3 chapters across the catalog
The film The Great Debaters, starring Jurnee Smollett and Denzel Washington, is used to illustrate the historical link between the Communist Party and early civil rights organizing in the South. The hosts discuss how the Communist-led Sharecroppers Union in the 1930s provided a blueprint for later movements, a history often suppressed in mainstream narratives.
During the 1930s, the Communist Party organized the Sharecroppers Union in Alabama, attracting 12,000 Black members by promising self-determination and land. The hosts argue that the failure to provide justice and atonement for ADOS people created a "hotbed" for Marxist ideologies. They draw parallels to modern movements like Black Lives Matter, suggesting that unresolved racial grievances remain a vulnerability for foreign ideological influence.
Professor Robin Kelly, author of Hammer and Ho, documents how the Communist Party organized black sharecroppers in Alabama during the 1930s. The movement grew to 12,000 members in the Black Belt counties, predating the traditional civil rights movement by decades. Kelly notes that there has been a concerted effort in academia and media to tamp down the historical connection between communism and racial justice struggles.
