The Negroes Find Their Own Way

Back in the age of innocence (November 1903 to be exact) the International Socialist Review devoted a leading article to “the Negro problem.” It was signed by Eugene V. Debs. Writing from deep in Louisiana, Debs had some colorful observations to make and ended with a statement of the classic socialist position: “There never was any social inferiority that was not the shrivelled fruit of economic inequality. The Negro, given economic freedom, will not ask the white man any social favors; and the burning question of ‘social equality’ will disappear like mist before the sunrise. I have said and say again that, properly speaking, there is no Negro question outside the labor question—the working class struggle.”

The significance of Debs’ mistake, which he shared with almost all Marxists, has never been so clearly revealed as by the recent events in the South. Social injustice has been fought and rectified by the Negroes themselves withou...