This is part 12 of a series about Black communists in the Spanish Civil War. In the early 1930s the urban bourgeoisie (capitalists) of Spain, supported by most workers and many peasants, overthrew the violent, repressive monarchy to form a republic. In July 1936 the Spanish army, eventually commanded by Francisco Franco, later the fascist dictator, rebelled to reestablish the repressive monarchy. Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini's Italy gave Franco massive military aid.

In 1936 the International Communist Movement, called the Comintern, headquartered in the Soviet Union and led by Joseph Stalin, organized volunteers, mainly workers from more than 60 countries into the International Brigades (IBs) to go to Spain to defend the Republic. Black workers, especially Black communists, emphasized the importance of fighting racism to win anything for the working class. And they brought this antiracist fightback with them when they returned to the United States. They were building a movement they hoped would lead to communist revolution around the world. They succeeded in organizing millions around communist ideas and practices. But the movement believed that uniting with liberal bosses and fighting for “freedom and democracy” to defend the Republic in Spain would further the fight for communism. This was part of the united front against fascism, which resulted in only fortifying the bosses system and laid the basis for the corruption of the old communist movement.

In the Progressive Labor Party, we are against any unity with capitalists. They all have to go and the working class must rule: that's communism. If the working class is to seize and hold state power throughout the world, Black workers’ leadership is essential. That is the only way our class can destroy racism, the lifeblood of capitalism. The following is a story of one such leader, Thyra Edwards.

Black, woman worker,  organizer, and communist
Born in Texas in 1897, Thyra Edwards trained as a social worker, then as a labor organizer at Brookwood Labor College. In the early 1930s Edwards traveled to the Soviet Union. She declared:

The Soviet [Union] has made women free economically by giving them access to all types of employment. It has extended that freedom by freeing them from bearing children against their wishes.
It is necessary that [Black workers] in America give more attention to the Soviet solution of the race problem. The one thing is certain: that only in a Socialist society can [Black, Latin and Asian workers of the world hope for salvation and equality.

Sometime during the early 1930s Edwards secretly joined the Communist Party.
For Edwards, the Spanish Civil War represented the central battleground in the war against fascism. She went to Spain in early October 1937 to report on the conditions of Spanish children who had been evacuated from bombarded areas after their parents were killed.

Black women leadership builds internationalism
Before going, she declared:

“No force in the world today so threatens the position and security of women as does the rising force of fascism. Fascism degrades women.”: we are not on an inter-racial, save the Negro crusade but rather on an inter-national commission concerned with freedom and democracy for all kinds of people. Just now the Spanish people happen to be symbolic of all the rest of us. And certainly there isn't going to be any freedom and equality for Negroes until and unless there is a free world."

On October 20, 1937 she attended a convention of the National Assembly of Spanish Women against War and Fascism. When she rose to speak, about 3,000 women and children gave her a lengthy standing ovation as they shouted, with clenched fists raised, “Viva la Raza Negra!” Leading the ovation was Dolores Ibarurri Gomez, “La Pasionaria”, a communist whose impassioned speeches helped to rally Loyalist forces. Edwards wrote:

It was an overwhelming and tremendous expression of solidarity with [Black] people and with all peoples struggling for freedom and full emancipation and education and progressive development. ... For in truth Spain is the battlefield on which all our destinies are being fought just now, and fought with such relentless courage and such clarity of direction.

In Spain, Edwards discovered the limits of liberal capitalism when she asked whether the Republic would grant Morocco self-rule. Many Black Africans, called Moors: fought on the fascist side in the civil war. Franco, the fascist leader, was commander of the Spanish colonial army. A representative of the Spanish Republican government told her that they wanted help from France [they never got it], and France feared that if the Republic gave self-rule to the Moors, the same anti-imperialist demands would be made in the French colonies of North Africa. Capitalism, whether liberal or fascist, leads to nationalism and neither benefits the working class. Today the Progressive Labor Party fights for communism. No deals with capitalists!

After returning to the U.S. Edwards and nurse Salaria Kea (see CHALLENGE, 3/30) went on a tour of twenty-one cities to raise money for an ambulance to send to the Spanish Republic. Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, and Richard Wright contributed to the fund-raising campaign, Robeson making the first contribution of $250.

The publicity centered on Salaria Kea: A brave young Harlem Hospital nurse who went to Spain last year to do her bit in the world struggle against Fascism, returned on the S.S. Normandie of the French Line Monday, the rumble of guns still roaring in her ears and the stench of blood still in her nostrils.

