Manning Johnson—A Voice From the Past Eerily Describes Today’s Social Unrest

Manning Johnson (1907-1959)* was at one time in his life a member of the USA Communist Party (from 1930-1939) but left it when he realized the truth of how Communism and socialism actually were hurting the black people rather than helping them. In view of the current efforts by groups like #Black Lives Matter (with their self-proclaimed Marxism/socialism affinities), we wanted our readers to become acquainted with Manning, who was a Christian believer.

Johnson’s 1958 book, Color, Communism, and Common Sense, can be read freely online at www.manningjohnson.org. There is also available the last address he ever publicly gave before his untimely death at 51 years old. Below is an excerpt from his book. Is this not eerily familiar to what is happening today?

Stirring up race and class conflict is the basis of all discussion of the Communist Party’s work in the South. The evil genius, Stalin, and the other megalomaniacal leaders in Moscow ordered the use of all racial, economic and social differences, no matter how small or insignificant, to start local fires of discontent, conflict and revolt. “Who could tell which of these issues could start a general conflagration” that would sweep across the former Confederate States from Maryland to Texas?

Black rebellion was what Moscow wanted. Bloody racial conflict would split America. During the confusion, demoralization and panic would set in. Then finally, the [Communists] say:

“Workers stop work, many of them seize arms by attacking arsenals. Many had armed themselves before . . . Street fights become frequent. Under the leadership of the Communist Party the workers organize Revolutionary Committees to be in command of the uprising. Armed workers . . . seize the principal government offices, invade the residences of the President and his Cabinet members, arrest them, declare the old regime abolished, establish their own power.” (this paragraph from Why Communism?, by M.J. Olgin, pages 75, 76; official Communist pamphlet instructing members in revolutionary strategy.)

The only fear of the white Communist leaders was that as a result of their efforts this black rebellion would break out before they were ready in the decisive industrial cities of the North.

What if one or five million Negroes die in an abortive attempt to establish a Negro [Communist] republic? Is not the advance of the cause worth it? A Communist is not a sentimentalist. He does not grieve over the loss of life in the advancement of Communism.

This plot to use the Negroes as the spearhead, or as expendables, was concocted by Stalin in 1928, nearly ten years after the formation of the world organization of Communism. . . .

During the three decades which have elapsed since the Sixth World Congress in Moscow, the American Communist Party has conducted many campaigns and formed and infiltrated a large number of organizations among Negroes. . . . [T]he heavy hand of communism has moved, stirring up racial strife, creating confusion, hate and bitterness so essential to the advancement of the red [Communist] cause. . . .

Through the aforementioned organizations and many others, Negro institutions of higher education like Howard University were penetrated to subvert teachers and students and thus politically contaminate the intellectual stream of Negro life.

White leftists descended on Negro communities like locusts, posing as “friends” come to help “liberate” their black brothers. . . . Everything was inter-racial, an inter-racialism artificially created, cleverly devised as a camouflage of the red plot to use the Negro. (Color, Communism, and Common Sense, chapter 3, pp. 18-19)

As Lighthouse Trails has often said over the years, things are not always as they seem. Search out the truth and share it with the younger generations.

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*Some online sources say Manning Johnson was born in 1908, but his tombstone in a military cemetery shows 1907.