The American South was not a major focus of congressional countersubversive investigations, for a number of reasons. The primary one was that the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA) was much weaker in the south compared to the industrial northeast and the west coast. In addition, a number of those countersubversive investigations that did touch on the south were actually investigations of radical right-wing organizations, such as the Silver Legion of America in the 1930s, or the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s. Despite all this, from the 1920s to the 1950s the CPUSA was active in the American South in areas such as labor organizing and civil rights. Such efforts did attract the attention of congressional countersubversive investigating committees, much of whose membership was motivated by a desire to label all efforts at union organization and African-American equality as communist inspired.
The following is a brief bibliography of publications stemming from congressional investigations of real and alleged communist activity in the American South. It is not a comprehensive list, and, as primary source documents, these items should be used judiciously and in concert with relevant secondary historical studies.
1. House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) Investigations
Communist Infiltration and Activities in the South. Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-Fifth Congress, Second Session. 1958. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. Un 1/2: C 73/95; circulating copy in Joyner Docs Stacks: Y 4. Un 1/2: C 73/95, currently checked out)
Investigation of Communist Activities in the New Orleans, La., Area. Hearing Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-Fifth Congress, First Session. 1957. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. Un 1/2: C 73/73/)
Investigation of Communist Activities in the North Carolina Area. Hearing Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-Fourth Congress, Second Session. 1956. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. Un 1/2: C 73/63/; circulating copy in Joyner Docs Stacks: Y 4. Un 1/2: C 73/63, currently checked out)
-Transcript of hearings held in Charlotte, NC from March 12-14, 1956.
Investigation of Communist Activities in the State of Florida. Hearing Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-Third Congress, Second Session. 1954, 2 pts. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. Un 1/2: C 73/54/; circulating copy of pt. 1 in Joyner Docs Stacks: Y 4. Un 1/2: C 73/54/pt.1)
Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, Volume 10. Hearings Before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Seventy-Sixth Congress, First Session. 1939. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. Un 1/2: Un 1/V. 9-10)
-Contains the testimony of Fred Beal, a disillusioned former communist who had been involved in the CPUSA’s campaign to organize the 1929 Gastonia, NC textile workers’ strike. Beal’s testimony can be found from pages 6006-6042.
Report on Southern Conference for Human Welfare. Committee on Un-American Activities, U.S. House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, First Session. June 16, 1947. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. Un 1/2: Un 1/RPT. 592)
-The Southern Conference for Human Welfare (SCHW), active from 1938-1948, was alleged to be a CPUSA front organization.
Testimony of Paul Crouch. Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-First Congress, First Session. 1949. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. Un 1/2: C 88; additional copy in Joyner Hoover: HX89 .A4 1949F)
-Crouch (1903-1955), a North Carolina native, was a longtime CPUSA member before turning anti-communist informant.
2. Other Congressional Investigations
Communism in the Mid-South. Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Fifth Congress, First Session. 1957. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. J 89/2: C 73/16)
Southern Conference Educational Fund, Inc. Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Third Congress, Second Session. 1954. (Joyner Docs CWIS: Y 4. J 89/2: So 8)
-The Educational Fund, a SCHW spinoff organization, was likewise alleged to be a CPUSA front.
3. Secondary Sources
Billingsley, William J. Communists on Campus: Race, Politics, and the Public University in Sixties North Carolina. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999. (Joyner Stacks: LC72.3.N67 B55 1999; currently checked out)
Honey, Michael K. Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993. (Joyner Electronic Collection E-Book: ECU users click here)
Kelley, Robin D.G. Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990. (Joyner Stacks: HX91.A2K45 1990)
Korstad, Robert Rodgers. Civil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth-Century South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. (Joyner NC Stacks: HD6515.T6 K67 2003; two copies)
Lieberman, Robbie. Anticommunism and the African American Freedom Movement: “Another Side of the Story.” New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. (Joyner Stacks: E 185.61 .A585 2009)
Record, Wilson. The Negro and the Communist Party. New York: Atheneum, 1971. (Joyner Stacks: E185.61 .R29 1971)
Salmond, John A. Gastonia, 1929: The Story of the Loray Mill Strike. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. (Joyner NC Stacks: HD5325.T42 1929 G377 1995)
Taylor, Gregory S.. The History of the North Carolina Communist Party. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2009. (Joyner NC Stacks: HX91.N8 T39 2009; 2 copies)
Taylor, Gregory S. The Life and Lies of Paul Crouch : Communist, Opportunist, Cold War Snitch. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2014. (Joyner Stacks: E748.C949 T39 2014; currently in process/available on request)