed a black teenager for allegedly stealing a knife. The boy was dragged into the basement by police before being released through a back door. Black customers believed the boy was being beaten, however, and a rumor started to spread that the boy had been killed. An angry crowd formed, a rock was thrown through the chain store
Chain store
Chain stores are retail outlets that share a brand and central management, and usually have standardized business methods and practices. These characteristics also apply to chain restaurants and some service-oriented chain businesses. In retail, dining and many service categories, chain businesses...
window, and police broke up the spontaneous street meeting that had developed. Within an hour, not a window was left intact on 125th Street and rampant looting had broken out. In the end, one person was killed, several others injured, and more than 200 were jailed in the so-called "Harlem Race Riot."
While the immediate response of the press was to blame the Communists for fomenting racial unrest, two months of hearings followed in which Ford's Harlem Section of the Communist Party was able to highlight the area's plight. The Communist Party established connections with a number of the area's labor, religious, and political leaders in the aftermath of the March 19th event.
As historian Mark Naison notes:
"During the next two months, the Harlem Party concentrated the efforts of its best organizers on the Mayor's Commission hearings. The commission divided its work among six subcommittees dealing with major problems in Harlem: crime and police, health and hospitals, housing and recreation, education, discrimination in employment, and discrimination in relief. A total of twenty-five hearings took place under the auspices of these bodies, and the Party used them to present a detailed analysis of discrimination against Harlem residents, backed up by rigorous cross-examination of employers and city officials....
"The Party's activities at the hearings helped strengthen its ties with other Harlem organizations. The representatives of Harlem 'labor unions, trade associations, religious, social and political organizations' that came to the hearings shared many of the same concerns about racial problems in New York as Party organizers and cooperated with them closely in exposing Harlem conditions. In style and educational background, the leading black Communists at the hearings, James Ford, Merrill Work, Abner Barry, Ben Davis, Williana BurroughsWilliana BurroughsWilliana "Liane" Jones Burroughs was an American teacher, communist political activist, and politician. She is best remembered as one of the first African-American women to run for elective office in New York.-Early years:...
, and Louise Thompson, had much in common with the middle-class Harlem civic leades who also testified. Although Communists openly used the hearings as a platform for their political views, they tried to maintain a level of professionalism in the presentation of evidence that would command the respect of their black allies and the Commission."
The end of '30s onwards
In the summer of 1935 Ford was sent by the CPUSA to the 7th World Congress of the Comintern as a delegate, where he was elected an alternate member of ECCI.In 1936, Ford was again placed on the CPUSA's ticket as its Vice Presidential hopeful, running this time with the CPUSA's General Secretary, Earl Browder
Earl Browder
Earl Russell Browder was an American communist and General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1934 to 1945. He was expelled from the party in 1946.- Early years :...
.
Ford traveled to Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
in 1937 along with other American Communists in support of the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
.
The 1940 campaign saw a renewal of the Browder/Ford ticket by the Communist Party, the third and final time James Ford appeared in that capacity.
Earl Browder, reading too much into the dissolution of the Communist International in May of 1943 and the wartime alliance of the Soviet Union with America, dissolved the Communist Party in 1944, replacing it with a "Communist Political Association." James Ford was chosen as the Vice President of this new formation. When in April 1945 Moscow signaled its intense displeasure in the decision to dissolve the Communist Party, Browder was cashiered, expelled from the reconstituted party in July. Although Ford made a public self-criticism
Self-criticism
Self-criticism refers to the pointing out of things critical/important to one's own beliefs, thoughts, actions, behaviour or results; it can form part of private, personal reflection or a group discussion.-Philosophy:...
of his alleged errors, he was nevertheless demoted from the top echelon of Communist Party leaders, not re-elected to the National Committee of the party and supplanted in his de facto role as "America's leading black Communist" by Benjamin J. Davis
Benjamin J. Davis
Benjamin J. "Ben" Davis , was an African-American lawyer and communist who was elected to the city council of New York City, representing Harlem, in 1943...
.
