the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Mar 17, 2025
In 1932, in Atlanta, Georgia, Angelo Herndon, a young black communist organizer, was bringing together black and white unemployed to demand restoration of their unemployment benefits. Hundreds of black and white workers came together and demonstrated, and their benefits were restored. This raised the ire of the rich, and Angelo was arrested and charged under Georgia’s Insurrection Act.
The law was so broad, they charged him not for what he said or did, but for the books and pamphlets in his room! The book details the legal fight against the charges, all the way to the Supreme Court. The fight against the trumped-up charges and death penalty of the Scottsboro Boys was occurring at the same time.
While the book focuses on the legal fight, you see the strength of the communist movement in this country in the 1930s rising from the Russian Revolution, and the workers’ struggles and organizing against the horrific hardship of Jim Crow racism and the Great Depression.