The Young Radicals: A Symposium

...Conversations with Muslim leaders have convinced me that they properly appreciate the impregnability of the American power structure and the determination of the white ruling class, south and north, not to allow the black man any meaningful place in it...

...But even as we applaud we know that these fresh outbursts are only a pale reflection of the vigorous, militant Left that in the 1930s and during the war fought domestic and foreign fascism tooth and nail, the Left that drew its strength from the working class and helped create the Congress of Industrial Organizations...

...A lot of nonsense has been written about them because they profess no love for American whites...

...We feel that we owe no loyalty to a society whose continuing racist practices seek to make of us halfmen and half-women...

...Freedom rides, sit-ins, campaigns to abolish capital punishment and the House Un-American Activities Committee—all are reassuring signs that the entire nation has not yet been reduced to conformity...

...Their leaders seem dedicated and honest...

...Now there are at least two groups of radicals (and probably more) who do not fit into this category...

...Frustration is our staple diet, for we must sit and watch these leaders neglect golden opportunities because of a lack of militancy, vision and commitment...

...He is as fastidious as his predecessor in avoiding any type of militant action that his enemies might call communistic...

...Many of them actually thought they were coming to power...

...But for all the noise we make, we know that we also are largely ineffective and no real threat to the system...

...His objective is not to replace it, but to patch it up...

...When Patrice Lumumba is murdered before the eyes of the world, we demonstrate in the U. N., and we condemn Dr...

...He is usually a student or an intellectual with no roots, and little interest, in the labor movement...

...All this while the administration boasts of an economic upsurge...

...We raised money to send arms to Robert F. Williams, the former NAACP leader in Monroe, N. C., (now in exile in Cuba), and we are in implacable opposition to those leaders too timid to advise their black followers to defend themselves against all racist violence...

...If we serve any function at all it is to keep the fires of criticism lit under our recognized leaders who tend to grow complacent after they have had a chat with the President, and learned to call a few Congressmen by their Christian names...

...Few of us who admire their hard-headed militancy can subscribe to their entire program, some of which seems demagogic and shallow...

...while membership in theNAACP involves only the nominal payment of $2 a year...

...For many reasons, not the least of which was that they had serious and long-stand ing disagreements with the Communist party, the non-communist radicals chose not to fight...

...The fact that in the U. S. today a socialist is a rare bird not only testifies to the decline of the American Left, but is further evidence of the growing insularity and almost incredible backwardness of this modern industrial nation...

...They take it for granted that a planned society is healthier and more viable than capitalist chaos and drift...

...We regard Passive Resistance techniques as an effective weapon for focusing attention on racial injustice by garnering headlines, and by engaging the energies of many fine youths, but we do not consider that these techniques seriously challenge the entrenched white ruling class...

...So unrewarding have been his efforts that nowadays he hardly talks about socialism at all, but instead applies his efforts to separate issues, such as civil rights or capital punishment, which seem to contribute to the general progress...

...He looks upon the elimination of American racism as an end in itself and, until recently, he embraced the gospel of Passive Resistance as preached by Martin Luther King...

...Still they have succeeded in winning a large segment of the neglected and abused black working class, something no other organization has done, and to * The Muslims claim nearly half a million members, and their enemies (the spokesmen for the black middle class) concede them a quarter of a million members...

...In this period principle yielded to expediency...

...Finally, most of us would not have been caught dead voting for John F. Kennedy, and after the hair-raising events of 1961, we feel entitled to say we told you so...

...Although we are inaccurately termed "Black Nationalists," we belong to no party, have few followers, and as yet no comprehensive program with which to appeal to our people...

...It is as if material wealth had dulled the sensibilities of an entire population...

...It is against the political vacuum that was created in the middle fifties that we must consider the Young Radical of today...

...The fact remains that they are over-shadowed by the massive anti-bomb demonstrations in Great Britain, a prosperous capitalist nation like our own...

