Benjamin Davis, Jr. (1903-1964)
A major figure in Harlem community politics and the Communist Party during the 1930s and 1940s, Benjamin Davis, Jr. was born into a prominent African American family in Atlanta, Georgia in 1903. He migrated north to Massachusetts to attend college at Amherst, where he was an all-American football player, and in 1932 graduated from Harvard Law School. After returning to Atlanta to practice law, Davis rose to national prominence as the lead attorney for Angelo Herndon, a black Communist charged under an archaic slave law with inciting insurrection after he attempted to organize unemployed workers. The experience radicalized Davis, who was impressed with the Communist Party’s commitment to racial justice and joined the Party during the trial.
Amid threats on his life in the aftermath of the Herndon trial, Davis moved to Harlem in 1934 where he replaced Cyril Briggs as editor-in-chief of the Harlem Liberator. Davis’ arrival was part of a larger transition in Harlem Communist Party leadership as the first generation of black Communists, led by West Indian-born nationalist revolutionaries like Briggs and Richard Moore, gave way to American-born blacks like Davis and James Ford who advocated more rigid Party discipline and closer, more pragmatic alliances with white workers.
Davis quickly became a popular figure both inside the Party and in the community. He was appointed to the Communist Party’s National Committee and played a key role in building the Popular Front organization, the National Negro Congress. He also helped organize a number of community-centered campaigns against racial discrimination including protests for improved housing and employment. In 1942, running on the Communist Party ticket, Davis was elected to fill Adam Clayton Powell’s seat on the New York City Council. Following a successful second term on the city council from 1945-1948, Davis fell victim to the post-war “Red Scare.” Along with several other members of the Communist Party National Committee, he was prosecuted under the Smith Act and sent to federal prison. After his release Davis returned to Harlem but could never regain his former influence in the changed political atmosphere of the Cold War.
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Benjamin Davis, Jr. (1903-1964) • (blackpast.org)
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Benjamin J. Davis, 60, Is Dead; Secretary of Communist Party; Former City Councilman Was"One of 11 Reds Convicted for Conspiracy in '49
August 24, 1964, Page 27Buy Reprints
Benjamin J. Davis, a top leader of the American Communist party, who had twice been elected to the City Council here, died Saturday night in Beth Israel Hospital. He would have been 61 years old Sept. 8. His home was at 710 Riverside Drive.
Mr. Davis had been ill since February and had been hospitalized since Aug. 8. He had earlier been in the hospital for 25 days in July.
He was one of 11 Communist party leaders convicted in 1919 of conspiring to teach and advocate the forcible overthrow of the United States Government.
In a statement at the news of his death, the Communist party hailed Mr. Davis as ”fiercely partisan in his ardent defense of the pioneer path which the Soviet Union had hacked out of the wilderness of capitalism.” The statement said he had fought in the Council against slums and police brutality and for fair‐employment practices.
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At his death, Mr. Davis and Gus Hall, whom the party calls its chief spokesman, had been awaiting trial under an indictment filed March 15, 1962, for failure to register the party as agents of the Soviet Union under the McCarran Act.
The party statement said Mr. Davis had vowed that “before we answer falsely that we are witches and traitors” or “cooperate to destroy political freedom in America, we will sit in jail until we rot.”
Mr. Davis was the‐ third internationally known Communist to die within six weeks. The others were Maurice Thorez and Palmiro Togliatti, chiefs of the French and Italian parties, respectively.
In his 31 years as a member of the party, Mr. Davis saw it reach its period of greatest influence in the Depression and the era of good feeling toward the Soviet Union in World War II and then slide almost to dissolution.
He successfully negotiated the often serpentine twists in the party line that led to the ouster of the less surefooted. Mr. Davis, who held important posts for a quarter of a century, was named national secretary in 1959.
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More recently officials of the party have concealed their titles for fear of prosecution for failing to register as agents of the Soviet Union, but until his final illness Mr. Davis, along with Mr. Hall and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, was known as one of its major official spokesmen.
