RADICAL RESPONSES TO THE GREAT
DEPRESSION The Case of the Scottsboro Boys |
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Photograph (reproduction). A member of the Socialist Party and writer for
several newspapers such as the Daily World and the Chicago
Daily Socialist, J. Louis Engdahl (1884-1932) was one of the most
distinguished editors in the history of American socialism. Engdahl
became chairman of the International Labor Defense, and editor of its
popular magazine, Labor Defender. The ILD organized mass
protests in support of class war prisoners, including Tom Mooney and
the Scottsboro Boys. In 1932, Engdahl and Ada Wright, mother of two
of the Scottsboro defendants, Andy and Roy embarked on an extensive
tour of Europe and the Soviet Union to gather international support
for these frame-up victims. Engdahl and Wright were prohibited from
entering several countries, including Belgium, Czechoslovakia,
England, and Ireland, and were jailed in several others. Despite such
setbacks, however, the tour was a success: In six months Engdahl and
Wright addressed some two hundred mass meetings in sixteen cities.
All over Europe Tom Mooney and the Scottsboro Boys were now
recognized as working-class heroes, and millions of European
trade-unionists and political organizations joined in the demand for
their freedom. In Moscow, while attending the World Congress of
International Red Aid, Engdahl contracted pneumonia and died there.
5,000 workers attended his funeral. |