The story of Atlanta’s Angelo Herndon best describes the Black and Red scare. Herndon was a Black labor organizer arrested and convicted of insurrection after attempting to organize industrial workers in 1932.
The prosecution of Herndon relied on the “communist literature” found in his hotel room when he was arrested. Being arrested was nothing new to him. Just two years earlier, in 1930, Herndon was locked in a Tennessee jail for association with communists. The way he was treated was as shocking then as it is now.
Townspeople descended on the courthouse to gawk at the “Negro Red” freak.” The prosecutor argued that Herndon was trying to stir up trouble between races and bring about an industrial revolution based on communism. This specter of Black communism was even scarier than Herndon.
Many celebrities of the time, including Lorraine Hansberry, Langston Hughes, and Paul Robeson, were targeted by the FBI for their outspoken Marxist views. The government wanted to force them out of public life and erase their influence.
Attacking DEI is just a smokescreen for racism, because its main beneficiaries have been white women. Whiteness fears Black advancement and liberation. By harnessing this fear, racists will continue to demonize and discriminate against Black people.