Max Yergan: Race Man, Internationalist, Cold Warrior

Progressive Leader, 1936–1948 [Includes Image Plates]

Progressive Leader, 1936–1948 Upon returning to the United States Max Yergan fully dedicated himself to a life of left-wing activism. This took three forms. First, he deepened his connection to the National Negro Congress, becoming first its Harlem and then its national representative. Second, he concentrated upon building the new International Committee on African Affairs (ICAA), both domestically and internationally. Third, he sought to build a base in academia, using his adjunct position as instructor of Negro history at City College of New York as his anchor. By 1936 Max Yergan was by most estimations, including his own, a revolutionist. He had said as much to Govan Mbeki, both explicitly and implicitly, but it was also quite evident from his public utterances and whenever his personal correspondence strayed into political affairs, as it had been doing since 1931. He had presented himself in this way to Ralph Bunche and John Davis, but also to Quaker pacifist Clarence Pickett.1 The question remained for him of how to move forward with his principled ideological transformation yet still maintain his connections to his prior constituencies and backers. As Max prepared to leave South Africa he was already setting up a strategy that would ensure a smooth transition from his previous decade and a half of service abroad. Using his transnational network of contacts, he combined expertise gained in the YMCA both nationally and internationally with experience of foreign travel to carve out a unique approach to race leadership that fused progressivism with a bit of rhetorical Pan-Africanism. Thus he became accomplished in three different arenas, as NNC administrator, as ICAA executive director, and as City College faculty member employing sophisticated publicity strategies . The prime and perhaps most pivotal of these platforms was the National Negro Congress. 5 167 The National Negro Congress The National Negro Congress grew out of a Howard University conference on the “economic status of the Negro” held during May 1935. Cosponsored by the university’s Social Sciences Division and the Joint Committee on National Recovery (JCNR),2 the meeting had originated with Ralph J. Bunche, chair of Howard’s Department of Political Science , and JCNR executive secretary John P. Davis. The Howard meeting identified a need for closer collaboration among Black organizations, political, fraternal, or religious, and for a central coordinating authority to articulate objectives for racial struggle. The body envisioned was a broad-based National Negro Congress that would “give strength and support to all progressive programs of all Black groups” without duplicating or replacing the work of any already existing structure.3 Secretary Davis sought race leaders, Max among them. The first NNC took place in Chicago’s Eighth Regiment Armory in mid-February 1936. Attending were 817 delegates representing more than 385 political, laborite, and religious organizations and more than five thousand visitors, including several Communist Party sympathizers of both races. In the course of the week preceding the founding Congress a committee led by Adam Clayton Powell Jr. drafted a reluctant Asa Philip Randolph as the group’s president, acknowledging his stature as chief spokesperson for Black labor. The NNC meeting was noteworthy for balancing national and international issues, paying special attention to the Italian fascist “Rape of Ethiopia,” a sensitive racial issue for African-Americans, within whose communities antifascist sentiment intensified.4 Lij Tasfaye Zaphiro, special envoy of Ethiopia’s London legation, addressed the gathering, countering European colonial allegations of Abyssinian barbarism with news of the savagery of fascist Italy’s invasion.5 Black Communist leader and vice-presidential candidate James Ford tied Ethiopian resistance to Italian aggression to the African-American fight “against lynching and for civil rights and decent human relations.”6 Then Congress attendees heard a missionary recently arrived from Cape Town7 who linked Italian imperialism in Ethiopia to the expropriation of African land in South Africa, describing conditions in that country resembling those afflicting Black folk in the United States. Bringing the NNC into the picture, the speaker ended by saying that “this Congress has the opportunity and responsibility to make it possi168 | Progressive Leader, 1936–1948 ble for all organizations here represented to subscribe to a minimum program—to fight for those things on which the organizations are in agreement.”8 Max had entered the National Negro Congress. His introductory speech garnered attention from both national and international reporters.9 Yergan’s NNC position was extremely strategic. When he...