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AutobiographJ of an

Afro-Ameriean Communist

Barry Baywood

Liberator Press

Chicago, lllinois

Copyright 1978 by Harry Haywood All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast.

ISBN: 0-930720-52-0 (clothbound)

0-930720-53-9 (paperbound)

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 77-077464

Manufactured in the United States of America

Liberator Press, Chicago, Illinois

To My Family,

Gwen, Haywood, Jr., and Becky

Acknowledgments

There have been many friends and comrades who have, directly or indirectly, helped me with the writing of this hook. Unfortunately, they are too numerous to all be named here.

There are a number of young people who have helped with the cditorial, research and typing tasks and helped the project along through political discussions. Special thanks to Ernie Allen, who gave yeoman help with the early chapters. Others whose assistance was indispensable include Jody and Susan Chandler, Paula Cohen, Stu Dowty and Janet Goldwasser, Paul Elitzik, Pat Fry, Gary Goff, Sherman Miller, John Schwartz, Lyn Wells and Carl Davidson. Others who gave me assistance are Renee Blakkan and Nathalie Garcia.

Over the past years, I have had discussions with several veteran comrades and friends who have helped immeasurably in jogging my memory and filling in the gaps where my own experience was lacking. I extend my warmest appreciation to Jesse Gray, Josh Lawrence, Arthur and Maude (White) Katz, John Killens, Ruth Hamlin, Frances Loman, Al Murphy, Joan Sandler, Delia Page and Jack and Ruth Shulman.

A political autobiography is necessarily shaped by experiences over the years and by comrades who helped and influenced me in lhe long battle for self-determination and against revisionism. My carliest political debts are to the first core of Black cadres in the CPUSA: Cyril Briggs, Edward Doty, Richard B. Moore