Indignant Heart, a Black Worker's Journal

308 Pages·1978·10.313 MB·English

by  Charles Denby

INDIGNANT HEART

INDIGNANT HEART
A BLACK WORKER S JOURNAL
by
Charles Denby(Matthew Ward)
South End Press
Boston
Cover design
An original painting by Ben Freshley,
a working man from Philadelphia
Copyright © 1978 by Charles Denby
Third Printing
Library of Congress No.: 78-65368
ISBN 89608-092-7
ISBN 89608-093-5
Photos by permission of Charles Denby
and The Detroit News
Printed at Maple Vail, York, Pa., USA
Typesetting and layout by South End Press,
Box 68, Astor Station, Boston, MA. 02123
“...whether his voice cheered the starving Hindoo
crushed beneath British selfishness, or Hungary bat¬
tling against treason and the Czar; whether he pleaded
at home for bread and the ballot, or held up with his
sympathy the ever-hopeful enthusiasm of Ireland,—
every true word spoken for suffering man, is so much
done for the Negro bending beneath the weight of
American bondage. It is said that the earthquake of
Lisbon tossed the sea in billows on the coast of Cuba;
so no Indignant Heart is beating anywhere whose
pulses are not felt on the walls of our American
bastille.”
Wendell Phillips, November 26, 1850
This book is dedicated to my son who I trust
and hope will not have to go through what I
went through when he becomes a man.
CONTENTS
Foreword
1. Childhood in the South. 1
2. North to Detroit.27
3. Back to the South.37
4. My Wife, Christine.44
5. Work in the South .50
6. Work in the South II.69
7. Work in the North .87
8. Detroit Riots 1943.110
9. The Left Wing Caucus of the UAW .120
10. Jed Carter, the Foreman.124
11. South With My Son.135
12. In the Plant .138
13. Christine in the Plant.142
14. UAW.146
15. The Communist Party .163
16. The Trotskyist Party.166
17. Visiting Montgomery.181
18. Little Rock, Greensboro, Oxford.190
19. The FBI Does Nothing: The Murder of Viola Liuzzo,
The Bombing of the Churches.202
20. Stokely Carmichael in Lowndes County.212
21. The Anti-Vietnam War Movement
and the 1967 Detroit Uprising.226
22. Watergate and the Communist Giants.238
23. Challenging the Bureaucrats.245
24. DRUM, ELRUM, FRUM, and the Stinger.262
25. With the Wildcatters.272
26. Worldwide Struggle for Freedom.282
Afterword 295
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FOREWORD
There are differences in Part I and Part II of this book that I
believe are important to explain. In Part I, the original Indignant
Heart published in 1952, I wrote that I was born and raised in
Tennessee, and used the name Matthew Ward. The names of
other people and places were also changed.
The reason for the changes was to protect individuals from
the vicious McCarthyite witch hunt then sweeping the country,
which resulted in the persecution and literal destruction of many
people. Few who did not go through that experience of national
repression of ideas can fully understand the truly totalitarian
nature of McCarthyism and the terror it produced.
The changes in Part I, however, do not take anything away
from the truth of the experiences described. What I wrote about
my early years in Part I could be true of almost all Blacks living in
the whole of South, USA.
I was born and raised in Lowndes County, Alabama, and the
fact that this area will be forever recorded in American history as
the place where some of the most important Black revolts occur¬
red in the 1960s is because Black oppression was probably as
complete and total there as almost anywhere else in the South.
Some who read the manuscript of this book commented on
the difference in writing style of Part I and Part II. It could hardly
be otherwise. It isn’t only that 25 years separate Part I from Part
II. More importantly, the great events of the 1960s that gave birth
to a new generation of revolutionaries could but give a new
direction to my thoughts and actions as a Black production
worker who became the editor of a very new type of newspaper—
News & Letters.
Charles Denby
Detroit, Michigan
September 1978
PART I.