Soviet Negro Republic

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1900 U.S. Census

The Soviet Negro Republic (also known as the Negro Soviet Republic) was a hypothetical future communist republic, proposed by some black communist activists in 1930s America. In 1945, the former leader of the Communist Party USA told the House Un-American Activities Committee that these proposals were not official party policy. During the 1960s, the far-right John Birch Society linked the burgeoning civil rights movement for Black Americans to plans for a "Soviet Negro Republic", claiming that the movement was a communist plot.

Origins

The position of

Jim Crow-style segregation and white chauvinism, and unhelpful in alleviating the position of black people in America at that time.[1][2]

A proposed communist republic within the "Black Belt" of the Southern United States was mentioned by James W. Ford and James S. Allen in The Negroes in a Soviet America (1935).[3] Ruled by black people under the principle of self-determination, it was hypothesized that the proposed republic might later favor federation with a communist United States. The proposal drew criticism for the implication that blacks were not really American, and for the idea that all blacks in America be relocated there.[4]

In 1945, former leader of the Communist Party USA, Earl Browder, told the House Un-American Activities Committee that official communist plans for a Soviet Negro Republic were false.[5]

Use by John Birch Society

2020 United States Census

The far-right

racist.[8] The California Eagle, an African-American newspaper, claimed that the campaign against King put the Society "out in the open as an active anti-Negro organization ... The Birchers are a little more subtle than the Klansmen but they are just as dangerous to our hopes for first class citizenship."[9]

See also

References