Throughout his party career, Mr. Davis was closely associated as a writer and executive with The Daily Worker, which was suspended in January, 1958, and then with the weekly Worker. He was one of the party's experts on racial affairs, but. as recently as 1958 he acknowledged that its efforts to penetrate the major civil‐rights organizations had failed.
He was elected to the Council from Manhattan in 1943 under the proportional representation system, polling 44,334 votes in the borough, while the late Councilman Peter V. Cacchione, the only other Communist ever elected to office here, was polling 69,149 in Brooklyn. Communist party officials believe that only one other person was ever elected as a party candidate in the United States—a mayor in a Montana community no longer recalled.
In 1945, Mr. Davis was reelected with 63,498 votes, and Mr. Cacchione with 75,000. By 1948, Mr. Davis and 11 other top Communist leaders had been indicted under the Smith Act conspiracy charge. He continued to sit in the Council during the nine‐month trial. And the Council even held lateafternoon sessions to permit him to attend after court.
But in November, 1949, following his conviction he was expelled by unanimous vote. Mr. Davis was by then, in any case, a lame duck. Proportional representation had been abolished, and running as the Communist and American Labor party candidate in the 21st State Senatorial District, covering the Upper West Side and part of Harlem, he was badly defeated by Earl Brown, the coalition candidate of the Democratic, Republican and Liberal parties.
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During the trial, before Judge Harold R. Medina in Federal Court here, Mr. Davis and the other defendants and their lawyers repeatedly denounced the proceedings as “political persecution” and “Hitlerian slander.”
Mr. Davis remained free on bail until July, 1951, when the Supreme Court upheld the convictions. He then surrendered and began serving a five‐year sentence at the Federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind.
Released after three years and four months, he was jailed for another two months in Pittsburgh on contempt charges growing out of his appearance as a witness in one of the many trials of secondary party leaders.
In the years following his release, he became an ally of the late William Z. Foster, the national chairman, in demanding a Stalinist hard‐line Communist policy.
After the disclosures by Premier Khrushchev of the excesses of the Stalin era, the two men defeated efforts to turn United States Communism to a more moderate national course, and Mr. Davis defended the Soviet intervention in Hungary, which caused many important figures to leave the party, in what they called a grim but painful necessity.
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In addition to being a member of the national committee and national secretary, Mr. Davis had also been chairman of the Harlem region of the Communist party, chairman of its national commission on Negro affairs and chairman of the New York State district, the party's largest. He had also been publisher of The Worker.
Mr. Davis, who was generally known as Ben, was a tall, heavy‐set man whose affable, open manner failed to resemble the stereotype of the left‐wing political activist.
For relaxation he played the violin and tennis, both skillfully. In the Council he specialized in Negro affairs, introducing bills and demanding investigations on such questions as segregated housing, alleged police brutality. Inadequate fire protection in Harlem and the color bar in major‐league baseball.
He was born in Dawson, Ga., on Sept. 8, 1903. His father was an editor of religious publications and was once a Republican national committeeman.
The family moved to Atlanta while Mr. Davis was a boy. He attended Morehouse College, a Negro institution there, for a year and then transferred to Amherst College. He was an active figure on the Massachusetts campus, playing varsity football and tennis, singing in the choir and taking part in intercollegiate debates.
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From Amherst Mr. Davis went to the Harvard Law School. He was graduated in 1929. Soon after, he returned to Atlanta to practice.
On the stand at his trial, Mr. Davis recalled that he had decided to join the party in 1933, while defending a Communist agitator, a Negro youth named Angelo Herndon, who faced the death penalty under a Georgia insurrection law for leading an unemployment protest march.
“It was a turning point in my life,” he said. “In the course of trying that case “I suffered some of the worst treatment, along with my client, with the judge calling me ‘nigger’ and ‘darkie’ and threatening to jail me.
“I could see there the whole treatment of the Negro in the South. I felt if there was any thing I could do to fight against this thing, strike a blow against the lynch system I would do it.”
