[Marxism] Re: Role of CPUSA in US Civil Rights Struggle

[dwalters@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Ann Braden. My parents were members of the Southern Conference Educational Fund
(SCEF), so as a kid, I worked extensively on SCEF fund raising in the "Red
Belt" of NY: Westchester County, where hundreds of ex- and current CPers moved
during the McCarthy period: basically Yonkers (where Gun Hall lived) to Croton
(where Pete Seeger lived). My parents would hold yearly fund raisers for these
rather well-to-do CP types and other progressives to support the work of SCEF.
Ozzie Davis and Ruby Dee, Harry Belefonte, etc, were regular attendees...and
Ann Braden.

SCEF was really independent, albeit inclinded, toward the CP. It actually did
very serious union organizing and did so *in opposition* to the CP's general
outlook on this: they organized unions, or attempted to, in the South *outside*
the AFL-CIO, via independent unions. If my memory serves me correctly, SCEF was
based in Louisville or some other southern city, a sort of 'northern'
observation deck, somewhat safe physically, from the near-fascists who opposed
SCEFs work.

Sometime in the late 1970s, the Maoist October League packed a meeting of SCEF
and kicked out all it's old organizers and destroyed the organization. Ann
Braden and her husband I believe, then set up another rival group to carry on
the traditions of SCEF, but I don't think it went anywhere.

David Walters



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