...The result was that for a decade American reactionaries had a field day chopping off the heads of their enemies, who were not only the bona-fide Communists, but anybody just a hair's-breadth to the left...

...It should be pointed out, though, that Black Muslim religious discipline controls the entire lives of its adherents (that is, choice of occupation, allocation of salary, type of dress, deportment toward fellow adherents, and non-adherents, etc...

...He taught the now silent radicals that the meat grinder of reaction feeds just as well on Pink meat as on Red...

...the extent that they shake the moderate black leaders out of their complacency and keep the Young Radicals on their toes, the Muslim challenge is welcome...

...I'm not a Communist, but--" became standard conversational equipment for the radical...

...The question persists: What happened to the militant Left after the war...

...This closely-knit, disciplined group is almost entirely working-class in membership and orientation...

...Surely an important part of the explanation lies in the postwar economic prosperity of the country, but I should like to suggest another reason that may help to explain the seeming rootlessness and lack of tradition that characterizes the Young Radical today...

...It is too early to say how the Muslims will use the tremendous power they are acquiring, or even if they will be a force for progress...

...During this hysterical period Senator Joseph McCarthy proved himself a great educator...

...The second group that should not be ignored is the Black Muslims who, in the context of this discussion, may have the best credentials to claim the title "radical...

...We feel we have a stake in anti-colonial movements all over the world, and we do not ask State Department approval before voicing our support of Nkrumah, Toure, Nasser, and Castro...

...They want land and indemnification for 250 years of American slavery...

...Leftist and liberal organizations launched their own Red hunts to cleanse themselves before the professional Red hunters could get to them...

...The first, with whom I may be identified, is the relatively small group of black radicals, mostly writers and artists, working in the large urban centers...

...Within the next two years its membership will almost certainly surpass that of the NAACP, if it does not already.* They are determined to be taken seriously...

...This is all quite fanciful, but before we laugh we should consider that the Muslims are the fastest growing organization among Afro-Americans...

...They know that it is farcical to regard the integration of a few schools and lunch counters as progress while the unemployment rate among Afro-Americans is from three to six times higher than that of whites in northern industrial centers...

...Consider, for example, how few of our fellow citizens manifest any concern that human civilization may be pulverized in a nuclear war at any hour...

...Ralph Bunche for presuming to apologize for us...

...It is that the noncommunist Left threw in the sponge about fifteen years ago when the reactionaries launched an all-out attack on the Communist party and its closest allies...

...They are not seeking to accommodate themselves to the system, or even to reform it, but to leave it altogether...

...We know that today most of the world's people are groping toward one form of socialism or the other...

...I do not mean to minimize the activities of any of the pacifist organizations or of individuals who have taken a forthright stand for peace and disarmament...

...The question that confounds them is how to move rapidly toward socialism without sacrificing humanitarian ideals...

...He has entered the political arena without a long tradition of struggle or a clear idea of what he wants...

...I am always astonished when I listen to the reminiscences of the "retired" communists and socialists of the period...

...Membership figures alone do not, of course, convey the full story of trends among Afro-Americans...

...And it is well to remember that it was neither liberals nor radicals who engineered McCarthy's downfall, but conservatives who had plans of their own in which the vulgarian senator did not figure...

...The powerful labor movement expelled unions wholesale, proclaimed itself neutral politically and, much to the satisfaction of the corporate rulers, tied the wages of its members to the cost of living...

...Since the Second World War the American radical has had the unenviable task of having to advocate socialism in the midst of capitalist plenty...

...The Young Radical seldom questions the capitalist system, only its most obvious defects...

...NAACP membership, under the leadership of aging Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins, declined by 15,000 members in 1961 to 375,000...

...The non-communist radicals were faced with a dilemma: cooperate with the Communists by resisting the attack of the Right, and thereby risk being labelled themselves as willing or unwilling agents of the Soviet Union, or leave the extreme Left to fend for itself...