141. Yergan to Jackman, 9 May 1943, Cullen-Jackman Ms Collection, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center, Wilson N. Flemister, Head, Archives and Special Collections. Yergan to Spingarn, 12 May 1944; Edward Franklin Frazier Papers, MSRC/HU, Box 131-30, Jeanetta Welch Brown, National Council of Negro Women, to Yergan, 19 May and 5 and 19 June 1944; Records of the NCNW, Series 5, Box 38, Folder 542, Bethune Museum and Archives, Washington, D.C.; “There Is a Basis for Solution of Anglo-American Trade Problems,” Daily Worker, 8 June 1944; “The Colonial Peoples and World Production Possibilities,” Daily Worker, 22 June 1944; “National Negro Congress Asks Fourth Term for FDR,” People’s Voice, 27 May 1944, 10; Yergan to E. Roosevelt, 30 June 1934; E.R. (Secretary) to Yergan, 7 July, 1944. Max tried meeting with E.R. on Negro reelection strategy; she declined.
142. Edward Lawson, a staff member of the New York CRFE Regional Office told the gathering how many workers would be made redundant at war’s end: more than one million from the shipping industry, of whom 125,000 were Black; one million from the ordnance and communications industry, of whom 65,000 were Black; 20,000 Negro metal workers, 100,000 from munitions and 50,000 from various government war agencies. These 500,000 unemployed Negro civilians would be joined by one million African-American vets, all seeking gainful employment. Streater, “National Negro Congress,” chapter 6, 214–15; “Negro Congress Acts to Preserve War Gains,” People’s Voice, 20 January 1945, 12.
143. “NNC Adopts Unity Program,” People’s Voice, 3 February 1945, 15.
144. “Negro Red Leader Divorced in Reno,” New York World Telegram, 28 February 1945.
145. “Max Yergans Split,” People’s Voice, 10 March 1945, 11.
146. “Parley on Colonies Called by NAACP,” People’s Voice, 31 March 1945, 5.
147. Max Yergan, President, National Negro Congress, to Harry S. Truman, 13 April 1945. Harry S. Truman Papers, President’s Personal File, Truman Library, Independence, Missouri. Subsequently, Jonathan Daniels, Truman’s secretary and Yergan’s fellow Raleighan, told a White House staffer that he knew the NNC president well, and that indeed “Yergan is the leading Negro Communist in the country today.” A[ubrey].W[illiams]. to Mr. Hassett, n.d., President’s Personal File, Harry S. Truman Papers.
148. “Franklin D. Roosevelt: His Monument and Lessons,” People’s Voice, 21 April 1945, 16.
149. “Excerpt from Report of FBI, date San Francisco, May 19, 1945,” Ralph Johnson Bunche Papers, Box 180, Folder— Yergan/Additional Data, UCLA.
150. Interview, Herbert Aptheker, 16 September 1988, 480 N. First St., San Jose, California.
151. “Here’s What the Great Victory Means to the Negro,” Victory in Europe Section, People’s Voice, 12 May 1945, 6.
152. “Yergan Points Out Dangerous Emphasis,” People’s Voice, 19 May 1945.
153. “Real Peace Basis Won, Says Yergan,” People’s Voice, 26 May 1945, 3.
154. “British Plan Opposed as Dangerous,” People’s Voice, 16 June 1945.
155. Proceedings, National Conference of Negro Leaders, 23 June 1945, Records of the National Council of Negro Women, Series 5, Box 24, Folder 359, Bethune Archives, Washington, D.C. In addition to Mrs. Bethune, the call for the conference was issued by Adam Clayton Powell Jr., William Dawson, John Sengstacke, Marshall Shepard, Tobias, Yergan, and White. See “Leaders Call for Conference,” People’s Voice, 23 June 1935, 4.
156. Yergan, Guest Editorial, “British Labor Victory and the Colonies,” People’s Voice, 4 August 1945, 14.
157. “Peace Settlement of Colonies Urged: Program for Africa Sent to State Department,” People’s Voice, 15 September 1945, 5.
