Of the many Communist Fronts during the Thirties, the International Labor Defense (1925-1946) was one of the most active and flamboyant, devoted to victims of class warfare. It quickly displaced the NAACP as counsel for the Scottsboro Boys (see The Case of the Scottsboro Boys) and dramatically publicized the affair with meetings, parades, and fund-raisers across the country. However, the ILD jeopardized its control of the Scottsboro Case by a clumsy attempt to bribe Victoria Price, the alleged victim who had persisted in her rape charges, and was finally replaced by a united front of socialists, clergymen, and civil libertarians, the Scottsboro Defense Committee. Less active during and after the Popular Front, the ILD was finally dissolved after World War II.

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