In the Cause of Freedom by Makalani Minkah;

Author:Makalani, Minkah;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2010-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

The International Conference of Negro Workers

Several of the black delegates to the Frankfurt Congress held a series of meetings on their final two days in Frankfurt to lay the basis for reviving the stalled ICNW. Along with Rosemond, Patterson, Kouyaté, Burroughs, and Kenyatta, participants included Sen Katayama, a representative from the Chinese Workers Union, and an Indian National Congress member named Gupta. The meetings conveyed a sense of the potential international reach of the proposed ITUCNW. The British member of Parliament Shapurju Saklatvala urged that the ICNW meet in London, while the Algerian Communist Abdelkader Hadj Ali, perhaps with the African radicals in France in mind, suggested Paris. The group elected Ford to chair a committee to discuss options with the LAI’s Reginald Bridgeman and Labour Party member of Parliament James Maxton.71

To black Communists, the ICNW signaled a new turn in international communism’s approach to the Negro and race. Patterson captured the feeling best when he described the conference as the “internationalisation of the Negro problem” with a program that would stress to black workers globally “the commonality of interests between their struggle and those of the oppressed toiling masses of other colonies” and of European workers.72 The call to the conference conveyed this internationalist impulse, requesting that “all sympathizing organisations of all nationalities … send their fraternal delegates” and suggesting that the goals of this international organization were much broader than just organizing black workers. Indeed, the organizational participants listed included the LDRN, ANLC, and Kenyatta’s Central Kikuyu Association as well as the Indian National Congress and the All-China Trade Union Federation.73

Over the next year, work on the ICNW proceeded at a dizzying pace. Although it was originally planned for twenty-five delegates to meet in October 1929 in Germany, it soon became clear that not enough work had been done on the conference, and it was postponed until the following July in London. In the interim, Ford returned to the United States to take control of the Trade Union Unity League’s Negro Department. Black Communists in the United States selected Padmore to work on the conference organizing committee, a decision that would catapult him onto the world stage.74

Padmore’s work over the previous year or so had caught the attention of U.S. party leaders. Along with organizing in Harlem and on Howard University’s campus, he showed an expansive intellect and a grasp of world events as they related to Africa that set him apart from his fellow black Communists. Padmore was relatively inexperienced as an organizer, but he soon emerged as a competent news writer. Moreover, his ability to get black delegates to attend the Trade Union Unity League’s August 1929 convention showed great promise. The CPUSA’s William Z. Foster decided to take Padmore with him to Moscow, where he would give a report on the Trade Union Unity League convention. He was selected to work on the ICNW in part because of his promise; plus, he was already in Moscow. His energy and political acumen had so impressed his

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