Edwards wrote the booklet “A Negro Nurse in Republican Spain” about Kea.

A pamphlet titled “The Negro Ambulance Fund” connected the war in Spain to women’s rights: “Fascism stands for the subordination of women. Mussolini and Hitler have established that women have one exclusive function: To bear children for soldiers for the State … Under Fascist government not only trade unions are liquidated but fraternities, women’s federations, lodges, cooperatives, and peace organizations.”

The ambulance was inscribed, “From the Negro People of America to the People of Republican Spain.” On the speaking tour her lecture stressed the common interests of Black and white workers in their struggles to satisfy these needs.”

Black boss, white boss, same rotten nationalism
Edwards spoke to many CIO union groups. She was red-baited by Black “company union” boss C.W. Rice. The organizers targeted local nurses and doctors. They received much support from the Association of Colored Graduate Nurses but got almost none from the conservative National Medical Association, the “Black AMA.”Edwards had a strong class analysis:

 In a message that touted housing as a “social right' and health insurance as a “state responsibility,” Edwards praised the role of ladies' auxiliaries in recent sit-down strikes led by the CIO, and she noted that women had been shot down on the picket line a few months earlier in the Memorial Day Massacre outside Republic Steel's plant on the South Side of Chicago.

“… We had the fallacious idea that a black boss would be superior to a white boss when what we want is a democratic order with no boss with his heel on our necks.”

In organizing for a conference of Black groups Edwards stressed a class, rather than a nationalist, emphasis:

… disagree[ing] with the decision to … ignore the issues faced by the black working class. “… [S]tressing police brutality against Negroes in Washington is narrowing the basic issue of police brutality and ignoring their attacks of workers on picket lines, in strike zones, hunger marches and unemployment demonstrations.”

Struggle in later years
During World War II Edwards taught about the Soviet Union. In 1948 she and her husband moved to Italy, where she helped organized the first Jewish childcare program in Rome to assist child Holocaust victims.

Edwards died of breast cancer in 1953. Thyra Edwards' life and contribution to the communist internationalism demonstrates that Black women’s leadership is key to smashing racist capitalism and sexism to liberate the entire working class. Even the FBI, who monitored her work until her death, understood this and feared and attacked her and other Black communists like Claudia Jones, Paul Robeson. Now more than ever we must reject the twin dangers of Black nationalism and feminism, and carry the torch for communism as she once proudly did.

Sources: Gregg Andrews, Thyra J. Edwards; A. Donlon. “Thyra Edwards’ Spanish Notebook”; Erik McDuffie, Sojourning for Freedom; Salaria Kea: A Negro Nurse in Republican Spain. (pamphlet) - https://alba-valb.org/resource/salaria-kea-a-negro-nurse-in-republican-spain/  Wikipedia article on Thyra J. Edwards

Larry was born on October 12, 1944 in Levittown, NY to parents who had been around the Communist Party. He liked sports and was a pitcher for the Division Ave High School baseball team. He got his BA in education from Harpur College and a teaching credential. After graduation he drove south, stopping in Gulfport, Mississippi. He asked about a teaching job, and the recruiter advised him against it since it was an all-Black school. Not to be deterred by racism, Larry taught math for a year. Moving west, he taught first at Pelton Junior High in San Francisco and then at Presidio. Once he made a lesson plan using the percentages of Kentucky miners who contracted black lung disease and the profits the bosses made from the workers’ suffering. Other teachers followed his lesson plan in their classrooms. He also organized a multiracial group of young people to form a Little League team coached by three other young comrades and included his students in pick-up basketball games.

Fighting the KKK and Nazis
Larry fought racism by taking on the KKK and Nazis several times in the late 1970s and early 80s with Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and hundreds of workers and students. He was arrested in San Jose and a KKKop separated his shoulder. Possibly the biggest battle was organizing to stop a Nazi rally in Oxnard near Los Angeles. According to a veteran comrade: “When the cops attacked us, Larry came to my rescue. I couldn’t run ... Larry grabbed my arm and literally ran me to safety...we took refuge on the steps of an apartment building. A man came out and insisted we come in so the cops couldn’t arrest us. He gave us water and offered us food.”