158. Council on African Affairs to “Dear Friend,” E. Franklin Frazier Papers, MSRC/HU, Box 131-330, Council on African Affairs.
159. Yergan to Wright, 31 October 1945, James Weldon Johnson Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
160. Revels Cayton to Mervin Rathbone, 21 December 1945, NNC Papers, Part II: Records and Correspondence, 1943–45, Reel 36, folder 54, Correspondence, 1946, Box 72, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
161. “Robeson, Anderson Pack ‘Aid to Africa Meeting,’“ People’s Voice, 12 January 1946, 12.
162. “Food on Way,” People’s Voice, 2 February 1945; “Starving Africans Sent Food, Cash by New York Council,” Chicago Defender, 2 February 1946.
163. “Britain to Get Food from Starving Africa,” People’s Voice, 23 February 1945. Yergan reported that in the previous month Field Marshal J. C. Smuts had launched a campaign to spend $8 million on gifts of food to be sent to Britain while doing nothing for African famine victims. In reply the Council on African Affairs (CAA) considered picketing the British Consulate. “Let’s Picket for Africa, Ben Davis Clubs Suggest,” People’s Voice, 2 March 1946, 9; “Seamen to Spearhead Fight for Africans,” People’s Voice, 2 March 1946, 7.
164. “African Food Needs as Urgent as Europe’s,” People’s Voice, 9 March 1946, 5.
165. “Churchill Gets ‘No!’ to Next War Build-up,” People’s Voice, 16 March 1946, 3.
166. “Forum on Africa At Forest House,” People’s Voice, 16 March 1946, 8.
167. “Robeson Asks for Food Aid in South Africa,” People’s Voice, 23 March 1946.
168. “New York CIO Board Greets May 5 Rally,” People’s Voice, 4 May 1946, 3.
169. “British Trusteeship Called Land Grab,” People’s Voice, 11 May 1946, 5.
170. “Colonial Empires Assailed in Rally: Communist-Controlled Council Says U.S. Aids Others in ‘Plundering’ Africa,” New York Times, 7 June 1946, 7:1.
171. George Schuyler, “Views and Reviews,” Pittsburgh Courier, 8 June 1946.
172. Doxey Wilkerson, “Negro-Labor United Hits High in Detroit,” People’s Voice, 8 June 1946.
173. “More Food For Africa! Cry 15,000 at Garden,” People’s Voice, 15 June 1946; Adam Clayton Powell, “Soapbox, in Washington,” People’s Voice, 22 June 1946.
174. “Africans Thank Robeson, Yergan,” People’s Voice, 20 July 1946, 15.
175. Padmore to Du Bois, 9 August 1946, in Herbert Aptheker, ed., The Correspondence of W. E. B. Du Bois, vol. 3, Selections, 1944–1963 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1978), 146–47.
176. Robert R. Edgar, ed., An African-American in South Africa: The Travel Notes of Ralph J. Bunche, 28 September 1937–1 January 1938 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992).
177. Telephone interview, Phyllis Jordan Ntantala, Madison, Wisconsin, 20 May 1974. At the time, Ntantala, widow of the South African Xhosa-speaking writer and Wisconsin professor of African Languages and Literature, A. C. Jordan, lived in Middleton, a town adjoining the state capital, Madison. A Life’s Mosaic: The Autobiography of Phyllis Ntantala (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).
178. Yergan to Bethune, 12 July 1946, National Negro Congress Papers, Series II, reel 31, Box 66, Folder, “To Be Filed.” Bethune to Yergan, 1 August 1946, Records of the National Council of Negro Women, Series 5, Box 38, Folder 542, Bethune Archives; copy in NNC Papers, Series II, reel 31, Box 66, “To Be Filed.” Dorothy K. Funn to Yergan, 8 August 1946, NNC Papers, Ser. II, reel 31, Box 66, “To Be Filed.” Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
179. M. M. Bethune to Yergan, 15 November 1946, Records of the National Council of Negro Women, Series 5, Box 38, Folder 542, Bethune Archives, Washington, D.C.
