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5. Building a Popular Front in Chicago
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71 5 Building a Popular Front in Chicago Edwards played an important role in building Chicago’s Popular Front in the mid- to late 1930s. Because of her recent labor education at home and abroad, she was in demand as a speaker, writer, and labor publicist in community organizations and coalitions, especially those in which the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) was involved. Encouraged by her recent experiences in the Soviet Union, she drew even closer to the Communist Party as a result of its shift in strategy to build alliances with other leftist groups in an attempt to stop the spread of fascism. She helped in the birth of the newly formed National Negro Congress, which pushed the civil-rights agenda to the left, and she endorsed the Congress of Industrial Organizations when it broke with the American Federation of Labor and adopted a more racially inclusive and aggressive unionizing strategy. Because of Edwards’s political skills, she was able to help bring radical and liberal groups together in the common pursuit of civil rights, social justice, and world peace. When Edwards returned from Europe to the Chicago area in the summer of 1934, she took a month off to write, rest, and see friends and family in Gary, Indiana . Soon, though, she settled into her studio apartment again at the AbrahamLincolnCentreinChicago .Shewenttoseeherfriendandconfidant,Claude A. Barnett, of the Associated Negro Press. At one time they had been romantically involved, and Barnett had even proposed marriage to her, but Edwards 72 Thyra J. Edwards had refused his offer. Barnett had married someone else while Edwards was on her way home from Europe that summer. His new bride, Etta Moten, was a distinguished actor and contralto who, like Edwards, had grown up in southeast Texas. Apparently the newlyweds had kept their wedding a secret for a while, at least from Edwards. After the visit, Edwards told Bill Pickens, of the NAACP: “Just left Claude and his bride both beaming happily in the accepted fashion for newlyweds. Etta is a stunner and Claude is a consistently lucky chap. It wasn’t quite fair to pull it on us in June and not let us in on the secret until August.”1 In mid-September, Edwards was the main speaker at a celebration of the ninth anniversary of the BSCP held in the union’s headquarters on South Michigan Avenue in Chicago. The program, conducted by Helena Wilson, president of the Colored Women’s Economic Council, or the BSCP’s International Ladies Auxiliary, also included white social worker Mary McDowell, who endorsed Edwards’s call for class unity across racial lines. Edwards discussed the role of black and white women in the labor movements at home and abroad, calling for unionization to achieve common economic goals.2 A couple of weeks later, on September 28, 1934, more than one hundred friends and supporters gathered at the University of Chicago’s International House for a testimonial dinner to celebrate Edwards’s return from Europe. BSCP leaders A. Philip Randolph and Milton Webster gave speeches, and so did Mary McDowell and Poro College’s Annie Malone. Frank Crosswaith, a labor organizer for the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, Dr. Curtis Reese of the Abraham Lincoln Centre, and music critic Maude Roberts George also paid tribute to Edwards, who then entertained the audience with stories of her experiences in Denmark and other European countries.3 Edwards, short of cash when she returned to the United States on July 1, 1934, immediately turned her attention to publishing articles as a freelance journalist . Before heading home to Chicago, she had visited with friends in New York City and stopped by the editorial office of the NAACP’s journal, the Crisis, to chat with George Streator about publishing a few of her articles. Streator, who along with Roy Wilkins was a managing editor of the Crisis at that time, commissioned her to write a series of five articles at ten dollars per article. The stories were to be framed around her recent personal experiences and contacts in Europe, with a special emphasis on race and politics. A month later, Edwards sent a letter to Wilkins, who in the meantime had become the journal’s sole editor after Streator and W. E. B. DuBois resigned in a political dispute with the NAACP. She asked Wilkins if he wished to continue with the arrangements she had made with Streator to do the articles. She enclosed the first of three articles...