In 1935 Mr. Davis came to New York. He became editor of The Liberator, a party periodical directed at Negroes. The next year he joined The Daily Worker as a writer and music critic.
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By 1939 he was a member of its managing board. The paper's movie critic, the late Howard Rushmore, who later became an expert on subversion for the Hearst newspapers, publicly complained that he had been dismissed at Mr. Davis's order for refusing to condemn “Gone With the Wind” as an “insidious glorification of the slave market.”
Mr. Davis is survived by his widow, the former Miss Nina Stamler, whom he married after release from his prison term in Terre Haute; their daughter, Emily, who is 6 years old, and a sister, Mrs. Johnnie Carey.
The body will be on view at the Unity Funeral Home, 2352 Eighth Avenue, at West 126th Street, tomorrow from noon to 8 P.M., and Wednesday from noon to 5 P.M. A funeral service will be held Wednesday at 8 P.M. at the First Corinthian Baptist Church, 1912 Seventh Avenue, at West 116th Street.
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Benjamin Jefferson Davis Jr. (September 8, 1903 – August 22, 1964), was an African-American lawyer and communist who was elected in 1943 to the New York City Council, representing Harlem. He faced increasing opposition from outside Harlem after the end of World War II. In 1949 he was among a number of communist leaders prosecuted for violating the Smith Act. He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.
Benjamin J. Davis Jr. – known to his friends as "Ben" – was born September 8, 1903, in Dawson, Georgia to Benjamin Davis Sr. and Jimmie W. Porter.[1] The family moved to Atlanta in 1909, where Davis's father, "Big Ben" Davis, established a weekly black newspaper, the Atlanta Independent.[2] It was successful enough to provide a comfortable middle-class upbringing for his family. The elder Benjamin Davis emerged as a prominent black political leader and served as a member of the Republican National Committee for the state of Georgia.[3][4]
The younger Ben Davis Jr. attended the high school program of Morehouse College in Atlanta.[5] He left the South to study at Amherst College, where he earned his B.A. in 1925.[6] Davis continued his education at Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1929. Davis worked briefly as a journalist before starting a law practice in Atlanta in 1932.[7]
Davis became radicalized through his role as defense attorney in the 1933 trial of Angelo Herndon, a 19-year-old black Communist who had been charged with violating a Georgia law against "attempting to incite insurrection", because he tried to organize a farm workers' union. Davis asked the International Juridical Association to review his brief.[8] During the trial, Davis faced angry, racist opposition from the judge and public. He was impressed with the rhetoric and bravery of Herndon and his colleagues. After giving concluding arguments, he joined the Communist Party himself.[9]
Herndon was convicted and sentenced to 18–20 years in jail. He was freed after April 26, 1937, when, by a 5-to-4 margin, the United States Supreme Court ruled Georgia's Insurrection Law to be unconstitutional.[10]
Davis moved to Harlem, New York in 1935, joining the Great Migration of blacks out of the South to northern cities. He worked as editor of the Communist Party's newspaper targeted to African-Americans, The Negro Liberator. He later became editor of the CPUSA's official English-language daily, The Daily Worker.
In 1943, Davis was elected under the then-used system of proportional representation to fill a city council seat being vacated by Adam Clayton Powell Jr. to run for Congress. Davis was reelected in 1945, this time to a four-year term.
Davis lost his 1949 bid for re-election due to a number of factors. First, two years earlier, New York had ceased to use proportional representation and Harlem was broken up into three districts, diluting the black vote.[citation needed] Second, Davis's opponent in the new 21st district was journalist Earl Brown, a fusion candidate for the Democratic, Republican, and Liberal parties.[11] Finally, in July 1948, Davis was charged with conspiring to overthrow the federal government under the Smith Act – a World War II-era charge that rested on Davis's association with the Communist Party.[3] He was tried along with eleven other defendants for their communist beliefs and party affiliation in the Smith Act trials. Paul Robeson, noted actor, singer, and civil rights activist publicly advocated for Davis and his fellow defendants. His conviction was announced on October 13, only a few weeks before the election.