180. “Dr. Xuma Fights Smuts Proposal,” People’s Voice, 9 November 1946, 3, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
181. “Harlem Rally Hears General Smuts Blasted,” People’s Voice, 23 November 1946, 5; “Smuts Defies UN on African Plan, People’s Voice, 23 November 1946; “African Plan Assailed,” Chicago Sun, 23 November 1946.
182. Cayton to Yergan, 23 January 1947, NNC Papers, Part II, Records and Correspondence, 1943–47, folder 55, Correspondence 1947, Box 72.
183. On Claudia Jones see Notes on the Life and Times of Claudia Jones; Buzz Johnson, I Think of My Mother (London: Karia Pr
ess, 1985); Angela Davis, “Communist Women,” in Women, Race, and Class.
184. “ ‘Hysteria’ Is Behind Arrest Says Alien Red,” People’s Voice, 31 January 1947.
185. “West Indians Here Say Deportations May Affect Large Numbers,” People’s Voice, 7 February 1947.
186. Funn to Yergan, 22 February 1947, NNC Papers, Part 2, 1943–47, Reel 36, Folder 59, Funn, Dorothy, 1947, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
187. “Ban on Communism Step towards Fascism,” People’s Voice, 22 March 1947, 15.
188. Yergan to “Dear Friend,” 15 April 1947, NNC Papers, Part II, Folder 55, Correspondence 1947, Box 72, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
189. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Un-American Activities, Testimony of Walter S. Steele regarding Communist Activities in the United States. Hearings before Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, First Session, on HR 1884 and HR 2122, Bills to Curb or Outlaw the Communist Party, 21 July 1947 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1947). Robert Carr, The House Un-American Activities Committee (New York: 1952), 52–55; Walter Goodman, The Committee: The Extraordinary Career of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (New York: 1968), 190–225.
190. “Max Yergan Quits Negro Congress,” People’s Voice, 15 November 1947.
191. People’s Voice, 3 January 1948.
192. Robeson to “Dear Max,” 2 January 1948, in Ruby Pagano, “Max Yergan, a Biography,” n.d. (ca. 1975). Copy in author’s possession.
NOTES TO CHAPTER 6
1. People’s Voice, January 3, showcased the management and staff of the New People’s Voice; “People’s Voice Policy Assailed by Former Editor,” California Eagle, 8 January 1948.
2. Telegram, Yergan to E. Franklin Frazier, 29 January 1948, E. Franklin Frazier Papers, MSRC/HU; telegram, Robeson to Yergan, Omaha, 14 April 1948, Paul Robeson Papers; “Yergan Fights Red Grab,” “Yergan Supported in Council Fight,” People’s Voice, 17 April 1948; CAA News Release, 21 April 1948; “Battles Left Wing for Group’s Office,” New York Times, 26 May 1948; “No Cause for Action,” New York Times, 2 June 1948; “Yergan Accuses Five of Assault,” New York Times, 20 June 1948; “Court Frees 3 Men Accused by Yergan,” New York Times, 29 June 1948; Yergan Seeks Court Aid: Asks Invalidation of Ouster from African Affairs Post,” New York Times, 25 August 1948; “Two Yergan Suits United: CAA Case to Be Heard September 20,” New York Times, 26 August 1948.
3. Frederick Woltman, “Yergan Denounces Commies as Wreckers,” New York World-Telegram, 13 October 1948; “American Negro on Race Relations Mission,” Pittsburgh Courier, 14 October 1948.
