[The introduction to this series of posts is here.]
“In 1951, one of Charles White’s iconic pen and ink drawings, executed in 1949, was used on the cover of a publication celebrating Negro History Week. The drawing in question was ‘Frederick Douglass Lives Again (The Ghost of Frederick Douglass).’ The publication was ‘Prepared by EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT NEW YORK STATE COMMUNIST PARTY' and was ‘Dedicated to THE STRUGGLE FOR NEGRO LIBERATION.’ White was at the time in his early 30s and in a period in which his work was widely used in publications associated with the Communist Party. Though Douglass had died towards the close of the 19th century, he remained a giant of African American struggle and in this mi -20th century escalation of the civil rights struggle, it was no surprise that White should use this rendering of Douglass to such dramatic and emphatic effect in the drawing. In ‘Frederick Douglass Lives Again (The Ghost of Frederick Douglass),’ the titan was depicted pulling aside barbed wire fencing and pointing in the direction of progress and liberation. Several of the African Americans depicted as responding to Douglass’s stirring and rousing intervention were those holding aloft symbols of progress through education and learning. Elsewhere in the publication, on page 14, there was a ‘Drawing of the Trenton Six by the distinguished Negro artist, Charles White.’”
“This particular illustration on the cover of the January 1951 issue, was a portrait of William L. Patterson. It is a striking, dignified portrait of the personality, in determined mood, with a visionary expression. Patterson was a member of the Communist Party USA from 1926 to 1929 and transferred his membership to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1936. When he was appointed to the Central Committee of the American Communist Party, he resumed his membership in it. He was a delegate to the Sixth Congress of the Communist International in 1928 and to the Tenth Plenum of the Executive of the Comintern in 1930. He also served as an official of the Red International of Labor Unions and as a representative of the Communist International in France.
A feature on Patterson, ‘William L. Patterson: Militant Leader,’ written by Michael Gold, appeared in the following month’s issue of Masses & Mainstream, February 1951, Volume 4, No. 2: 34 - 43.”
[See too, Gerald Horne, Black Revolutionary: William Patterson and the Globalization of the African American Freedom Struggle. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2013.]
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