National Negro Congress
The National Negro Congress (NNC) was founded in 1935 as a response to ongoing racial discrimination affecting the black community, particularly in relation to New Deal programs. The organization emerged from a conference at Howard University, where community leaders recognized the need for better coordination among various groups advocating for racial justice. Its inaugural meeting took place in Chicago in February 1936, attracting 817 delegates from a wide array of organizations, including fraternal societies, political parties, religious groups, and unions.
Initially, the NNC focused on local grassroots activism, addressing issues such as housing discrimination, employment rights, and police brutality. Over time, it shifted towards a more national political agenda, advocating for legislation against lynching and supporting labor unionization efforts, particularly in the steel industry. Despite its aim to remain nonpartisan, the organization's increasing association with the Communist Party USA and its support for international political issues led to tensions and alienation among some of its initial supporters. Ultimately, the NNC played a significant role in advocating for the rights of African Americans during a critical period in U.S. history, although its evolution reflected the complexities and challenges of the civil rights movement.
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National Negro Congress
Identification Civil rights advocacy organization
Date Begun on February 14, 1936
The National Negro Congress brought together an alliance of leaders in the labor and union movements with activist clergy and businesspeople within the American black community. Its domestic political goals centered on opposing restrictive and unequal legal discrimination such as the Jim Crow laws.
The origin of the National Negro Congress dates to May, 1935, when a conference on the economic status of the black community was held at Howard University. At the conference, evidence was presented on continuing racial discrimination in New Deal programs. John P. Davis, secretary of the Joint Committee for National Recovery, and Ralph Bunche, chair of Howard’s department of political science, invited a group of community leaders to Bunche’s home following the meetings, where they agreed that better coordination of organizational activities was needed for effective movement toward racial justice. Davis wrote a pamphlet entitled Let Us Build a National Negro Congress, whose printing ran to fifty thousand copies.
The inaugural meeting of the congress was held in Chicago on February 14, 1936. The 817 delegates represented a hugely diverse range of organizations, from fraternal societies to political parties of all shades of opinion, religious groups, unions, and civic bodies. Despite this, there was substantial agreement that the intent of the nonpartisan congress was not to formulate another platform or ideology but to serve as a vehicle for the creation of a unified effort to promote progress for the black community from within its own ranks. Veteran activist A. Philip Randolph was elected president of the congress, although much of the administrative work was handled by Davis.
Fifty councils of the congress were established in nineteen states. Between 1936 and 1938, they focused on activism on local issues of discrimination in sectors as varied as housing and rent control, employment and professional training, textbooks with stereotyped images of African Americans, and police brutality. After 1938, the grassroots nature of the congress shifted to a more national political orientation, working to promote legislation banning lynching and promoting better working conditions. A major project in the latter area was to support directly the efforts of the Congress of Industrial Organizations to unionize the American steel industry, a position rooted in the congress’s prolabor orientation. While local National Negro Congresses worked successfully to aid in significant progress for their members within steel unions, and in many other unionized industrial professions, the degree of partisanship that was evident in 1938 and 1939 severely undermined the organization’s claim to neutrality. Another complicating factor was the association of the congress with the Communist Party USA, which had endorsed many of its objectives.
Impact
In the last years of the 1930’s, the National Negro Congress moved away from the mainstream politics of the United States and was on record as frequently supporting the antifascist actions taken by the Soviet Union. This attempt at introducing international political issues into an already explosive domestic civil rights environment alienated many who had initially supported the congress.
Bibliography
Horne, Gerald. “National Negro Congress.” In Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History. New York: Macmillan Library Reference, 1996.
Teal, Orion A. “ National Negro Congress.” In Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present. Vol. 3. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Wittner, Lawrence S. “The National Negro Congress: A Reassessment.” American Quarterly 22, no. 4 (1970): 883-901.