4. Records of U.S. Attorneys and Marshals: Transcripts of Grand Jury Testimony in Alger Hiss Case, Record Group 118, Dates 1947–1949, Box 4, Federal Grand Jury Southern District of New York, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, MO. Russell Porter, “Spy Case Jury Hears Sayre Then Recesses till January 3,” New York Times, 23 December 1948. Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Knopf, 1978)
5. Testimony of Max Yergan, 4 January 1949, Records of U.S. Attorneys and Marshals.
6. Memorandum, Yergan to South African government, 30 March 1949, Yergan File, State Department.
7. Phelps Stokes to Yergan, 30 April 1949, Anson Phelps Stokes Papers, Box 128, Folder 2304, Manuscripts & Archives, Sterling Library, Yale University.
8. Phelps Stokes to Yergan, 30 April 1949, Anson Phelps Stokes Papers, Box 128, Folder 2304, Manuscripts & Archives, Sterling Library, Yale University.
9. Yergan to Phelps Stokes, 4 May 1949, Anson Phelps Stokes Papers, Box 128, Folder 2304, Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Library, Yale University.
10. Yergan to Anson Phelps Stokes, 16 May 1949, Anson Phelps Stokes Papers, Box 128, 2304, Manuscripts & Archives, Sterling Library, Yale University.
11. D. D. Forsyth to H. E. North Winship, U.S. Ambassador, CT Confidential Enclosure to Despatch No. 74 (Cape Town Series), dated June 7, 1949, from American Embassy, Cape Town, South Africa; Despatch No. 74 American Embassy (Cape Town Series) Cape Town, Union of South Africa, 7 June 1949, Confidential Subject: Request of Dr. Max Yergan for permission to Enter the Union of South Africa, 848A.111/6-749 State Department Decimal File, NARA.
12. “Items about the Negroes (Culled by X): Politics: Yergan versus Robe-son,” Ilanga lase Natal Ngongqibelo, 18 June 1949.
13. Acheson to AMEMBASSY, Pretoria, A-127, 8 August 1949, Reference to American Embassy’s Despatch No. 74 dated June 7, 1949, concerning the Communist tendencies of Dr. Max Yergan. Confidential RG 59, State Department Decimal File, Max Yergan, 848A.111/6749, NARA, 18 August, Jack Neal, Chief of Security, State Department to JEH re. Max Yergan.
14. Yergan, “ICFTU’s Opportunity in Africa,” International Free Trade Union News 5:5 (May 1950).
15. “ICFTU’s Opportunity in Africa,” 8.
16. “ICFTU’s Opportunity in Africa.”
17. “ICFTU’s Opportunity in Africa.”
18. George S. Schuyler, Black and Conservative: The Autobiography of George S. Schuyler (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1966), 317.
19. Yergan, “Negroes and Democracy in the U.S.,” International Free Trade Union News 5:11 (November 1950): 8.
20. Peter Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy: The Congress on Cultural Freedom and the Struggle for the Mind of Postwar Europe (New York: Free Press, 1989), 51; Schuyler, Black and Conservative, 324–25.
21. Minutes, Congress for Cultural Freedom, Brussels, November 1950. I am grateful to Peter Coleman for supplying me with an extract of these. The French text ran as follows:
M. MAX YERGAN a souligné que le Congrès devrait indiquer clairement qu’il desire collaborer avec des personnes qui se trouvent dan les pays de l’Est, mais qui croient intensément aux idées de liberte et qui, luttent aussi pour elles.
D’autre part, M. Yergan a exprimé l’idée que ce serait une grave erreur de considérer différemment l’Afrique et les autres parties du monde. Nous devons faire comprendre très clairementaux peuples d’Afrique, a-t-il, que nos croyances en la liberté de la culture ne sont pas limitées aux seuls pays de l’Ouest.
Peter Coleman to Anthony, 18 April 1994.
22. Anson Phelps Stokes to Yergan, 13 November 1950, Anson Phelps Stokes Papers, Box 128, Folder 2304, Manuscripts & Archives, Sterling Library, Yale University.
