Guide to the Southern Negro Youth Congress FBI Files, 1940-1981, undated

  1. Resources
  2. View Resource

ArchivalResource

Guide to the Southern Negro Youth Congress FBI Files, 1940-1981, undated

1940-1981, undated

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_265/tam_265.html

The Southern Negro Youth Congress (1937-1949) was formed in 1937 in Richmond, Virginia by young African American Communists and other young people. Prominent figures included James Jackson, Helen Gray, Esther Cooper, and Edward Strong. Over the next twelve years SNYC formed chapters in ten southern states with a total membership of 11,000 at its peak. In 1939 the SNYC moved their headquarters from Richmond Birmingham. The SNYC organized workers into labor unions, campaigned for anti-lynching legislation, registered voters, and protested segregation. During World War II they testified before the Fair Employment Practices Committee describing employment discrimination in the South. SNYC members also sponsored the Caravan Puppeteers, a political puppet show, to explain how rural blacks could secure the right to vote, and published a newsletter Cavalcade. The SNYC disbanded in 1949 as the political climate of the Cold War became increasingly hostile to radicalism. The collection consists of nineteen files created by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation that were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act that pertain to the FBI's surveillance of the Southern Negro Youth Congress and its members and sympathizers. Much of the material reflects the concern of the FBI regarding the influence of the Communist Party of the United States of America on and within the SNYC.

1 Linear Feet (1 box)

eng, Latn

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 6331506

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives

Related Entities

There are 5 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...

United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6mw65wc (corporateBody)

The FBI established this classification when it assumed responsibility for ascertaining the protection capabilities and weaknesses of defense plants. Each plant survey was a separate case file, with the survey, supplemental surveys, and all communications dealing with a plant insofar as plant protection was concerned, filed together. On June 1, 1941, and January 5, 1942, the Navy and Army, respectively, assumed responsibility for surveying defense plants in which they had interests. Thereafter, ...

Southern Negro Youth Congress

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gf5k2g (corporateBody)

Jackson, Esther Cooper, 1917-2022

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6wt16v7 (person)

Esther Cooper Jackson (born August 21, 1917 in Arlington, Virginia - died August 23, 2022) was an African-American civil rights activist, former social worker and, along with Shirley Graham Du Bois, W. E. B. Du Bois, Edward Strong, and Louis E. Burnham, was one of the founding editors of the magazine Freedomways, a theoretical, political and literary journal published from 1961 to 1985. She was married to James E. Jackson (1914–2007), an influential labor activist. The couple also known for thei...

Jackson, James E., 1914-2007

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6r21phq (person)

A former editor of the Daily Worker and member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party, U.S.A., James E. Jackson was educated at Howard University, Goddard College and Moscow University. He contributed many theoretical articles to the literature of the communist world, especially on issues of labor, the civil rights movement and the national question as it relates to Blacks in the United States. From the description of James E. Jackson writings, 1935-1985. (New York Public Lib...