Larry later taught at Balboa High and then at Lincoln where he regularly took students for bowling and pizza on Saturdays. He developed a CHALLENGE network with other teachers while other comrades sold CHALLENGE and leafletted the students outside. He brought some of them to May Day in Los Angeles.  He was elected to the teacher’s union executive board and helped develop a left caucus. Larry always got CHALLENGE out to people

After a few years the caucus defeated the old leadership. One main issue was the need to fight racism in the school district. The union represented classified paraprofessionals who were mostly Black and Latin women with lower pay and benefits while the majority of the teachers were white. The caucus raised that struggles must build unity among all workers and students. They eventually won that paras would be covered under the same wage and benefit proposals as the teachers in contract fights.

Summer projects in Delano, Watsonville, and Mississippi
During the summer Larry almost always went to projects that PLP teachers organized with students. Some memorable ones were among Latin farmworkers in Delano and striking cannery workers in Watsonville. One summer, fighting the Klan in Mississippi, Comrade G remembers: “Larry and I went to Tupelo with the International Committee against Racism and PLP.  It was a frightening time, and I was scared to death.  Larry became one of the most influential people there.  Thoughtful and calm, his presence helped the group focus and deal with problems as they arose.  This was a powerful contribution.”

Larry struggled with Bay Area comrades to “lead with CHALLENGE” and encouraged us to improve our distribution.  He led by example by developing a CHALLENGE route, dropping papers off at houses of friends and coworkers, libraries, stores and coffee houses. He promoted involvement in mass organizations.

Sing, study and distribute CHALLENGE
Larry sang and played the piano and guitar. He and comrade L sang together at most May Day dinners. She was a member of the Rockin’ Solidarity Labor Chorus and convinced Larry to join. He loved it! At rehearsals he distributed CHALLENGE during breaks. The Chorus was thrilled when Larry would take common songs and write parodies—and sometimes entire songs—to those tunes. These revisions were revolutionary and  whimsical. One of the songs he wrote was “The Working Class” to the tune of “Amazing Grace.”

More recently, Larry and other comrades formed a study group with members of the Chorus and from Larry’s school. A highlight was the discussion of the 10 PLP principles of CHALLENGE.  When people in the chorus were told about Larry’s death, the director and some members talked about Larry’s gift in writing songs—and that he, his wit, and his gift would be missed. One member of both the chorus and study group took over Larry’s job of distributing CHALLENGE at Rainbow Coop Grocery. Larry also worked in HEAT, a group devoted to keeping SF City College as a community asset for the whole working class. When Larry's passing on July 11  was announced, many HEAT members praised his years of dedication to City College and as a fighter against racism.

Larry and his wife enjoyed ballroom dancing and traveling.  He was proud of his son and two daughters and spoiled his seven grandchildren, five great grandchildren, nieces, and nephews.

Despite his illness Larry struggled with and encouraged his comrades forward. He was a proud communist until the end.

Miners in Alabama ordered to pay for bosses’ expenses
UMWA, 8/3–“This is a slap in the face not just to the workers who are fighting for better jobs at Warrior Met Coal, but to every worker who stands up to their boss anywhere in America,” UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts said. “There are charges for security, cameras, capital expenditures, buses for transporting scabs across picket lines, and the cost of lost production.

The union entered into a settlement agreement in June with NLRB Region 10 regarding charges the company had made about picket line activity...On July 22, the NLRB sent the union a detailed list of damages totaling $13.3 million dollars, more than 33 times the estimated amount NLRB lawyers had initially indicated would be assessed.
Warrior Met has reported millions of dollars in costs it has incurred over the course of the strike. “It appears that Warrior Met wants us to reimburse it for those costs, including costs it incurred before the strike even began,” Roberts said. “What’s extremely troubling here is that the NLRB appears to have taken up the company’s cause without a second thought.

Justice non-existent in assassination of Moise
World Politics Review, 8/11–This weekend will mark the first anniversary of the Aug. 14 earthquake in Haiti, which came just five weeks after the assassination of former President Jovenel Moise... Moise was killed on July 7 last year, when a gang of assassins went into his heavily secured house in an upscale neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. The killers somehow managed to get through the scores of security personnel meant to be protecting a president who knew he had many enemies. Not one of the officers meant to be guarding Moise was hurt.

Haitian authorities have arrested scores of people, including 18 former Colombian soldiers, who are believed to have acted as mercenaries, carrying out the assassination on behalf of a paymaster. They have not gone on trial.
Among the main suspects is Ariel Henry, currently both Haiti’s acting president and acting prime minister, but investigating a sitting prime minister under the current conditions is proving, shall we say, challenging. When officials have tried to question Henry, he has simply fired them. Other judges, prosecutors and witnesses have reportedly been threatened. Many, including the first judge investigating the case, have withdrawn from the investigation or gone into hiding. Another person of interest is Dimitri Herard, the current head of presidential security, who reportedly traveled to Colombia before the killing.

