On 13 January 1939, Lovett Fort-Whiteman, the first US-born Black member of the Communist Party (CP) died in a gulag in the Soviet Union. He was born in 1889 in Texas, to a father who was previously enslaved, and later moved to the Yucatán Peninsula to work in the hemp industry during the Mexican revolution, where he learned both Spanish and syndicalism – revolutionary unionism. Returning to the US he joined the Socialist Party, as well as the Industrial Workers of the World union, and later the CP, whose prior Black members were all from the Caribbean. Fort-Whiteman became a well-known organiser, travelling around the country giving speeches to working class and church audiences advocating for socialism and arguing against American Federation of Labor unions barring Black members. He also founded the American Negro Labor Congress to fight segregation and lynchings, and build Black union membership. Time magazine described him as "the Reddest of the Blacks", and quoted him as saying that Black workers were "suffering all the abuses of the working class in general, but in addition to that, racial abuses, racial discrimination, political disfranchisement and other racial oppression." He became extremely fond of Russian culture and clothing, married a Russian woman and later moved to the USSR. There he worked in various professions including as a screenwriter and a fish breeding researcher. He became embroiled in various political disputes within the US and Russian CPs, and in 1937 he requested permission to return home, then disappeared. Documents uncovered after the fall of the USSR showed that he had first been exiled to Kazakhstan, and later sentenced to five years hard labour at the Sevostlag gulag in Siberia. One of his fellow detainees claimed that Fort-Whiteman was often unable to fulfil his labour requirements and beaten as a result, became emaciated and lost all of his teeth. His death certificate says that he died of "heart failure."
Lovett Fort-Whiteman dies - WCH | Stories
#LovettFort-Whiteman #CommunistParty #SocialistParty #Caribbean