The communist
party had a sharp critique of US economic order, order forces on interracial
unions. They had very concrete and visible activism; rent strikes, battle for
black civil rights. The communist party supported
"International Labor Defense” campaign to defend the Scottsboro Boys,
1931, Alabama. On March 25, 1931, several people were hoboing on a freight
train traveling between Chattanooga and Memphis, Tennessee. Several white
teenagers jumped off the train and reported to the sheriff that they had been
attacked by a group of black teenagers. The sheriff deputized a posse, stopped
and searched the train at Paint Rock, Alabama, arrested the black teenagers,
and found two young white women who accused the teenagers of rape. The boys were all dragged to court and do to injustice no one on the jury was black but all white men, they were prosecuted and found guilty, not once but three times.