Anti-Muslim rapists and murderers released in India
BBC, 8/11–Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped and saw 14 members of her family being murdered by a Hindu mob during the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in the western Indian state of Gujarat, is back in the headlines.
On Monday, 11 convicts who were serving life sentences for rape and murder in the case, walked out of prison to a heroes' welcome. In a late-night statement on Wednesday, Bilkis Bano called the decision to free the men "unjust" and said it had "shaken" her faith in justice.

"When I heard that the convicts who had devastated my family and life had walked free, I was bereft of words. I am still numb," she said…Many have also pointed out that the release is in contravention of guidelines issued by both the federal government and the Gujarat state government - both say that rape and murder convicts cannot be granted remission. Life terms in these crimes are usually served until death in India.

Down with Kingmakers & nationalism
During one of my last days of summer break, I went to see Lauren Greenfield’s 2019 documentary The Kingmaker. We learned about the legacy of the infamous Marcos family, which has terrorized the working class of Philippines since the late 1960s. Following in the footsteps of the late, heinous Ferdinand Marcos, his son Bongbong—aided by his mother Imelda—campaigned for the 2016 vice presidency in an attempt to reclaim the family’s power. Soon after his opponent Maria Leonor Robredo won, in Trump-like fashion, Bongbong protested the official count with no avail.

Amid the overlay of interviews between the director and various political figures, Imelda Marcos, and workers, the corruption and devastation brought by the Marcos family and their aids (including the state apparatus) onto the Filipino people gave me pause. Familiar things included misinformation through social media, replacing history and upending the education system, and dangerous cult personalities justifying the state-sanctioned terror inflicted on communities. I instinctively recognized the same tactics used by the U.S. ruling class and inferred that today’s gruesome reality in the Philippines could very well be the near future of the U.S. as long as workers do not fight back and continue to let weak reforms misguide much-needed change.

After the film, we had a discussion that had an impact on me. Multiple workers from the Philippines spoke of their experience confronting intergenerational trauma and a lack of pride in the country on account of the horrific government. One person expressed deep frustration that in the Philippines, there is no reliable mainstream news source. They continued describing the racism they have experienced from non-Filipino and Filipino people alike. They recounted a trip to New York that was soured by workers in a Filipino store. Because of the language the person spoke—the same used by the Filipino government—they received an antagonistic response. It was clear that national and cultural boundaries isolated this person from those who are not so different, as we all have a common enemy in the Marcoses, Trumps, and Bidens of the world. People also went more in-depth about the martial law enacted by Ferdinand Marcos, permitting his administration to rule with an iron-fist and cement him as dictator for essentially 14 years. I also learned the causes of the large Filipino population in the U.S. (now understanding why I had many Filipino classmates and teachers throughout middle and high school). It was due to the complex and insidious relationship between the U.S. and the Philippines, leaving workers from the Philippines with alienation and resentment.

I spoke to my experience of recently broadening my perspective and analysis of systemic oppression beyond my community to the international working class and finding that an organized, antiracist, antisexist communist party is what is needed to tear down the crooked elite. Afterwards, I connected with multiple people, telling them of my work within the Baltimore West Wednesday Coalition to achieve accountability of police murders and described the Progressive Labor Party. Since the place that hosted the event is close to home, I intend to remain in touch and make inroads to building greater class consciousness among organizers.

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Top Gun: Maverick, recruitment tool
According to a recent article by William Koehler on MovieWeb, films that want access to aircraft carriers, fighter jets and skilled pilots need to get approval from the Department of Defense (DOD). In the first installment of Top Gun in 1986, “the US Navy saw a 500 percent increase in the number of people joining to be naval aviators.” They even had Navy and Air Force recruitment booths in some theaters showing the movies.

The DOD also has final say on the script, so if it’s not pro-U.S. military, it doesn’t get in the movie. Top Gun: Maverick concentrates on a combat mission to destroy an enemy target, an Iranian nuclear facility. The film assumes the U.S. government and its military are doing the right thing because there is no discussion about the political or historical ramifications. It glorifies the military and “the best in the world pilots,” who will uphold
U.S. imperialism at any cost. Propaganda films like Top Gun influence youths to join the military to do something heroic. The high tech killing machines are used to make warfare look “cool.”

