Haywood, Harry, 1898-1985

Black leader and former member of the American Communist Party, also known as Haywood Hall.

From the description of Harry Haywood papers, 1928-1985. (University of Michigan). WorldCat record id: 34423343

Born Haywood Hall in South Omaha, Nebraska, on February 4, 1898 to the formerly enslaved Haywood and Harriet Hall, Harry Haywood changed his name by taking both his parent's first names (Harriet became Harry) when applying for a passport in 1925 to travel to the Soviet Union. In 1917, Haywood was deployed to France during World War I. His return to home soil coincided with the 1919 race riots and thoroughly disillusioned him with the state of race relations in the United States. After brief memberships in the African Black Brotherhood and the Young Workers Communist League, Haywood became a member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) in 1925.

Haywood was the first person of African descent to be selected by the CPUSA to study at the Lenin School, where he learned Russian and studied Marxist theory. While there Haywood also helped develop a Marxist analysis of the so-called Negro Problem. He became a leading architect and proponent of the theory that Jim Crow and sharecropping oppressed blacks in the five Southern states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana where they were a majority of the population and that blacks had the right of self-determination, including the right to secede and form an independent nation. The Third Communist International (Comintern) adopted this position at its Sixth World Congress in 1928. However, by the 1950s, the CPUSA rejected this position and would eventually expel Haywood from the Party in 1959 due to his continuing battles against this abandonment. After his expulsion he continued to work with young radicals in the October League (reorganized as the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) in 1977) and the Black Power movement.

Haywood died on January 4, 1985. To the end, he continued to expound his theory on the National Question - the right of self-determination for African Americans in the South.

From the description of Harry Haywood papers, 1948-1981. (New York Public Library). WorldCat record id: 608251781