The Black Belt Thesis

<h3><strong>A portrait of worker solidarity in the South and of the fight for Black liberation.</strong></h3><p>In 1928 the Third International adopted a resolution on the right of self-determination for African Americans in the Black Belt in the southeastern US. Over the next decade this resolution guided the CPUSA's regional focus in the US South as a frontline organization in the struggle against white supremacy. This was a period of great experiments in building an independent multiracial working class movement in North America a movement that confronted the remnants of slavery under conditions that foreshadowed the fascism that would soon develop in Europe. Across the cities and rural areas of the US South communists engaged existing traditions of struggle and planted seeds for the growth of the movement against racism in the following decades.</p><p></p><p>This reader presents primary documents from the period to aid the study of the history theory and political application of the Black Belt thesis.</p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>EUGENE PURYEAR</strong> is a journalist activist politician and host on Breakthrough News. He is a founding member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and is the author of <em>Shackled and Chained: Mass Incarceration in Capitalist America.</em></p>