But the reality is much different. The reality is that the bosses use the military to kill our sisters and brothers all over the world to ensure their blood profits. We must make it clear that the bosses use entertainment to weaponize their imperialist goals at our expense. Let’s build a communist alternative, join PLP!

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Weakening U.S. desperate for old world order
“The U.S. economy is based on profits from control of an imperialist empire of more than 750 military bases in over 100 countries and a military budget that dwarfs every other country (12 times larger than Russia’s). It provides 80 percent of the world’s weapons exports including military training to 40 of the most oppressive, anti-democratic governments on earth” (Jeff Cohen – Veterans For Peace, Summer 22).

The purpose of Nancy Pelosi’s Southeast Asia tour and recent “we got your back” message to Taiwan (see editorial, page 2) is to pledge protection against China and security for more billion dollar arms sales and military training not only to Taiwan but to Japan, Australia and South Korea to set up a Southeast Asian imperialist bloc to oppose Chinese economic expansion just as NATO’s imperialist bloc aims to prevent Russia’s expansion into Europe.

Joe Biden’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia had more to do with multi-billion profits for Raytheon and Boeing’s sales of missile systems and fighter planes to protect U.S. oil interests in the Middle East than any increase in oil production.

When U.S. imperialists scream about a return to “world order” and “democracy” they mean return to U.S. empire rule. The media flood of old and new U.S. war movies and how atomic bombing of Japan saved the U.S. are military propaganda. The military presence and nationalist flag waving at all events are really demands for worker’s blood to be shed once again to defeat  U.S. capitalist competitors. I believe however that the worldwide working class can turn the next imperialist profit war into a class war for a communist system of equality and worker’s power that will smash racist capitalism. Join PLP!

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Remembering Camacho & Delano Summer Projects
Two Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members attended the memorial for Epifanio Camacho, longtime PLP member and leader in the Central Valley in California, a major agricultural area populated by large numbers of immigrant farm workers from many different countries.

Like many other (then) younger Party members, I participated in the Delano-McFarland PLP Anti-Racist Summer Projects, which took place between 1984 and 1990. Volunteers lived with local PLP members, almost all of whom were farmworkers. In the summer, farmworkers labored in 100 degree plus weather, frequently wrapping themselves in layers of clothing for protection from the toxic pesticides used by the growers in order to maximize their profits. We frequently went to the fields early in the morning to reach farmworkers with CHALLENGE and flyers from the Anti-Racist Farmworkers’ Union, which was led by PLP and the International Committee Against Racism (InCAR). In the late afternoons, we would go door-to-door in areas where farmworkers lived. PLP and InCAR led numerous marches and rallies through these neighborhoods on the weekends or late afternoons. During the projects, which usually lasted over six weeks, intense political discussion and activity planning took place at regular Party meetings.

One day, the volunteers were invited to come to Camacho’s house. This was the first time I had the chance to meet him. Both physically and intellectually powerful and politically sharp as nails, I could see why bringing workers like Camacho into PLP was so important to the growth and development of our revolutionary communist movement.

At Camacho’s memorial, I spoke on behalf of PLP. I first read two tributes written by PLP comrades from Mexico (see CHALLENGE, 8/17). I then read my remarks. This is a part of what I said:
[Camacho’s] greatest contribution to our movement was to show that PLP was and is serious about the working class leading society. We think he understood from his own personal conversion that the process of that transformation required deep immersion in the class struggle. He led that fight with a fiery spirit second to none. [He] was an invaluable member of our class, our communist party and the worldwide movement to abolish capitalism, end exploitation and wage slavery and establish a worker-run and worker-led communist society. Rest in power, comrade Camacho!

Several of the people who participated in the Memorial spoke eloquently about their own experiences as young people volunteering in the Summer Projects. They testified emotionally about the profound impact the experiences had on them during their formative years, and how those events had shaped their future lives.

My comrade and I had a long, in-depth discussion with one of the members of a family I stayed with in 1989. Although he is no longer a member of PLP, our conversation made it clear that he is still a communist at heart. He described in great detail some of the militant actions the Party led, and the importance of having a mass base in the working class. At one of those actions, a cop who wanted to shut down the action radioed headquarters for approval. He was told, in no uncertain terms, that it would not be a good idea given who the cops were up against, i.e. PLP and militant, antiracist members of the working class.

In discussing this memorial with a comrade afterwards, I realized what a privilege it had been to be part of the celebration of the life of this wonderful comrade! Epifanio Camacho may be gone, but the fruits of his communist labors continue through all of us who took part in the PLP’s work in the Central Valley and way beyond.
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