23. Yergan to “Dear Ralph,” 21 November 1950; Bunche to Yergan, 23 November 1950, Ralph J. Bunche Papers, UCLA. Courtesy R. R. Edgar.
24. “Famous Negroes Married to Whites,” Ebony 2:5 (December 1950).
25. “Ralph Johnson Bunche, Peacemaker,” Phelps Stokes Papers, MS Group 299, Series III, Box 180, Folder 158, Dinner in honor Ralph Bunche, Sterling Library, Yale University.
26. Pearl Kluger to Burnham, 8 February 1951; Burnham to Herb Passin, February 16, 1951; Ram Swalup to Burnham, 6 March 1951, Burnham Papers, Box 8, folder 6, Congress for Cultural Freedom, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
27. “American Racial Policy and the Situation of American Negroes,” International Congress of Free Trade Union News.
28. “American Racial Policy and the Situation of American Negroes.”
29. Address, Max Yergan, Indian Congress for Cultural Freedom, March 28–31, 1951 (Bombay: Kanada Press, 1951), 32–33.
30. Robert Trumbull, “India Parley Links Food and Freedom” and “Cultural Congress Speakers Say Democracies Lag in Fight on Communism in Asia,” New York Times, 29 March 1951.
31. Yergan to Eleanor Roosevelt with attachments, 2 May 1951, Eleanor Roosevelt Collection, Box 3956, General Correspondence (1951, Y), FDR Library, Hyde Park. He also included the article, “Totalitarianism Menaces Freedom of Thought,” American Reporter, 4 April 1951, 11.
32. Confidential Memorandum Dr. Max Yergan (prepared by Robert Morris), 5 June 1951, National Archives.
33. Confidential Memorandum Dr. Max Yergan (prepared by Robert Morris), 5 June 1951, National Archives.
; 34. “Negroes Should Shun Reds as ‘Conspiracy,’ Yergan Tells Senators,” Washington Evening Star, 14 May 1952; “Ruse on Negroes Laid to Conspiracy,” New York Times, 14 May 1952.
35. Handwritten statement dated 13 May 1952, Max Yergan Papers, MSRC/HU.
36. Yergan to Lovestone, 5 June 1952, Jay Lovestone Papers, RG 18-0033 Box 677, Folder 21, George Meany Memorial Archives, Silver Spring, Md.
37. Albert Jolis, A Clutch of Reds and Diamonds: A Twentieth-Century Odyssey (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1996). Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York.
38. Yergan to Lovestone, 6 May 1952, Jay Lovestone Papers, RG 18-003 (Lovestone), Box 677, Folder 21, George Meany Memorial Archives, Silver Spring, Md.
39. Yergan to Wright, Paris, 7 June 1952, James Weldon Johnson Collection, Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Yale University.
40. Lovestone to Yergan, 9 June 1952, Jay Lovestone Papers, RG 18-0003 (Lovestone), Box 677, Folder 21; Lovestone to Yergan, 6 September 1952, George Meany Memorial Archives, Silver Spring, Md.
41. Jolis, A Clutch of Reds and Diamonds, 315.
42. Jolis, A Clutch of Reds and Diamonds, 316.
43. David Bopape, secretary of the East Rand District Committee of the Communist Party and editorial board member of the Communist Party newspaper Inkululeko, was at one time a member of the National Executive of the ANC. Unlike stalwarts A. P. Mda, Nelson Mandela, James Njongwe, Walter Sisulu, and Oliver Tambo, a Youth League planner of the action program, Bopape was subsequently revealed as an informant.
44. “Ruse on Negroes Laid to Reds,” New York Times, 14 May 1952, 12.
45. “ ‘Reds Used Me 10 Years’—Yergan,” Journal and Guide, 24 May 1952.
46. Institute of Pacific Relations, Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 82 Congress, Second Session, Part 13, April 2, 4l, 5, 7, 8, May 15, 18, 19, and 29, 1952, “Testimony of Max Yergan, Ossining, N.Y.,” 13 May 1952, 4596–97.
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