Civil Rights Congress

The Civil Rights Congress (CRC) was a United States civil rights organization formed in 1946 at a national conference for radicals. It succeeded the International Labor Defense, the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties, and the National Negro Congress. The group coordinated nationally but also included 60 chapters which acted on local issues.

The national CRC used a two-pronged strategy of litigation and demonstrations to call attention to racial injustice in the United States. The group organized campaigns in defense of Black Americans—such as the Trenton Six, the Ingram family, and Isaiah Nixon—that it believed had been sentenced unfairly. A major tactic was publicizing cases, like those of the Martinsville Seven and Willie McGee, in which Black men had been sentenced to death for questionable rape charges. The group succeeded particularly in raising international awareness about these cases. The CRC also defended political dissidents, including Communists. The group held high-profile protests in Washington, D.C., and at the United Nations, and brought world attention to racism in the United States by presenting the U.N. with a petition titled We Charge Genocide.

The CRC was perceived by some as an alternative or even competitor to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) because it worked on similar issues but embraced a wider range of issues and a larger coalition. Due to its Communist Party affiliations, the CRC was cited as subversive and communist by U.S. President Harry S. Truman's Attorney General Thomas Clark, as well as by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Targeted by the U.S. government, the group was weakened in 1951, and it disbanded in 1956.