With only a month remaining in his last term, Davis was expelled from the city council, a requirement under state law.[12] His former colleagues even passed a resolution celebrating his ouster.[13] He appealed his conviction for two years all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, without success. On March 1, 1955, after serving three years and four months in the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, Davis was freed.[14] However, he was immediately transferred to the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to serve an additional 60-day term for contempt of court. He had appeared there in 1953 as a defense witness for another group of five Communists charged under the Smith Act, but was asked and refused to answer questions about unrelated individuals involved in the Communist Party's National Commission of Negro Work.[15] In 1957, the Supreme Court revisited the Smith Act and reversed itself in Yates v. United States,[16] which held that the First Amendment protected radical and reactionary speech, unless it posed a "clear and present danger."
In subsequent years, Davis engaged in a speaking tour of college campuses and remained politically active, promoting an agenda of civil rights and economic populism. Davis' 1962 speaking circuit drew crowds at schools such as Harvard, Columbia, Amherst, Oberlin and the University of Minnesota.[17] But the City College of New York – in the New York council district he represented in the 1940s – barred Davis from speaking on its campus in this period. After a student protest, Davis was allowed to speak outside, on the street.[17] He was close to Communist Party chairman William Z. Foster. Davis continued to publicly defend the actions of the Soviet Union, including the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956.[14]
In 1962 Davis was charged with violating the Internal Security Act.[14] He died shortly before the case came to trial.[18]
Ben Davis died of lung cancer in New York City on August 22, 1964. He was less than one month shy of his 61st birthday at the time of his death, and was in the midst of a campaign for New York State Senate on the People's Party ticket.
While in prison, Davis had written notes for a memoir. These were confiscated by prison authorities and not released until after his death. They were posthumously published under the title Communist Councilman From Harlem (1969), with a foreword by his Smith Act codefendant Henry Winston.[19]
- "Must Negro Americans Wait?"
- "The Negro People in the Struggle for Peace and Freedom."
- "Upsurge in the South."
- "The Path of Negro Liberation."
- "Why I Am A Communist."
- "Ben Davis on the McCarran Act."
- ^ title=Davis, Benjamin Jefferson, Jr. | publisher=King Institute Stanford |
- ^ Wade, Harold Jr. (1976). Black Men of Amherst. Amherst College Press. p. 60.
- ^ a b "Benjamin Jefferson Davis Jr.", Martin Luther King and the Global Freedom Struggle, Stanford University.
- ^ William L. Patterson, Ben Davis: Crusader for Negro Freedom and Socialism. New York: New Century Publishers, 1967; p. 7.
- ^ Benjamin J. Davis, Communist Councilman From Harlem. New York: International Publishers, 1969; p. 32.
- ^ Horne, Gerald. Black Liberation/Red Scare: Ben Davis and the Communist Party. p. 29.
- ^ Davis, Communist Councilman From Harlem, pp. 44, 48.
- ^ Ginger, Ann Fagan (1993). Carol Weiss King, human rights lawyer, 1895-1952. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. p. 177. ISBN 978-0-87081-285-9. LCCN 92040157.
- ^ Davis, Communist Councilman From Harlem, chapter 4.
- ^ Edward A. Hatfield,"Angelo Herndon Case" Archived 2012-08-15 at the Wayback Machine, New Georgia Encyclopedia, August 14, 2009.
- ^ Ronan, Thomas P. (November 9, 1949). "Democrats Take 24 Council Seats". The New York Times. Retrieved June 11, 2022.
- ^ Ronan, Thomas P. (November 29, 1949). "Council Ousts Davis, 15-0". The New York Times. Retrieved May 25, 2022.
- ^ "Could Have Been Worse", New York Observer, April 21, 2005.
- ^ a b c "Benjamin Davis" Archived January 1, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, Spartacus Educational.
- ^ "The Davis Story". National Guardian. June 8, 1953.
