Pettis Perry
Pettis Perry (January 4, 1897 – July 24, 1965) was an American Communist Party official.
Biography
[edit | edit source]Perry was born on a tenant farm near Marion, Alabama.[1] He moved to Los Angeles in the 1920s, where he worked as a farm laborer in the Imperial Valley.[2] Perry was inspired to join the Communist Party because of its work on behalf of the Scottsboro Boys.[3] In 1933, Perry became the first African-American candidate for Lieutenant Governor of California, running on the Communist Party ticket.[4]
Perry moved from California to New York City in 1948.[5] In New York, Perry directed the Party's National Negro Commission until 1954.[6] In 1949, Perry began a campaign to eliminate white chauvinism and racism in the Party, traveling to Party branches around the country to discuss the issue.[7] While acknowledging the validity of Perry's concerns, Steve Nelson and Joseph Starobin argued that the campaign had been divisive and harmful to the Party.[8]
Perry was arrested on June 20, 1951, with twenty other Communist Party leaders, under the Smith Act.[9] During the trial, Perry argued that the proceedings were unfair, describing them as "a frameup so enormous as to resemble the Reichstag Fire trial".[10] He and seven of the other defendants were sentenced to three years in jail and fined $5000.[11] After his release from prison in 1957, Perry continued working in the Party and died in Moscow in 1965.[12]
Perry was the inspiration for the character of Bart, a Black Communist leader, in Chester Himes' novel Lonely Crusade.[13]
References
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External links
[edit | edit source]- Error creating thumbnail: File missing Media related to Lua error in Module:Commons_link at line 62: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). at Wikimedia Commons
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