Ford was not targeted by the US Department of Justice in its 1948 prosecution of the top leadership of the CPUSA.
Books and pamphlets
- The Negro Industrial Proletariat of America. Moscow: Red International of Labor Unions, 1928.
- The Negro and the Imperialist War of 1914-1918. New York: International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers of the RILU, 1929.
- Economic Struggle of Negro Workers: a Trade Union Program of Action. New York: Provisional International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers, 1930.
- The Negro's Struggle Against Imperialism. New York: Provisional International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers, 1930.
- Imperialism Destroys the People of Africa. New York: Harlem Section of the Communist Party, n.d. [c. 1931].
- The Right to Revolution for the Negro People. New York : Harlem Section of the Communist Party, 1932.
- The Truth about the African Children: Material for the National Convention of the CPUSA, April 2, 3, 4, 1934. n.c.: n.p., 1934.
- The Negroes in a Soviet America. With James S. AllenJames S. AllenJames S. Allen was a Marxist Scholar, writer, community organizer, and an editor for the Communist Party, USA.- Early Life and Career :He was born Sol Auerbach in Philadelphia in 1906...
. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1935. - Hunger and Terror in Harlem. New York, Harlem Section of the Communist Party, 1935.
- World Problems of the Negro People: A Refutation of George Padmore. New York: Harlem Section of the Communist Party, n.d. [1930s].
- War in Africa: Italian Fascism Prepares to Enslave Ethiopia. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1935.
- The Causes and the Remedies for the March 19th Outbreak in Harlem: Testimony of James W. Ford, Secretary of the Harlem Section of the Communist Party Prepared for the Mayor's Commission on Conditions in Harlem. New York, n.p [Harlem Section of the Communist Party], 1935.
- The Negro Liberation Movement and the Farmer-Labor Party. New York: Communist Party of the United States of America, 1935.
- The Communists and the Struggle for Negro Liberation: Their Position on Problems of Africa, of the West Indies, of War, of Ethiopian Independence, of the Struggle for Peace. New York: Harlem Division of the Communist Party 1936.
- The Negro Masses in the United States. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1937.
- The Struggle of the Soviet Union for Peace and Socialism: Speech of James W. Ford, Madison Square Garden, November 13, 1937. n.c.: n.p., 1937.
- The Negro and the Democratic Front. New York: International Publishers, 1938.
- Anti-Semitism and the Struggle for Democracy. With Theodore R. Bassett. New York: The National Council of Jewish Communists, 1939.
- Win Progress for Harlem. New York: The Harlem Division of the Communist Party, 1939.
- Earl Browder, Foremost Champion of Negro Rights: Open Letter to the Negro People. New York: New York State Committee, Communist Party, n.d. [1941].
- The Negro People and the New World Situation New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1941.
- The War and the Negro People: The Japanese "Darker Race" Demagogy Exposed. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1942.
- The Meaning of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Elections. New York: Communist Party of Bedford-Stuyvesant, 1949.
Contributions
- Foster and Ford for Food and Freedom: Acceptance Speeches of William Z. Foster and James W. Ford, Communist Candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States of America. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1932.
- Acceptance Speeches: For President, Earl Browder; For Vice-President, James W. Ford: Communist Candidates in the Presidential Elections. With Earl Browder. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1936.
- Party Building ad Political Leadership. With William Z. Foster, Alex Bittelman, and Charles Krumbein. New York: Workers Library Publishers, n.d. [1937].
- Communists in the Struggle for Negro Rights. With Benjamin J. Davis, William L. Patterson, and Earl Browder. New York: New Century Publishers, 1945.
Additional reading
- Foster-Ford: The Candidates of Working Youth. New York: Young Communist League, n.d. [1932].
External links
"An Introduction to The Negro Worker," at Marxists Internet ArchiveMarxists Internet Archive
Marxists Internet Archive is a volunteer based non-profit organization that maintains a multi-lingual Internet archive of Marxist writers and other similar authors...
. Retrieved September 23, 2009.