At the end of World War I, the First Red Scare nationalized the threat of communism, anarchism, and overall leftism, associating it with Russia.
And in the 1950s, the Second Red Scare spread like wildfire across the country, stoked by then-Senator Joseph McCarthy.
The senator’s ideological campaign against communism, known today as McCarthyism, meant ostracizing, firing, and persecuting communists, Black activists, LGBTQ+ government workers, and those seeking to end class oppression.
The aim was to keep Americans ”safe” by destroying anyone unaligned with American values.
When militant Black union workers dared to challenge racial and class inequality, investigators helped push them out of leadership, contracts went unrecognized, and members were raided. Ferdinand Smith, a Caribbean leader from New York’s National Maritime Union, was deported.
Other Black activists who refused to separate themselves from the left were deported and imprisoned as well, not unlike today’s Cop City activists charged with terrorism for association with anarchism.
And the McCarthy-era targeting of Black education and scholars, including W.E.B. DuBois, who was chained in court in his 80s, also continues its legacy today.
People in power fear when their power is questioned. That’s why speaking out, seeking radical education, and taking direct action is still criminalized, and deemed “unsafe.”
But in a world beyond McCarthyism, those in control will no longer have the power to question our humanity or our liberation. Let’s build that world by continuing to speak up for each other.