Pettis Perry papers 1942-1967

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Pettis Perry papers 1942-1967

http://archives.nypl.org/scm/20929

The bulk of the Pettis Perry Papers documents Perry's involvement in the Communist Party, especially his tenure in New York, from 1948 to 1955, as Secretary of the Negro Commission, Chairman of the Farm Commission, and Alternate Member of the Executive Commmittee, and his membership on the Southern California District Board upon his return to California in 1957. The papers comprise Perry's writings, assorted speeches, reports, memoranda, and letters from correspondents including Claude Lightfoot, Eugene Dennis, and Eslanda Robeson discussing various pertinent subjects such as party meetings, anti-colonial movements and the African-American community. Letters to his family during his incarceration in federal prison discussed current events such as the Emmett Till trial, colonialism, and the civil rights movement. Also included in the collection is biographical information as well as Perry's opening closing statements and motions from his trial.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Archives Section

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SNAC Resource ID: 6317211

Related Entities

There are 4 Entities related to this resource.

Communist Party of the United States of America

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6r31rnp (corporateBody)

The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), a Marxist-Leninist party aligned with the Soviet Union, was founded in 1919 in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution by the left wing members of the Socialist Party USA. These split into two groups, with each holding founding conventions in Chicago in September 1919: one which established the Communist Labor Party, and a second which established the Communist Party of America. In a 1920 Joint Unity Convention, a minority faction of t...

Perry, Pettis.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6fc8014 (person)

Pettis Perry, Communist Party official and Smith Act defendant, was born January 4, 1897 in Marion, Alabama, the son of tenant farmers. Following his mother's death when he was four months old, he was raised by an aunt and uncle on their farm. His formal schooling totalled fifteen months. At age seventeen, Perry left home for a series of jobs at a plantation, lumber company, and pipe foundry. The discrimination and violence he witnessed in Alabama had a deep impact on hi...

Communist International. Negro Commission

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6n05336 (corporateBody)

At the Fourth Congress of the Communist International (Comintern) in Moscow in 1922, the Jamaican-born poet Claude McKay called for an "international organization of the Negro" based in the United States, with its own weekly newspaper, defense clubs and cooperative enterprises, to assume the leadership of the anti-colonial struggle worldwide. An international Negro Commission was formed, and a call for a World Negro Congress was put forth. Meanwhile six leading African American civi...

Families of the Smith Act Victims Committee

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6d56z1k (corporateBody)