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. The organization attacked the segregationist practices of many of the unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor; it also campaigned against lynching, the disfranchisement of black Americans, and Jim Crow laws. The group was renamed the League of Struggle for Negro Rights in 1930.
Famous quotes containing the words american, negro, labor and/or congress:
“They are a curious mixture of Spanish tradition, American imitation, and insular limitation. This explains why they never catch on to themselves.”
—Helen Lawrenson (1904–1982)
“It is only when we speak what is right that we stand a chance at night of being blown to bits in our homes. Can we call this a free country, when I am afraid to go to sleep in my own home in Mississippi?... I might not live two hours after I get back home, but I want to be a part of setting the Negro free in Mississippi.”
—Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977)
“We belong to the community. It is not the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? and what object does it finally serve? No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)