Black and Red

Last week at Chicago there closed a session of the American Negro Labor Congress. There were about 40 Negroes present, besides a good many whites, including Communists, agents of the Department of Justice and police, for the American Negro Labor Congress was labeled in advance as a Communist enterprise, and Communists and anti-Communists kept their eyes on it.

The head of the Congress was Lovett Fort Whiteman. He visited Russia a year ago. He is said to be the Reddest of the Blacks. He is well educated, a polyglot, an orator. He told the Congress:

"The Negro people as a race are of no great importance, but as an industrial class they are one of the most important races in the whole world. The fundamental aim of the American Negro Labor Congress is to mobilize--to organize the industrial strength of the Negro into a fighting weapon.

"The Negro is essentially a worker-proletariat, as we would call it--suffering all the abuses of the working class in general, but in addition to that, racial abuses, racial discrimination, political disfranchisement and other racial oppression."

He told how three American Negro girls and seven American Negro young men are now undergoing in Russia three years' training for the Russian "diplomatic service." Nothing of moment happened at the Congress. Resolutions of discontent were passed.