Race Hatred on Trial

New York: Workshop of Graphic Artists, 1948. Reprint. A pamphlet reporting on a 1931 trial staged by the Communist Party, USA, in New York, in which one of its members, August Yokinen, was charged with white chauvinism for advocating the expulsion of three black workers from the Finnish Workers Club in Harlem. Following an introduction by Jim Allen, the pamphlet includes Proceedings of the Trial, Speech of C. A. Hathaway, Prosecutor for the District Committee of the Communist Party, U.S.A., Speech of Richard B. Moore, Attorney for the Defense, Statement by August Yokinen (translated from Finnish), Summaries by Moore and Hathaway, and the jury's verdict. The jury of 14 CP members voted to expel Yokinen from the Party until he could sufficiently demonstrate his opposition to white chauvinism. As mentioned in the introduction, Yokinen was arrested and scheduled for deportation by the ruling class for "taking up an active fight for full Negro equality as a member of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights."

Originally published by the CPUSA in 1931, the pamphlet was somewhat curiously reprinted by the short-lived Workshop of Graphic Arts in 1948. The Workshop, an offshoot of the Dreiser Cultural Workshop, was a radical left printing group that emerged in 1948 under the direction of Jay Landau, operating out of a loft at 106 E. 14th St. Charles Keller took over from Landau the same year.

Stapled, illustrated wrappers (4 ¼" x 6 ½"), 47 p., three illustrations by Daily Worker cartoonist Ryan Walker depicting acts of racism and white chauvinism. A Near Fine copy. Less than two dozen copies of either edition found in OCLC, with only two of this 1948 reprint located at Northwestern and UC Davis.