Radicalization
MacLeod moved to New York City to become managing editor of The World Tomorrow, a prominent socialist-pacifist magazine.
While in New York, he met and then married Virginia MacLean who was originally from Cape Breton. The couple were both pacifists and supporters of the Socialist Party of America. MacLean moved further left as a result of the Scottsboro Boys case joining the Defense League for the Scottsboro Boys with which the Communist Party USA was heavily involved. The MacLeods were also radicalized by the poverty of the Great Depression and by their opposition to the growing threat of fascism.
In 1933, MacLeod resigned from The World Tomorrow and the couple returned to Nova Scotia where they became active in the labour movement and campaigned for J.B. McLachlan, a militant union leader and Communist was running as a "labour" candidate for the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. The MacLeods joined the Communist Party during this period.
Read more about this topic: A. A. MacLeod