Haywood, Harry

Harry Haywood was born in South Omaha, Nebraska, on February 4, 1898, the son of former slaves. He was a soldier in France during World War I and arrived home during the 1919 riots in Chicago. His experiences led him to become involved in the revolutionary African Blood Brotherhood. Attracted by the Russian Revolution, he joined the Young Communist League in 1923 and later the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA).

He spent four and one half years in the Soviet Union where he studied at the Lenin School. While working with the Comintern during the late 1920s, he developed a theoretical framework for the Black liberation movement in the United States and South Africa. Haywood's major thesis revolved around his assertion that a Black nation existed in the Deep South of the United States. He considered the Blacks of the Deep South as constituting an oppressed nation, placing the Black struggle in the fight against all forms of national oppression, including the right for self-determination. As the first American communist to assert this position, Haywood helped write the draft for the 1928 resolution on the Negro question in the United States. His draft was adopted by the Communist International with some reluctance by the CPUSA.

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