- ^ Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957)
- ^ a b Jarvis Tyner, The Legacy of Benjamin J. Davis People's World, September 6, 2003.
- ^ Davis, Communist Councilman From Harlem, p. 6.
- ^ Davis, Benjamin J (1969). Communist councilman from Harlem: autobiographical notes written in a Federal penitentiary. International Publishers. OCLC 802430991.
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archives.nypl.org -- Benjamin J. Davis papers
Benjamin J. Davis papers1949-1964
Using the collection
Location
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801
Second Floor
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.Access restrictions
Researchers are restricted to microfilm copy.
Alternative form available
Collection available on microfilm; New York Public Library; call number Sc Micro R-6129
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Davis, Benjamin Jefferson, Jr.
September 8, 1903 to August 22, 1964
Benjamin J. Davis, Jr., was chairman of the New York State district of the Communist Party and an acquaintance of Martin Luther King, Jr. King and Davis were both from prominent Atlanta families, and despite their ideological differences, their relationship was characterized by a great degree of mutual respect. In a letter to Davis, King once wrote: “Your words are always encouraging, and although we do not share the political views I find a deeper unity of spirit with you that is after all the important thing” (Papers 5:442).
Davis was born in Dawson, Georgia, on 8 September 1903, to Benjamin Davis, Sr., and Jimmie W. Porter. In 1909 the family moved to Atlanta, where Benjamin, Sr., became active in Republican Party politics and founded the Atlanta Independent, a weekly African American newspaper. A graduate of Amherst College, Davis, Jr., earned a degree from Harvard Law School in 1929 and began practicing law three years later in Atlanta. The young attorney gained international attention when he was hired in 1932 by the International Labor Defense to represent Angelo Herndon, a young African American Communist. Defending Herndon not only brought Davis great renown, but also intensified his own Communist sensibilities. In 1935, he left the legal profession in Atlanta for New York City where he become the editor of the American Communist Party’s periodicals the Negro Liberator and, later, the Daily Worker. In New York he became active in municipal politics, succeeding Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., as Harlem’s representative on the New York City Council in 1943. Davis encountered legal problems of his own surrounding his involvement with the Communist Party and, in 1949, lost his bid for a third term on the City Council. He was convicted later that year for violating the Smith Act, a 1940 law that criminalized any act that was seen as advocating an overthrow of the United States government, and spent five years in a federal penitentiary.
Although Davis remained a member of the Communist Party until his death in 1964, throughout the 1950s he developed an increasing admiration for King. Following King’s stabbing in 1958 by Izola Curry, Davis donated blood at Harlem Hospital to help the injured leader, writing in a letter: “Had the blood been needed it was there. Just as blood knows no race or color—it knows no politics.” In that same letter Davis called support for King “a duty” and wished the minister “the best of everything and great success in your work” (Davis, January 1959). King later wrote to Davis that “a friend like yourself … gives me renewed courage and vigor to carry on” (Papers 5:443).
In 1962, Davis was again indicted for his association with the Communist Party, this time for violating the McCarran Internal Security Act by failing to register the Communist Party as an agent of the Soviet Union. Davis remained committed to his political ideology and died in 1964 while awaiting trial for these charges.
Footnotes
Davis to King, January 1959, MLKP-MBU.
King to Davis, 23 April 1960, in Papers 5:442–443.
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Benjamin Davis, Paul Robeson and Jackie Robinson
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-conversation-us/how-politics-played-a-maj_b_9701456.html
and you can read about Benjamin Davis at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_J._Davis,_Jr.
Both Benjamin Davis and Paul Robeson were ardent supporters of Jackie Robinson and his valiant effort to desegregate baseball. It is not a coincidence that both Davis and Robeson had communist leanings and that they both paid a high price for their affiliation with Communist organizations. For me, one of the sad moments in the documentary occurs when Jackie Robinson consents to give testimony against Robeson before the House Un-American Activities Committee. According to the documentary, Jackie's testimony eventually led to the destruction of Robeson's career.
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