What the South Means to the Nation Report

The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) has long been involved in advocating for the rights of marginalized groups, particularly African Americans, in the United States. In the early twentieth century, the Party was one of the few political organizations to consistently address the systemic racial inequality and exploitation faced by African Americans, especially in the South. During the 1930s and 1940s, the CPUSA viewed the "Black Belt" in the South (a region with a significant African American population) as a key area of struggle, where the oppression of Black people was both a racial and economic issue.

This report on the South reflects the Party’s analysis of the deep poverty and exploitation that characterized life for Black sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and rural workers. The CPUSA argued that the economic backwardness of the South was inextricably linked to the "national oppression" of African Americans, which it saw as a barrier to the region’s development. The Party’s commitment to fighting "white chauvinism" and advocating for racial justice was a core tenet of its platform during this period, as it sought to unite working-class movements in the struggle for both racial equality and broader economic transformation.

In the context of the broader civil rights movement, the CPUSA's position on racial and economic issues was often controversial, particularly due to its association with Soviet ideology. However, the Party's advocacy for Black rights and its critiques of systemic racial and economic oppression helped shape discussions about race and class in the United States during the twentieth century.