Five-time Socialist Party presidential candidate and pioneer of industrial railroad unionism
At his 1918 sentencing he declared: "While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
The most iconic figure of American socialism and a pioneer of industrial unionism. After leading the American Railway Union through the Pullman Strike of 1894, he embraced Marxism in prison and helped found the Socialist Party of America (1901) and the IWW (1905). He ran for president five times, winning 6.0% in 1912, and from an Atlanta prison cell in 1920 he won over 914,000 votes, the high-water mark of American socialist electoral politics.
Career timeline
- 1875Joined Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen
- 1880–1893BLF Grand Secretary-Treasurer & magazine editor
- 1885Indiana State Representative (Democrat)
- 1893–1897Founder & president, American Railway Union
- 1901Co-founder, Socialist Party of America
- 1905Founding member, Industrial Workers of the World
- 1900–1920Socialist Party presidential candidate (5 campaigns)
- 1919–1921Imprisoned, Atlanta Federal Penitentiary
"Capitalism cannot reform itself": father of the modern Negro liberation movement who joined the Communist Party at 93
"Communism will triumph. I want to help bring that day." — from his 1961 application to join the Communist Party USA, submitted at age 93
American sociologist, historian, Pan-Africanist, and the single most important African American intellectual of the 20th century. A co-founder of the NAACP, he edited its magazine The Crisis for 24 years, shaping the direction of the black civil rights movement, while his books The Souls of Black Folk and Black Reconstruction in America transformed American sociology and historiography. He viewed capitalism as the root cause of racism and pursued a synthesis of Marxism and Pan-Africanism. In 1961, at age 93, he joined the Communist Party USA; invited by Kwame Nkrumah, he settled in Ghana to begin work on the Encyclopedia Africana, and died there in 1963.
Career timeline
- 1895–1897Wilberforce University; University of Pennsylvania researcher, published The Philadelphia Negro (1899)
- 1897–1910Atlanta University professor; published The Souls of Black Folk (1903); founded Niagara Movement (1905)
- 1910–1934NAACP co-founder, editor of The Crisis; organized Pan-African Congresses
- 1934–1944Atlanta University professor; published Black Reconstruction in America (1935)
- 1944–1948NAACP Director of Special Research; attended UN founding conference
- 1950–1951Peace Information Center chair; indicted under FARA, acquitted
- 1961–1963Joined CPUSA; emigrated to Ghana, began Encyclopedia Africana
"East Side Joan of Arc": from the IWW's Rebel Girl to first woman chair of the CPUSA
"We are Communist leaders, proudly and avowedly. We will prove to you that we are not a criminal conspiracy but a 33-year-old working-class political party, devoted to the immediate needs and aspirations of the American people." — Summation to the jury, Smith Act trial, April 24, 1952
American labor organizer and communist. Known as the IWW's "Rebel Girl" from age 15, she led the Lawrence strike and co-founded the ACLU. Elected CPUSA's first woman chair in 1961; died in Moscow and was given a Red Square state funeral.
Career timeline
- 1906First socialist speech, Harlem Socialist Club — arrested; joins IWW
- 1907–1916Full-time IWW organizer — Lawrence and Paterson strikes, Missoula and Spokane free-speech fights
- 1918Founds Workers' Defense Union to defend Espionage Act arrestees
- 1920Co-founds ACLU; leads Sacco and Vanzetti defense campaign
- 1936Joins CPUSA; writes weekly column for the Daily Worker
- 1940Expelled from ACLU board for Communist Party membership
- 1951–1955Convicted under Smith Act; serves 2 years at Alderson prison, writes The Alderson Story
- 1961–1964Chair of CPUSA National Committee; dies in Moscow — Red Square state funeral
From Trotsky's secretary to founder of Marxist Humanism
“My real development only began after my break with Trotsky.” — from a 1980s interview
Born to a Jewish family in the Russian Empire, she emigrated to the US as a child. Starting as Trotsky's secretary, she broke with him over the nature of the USSR and co-developed the theory of state capitalism with C.L.R. James. She went on to found Marxist Humanism, fusing Hegelian dialectics with Marx's early writings, and led the News and Letters Committees.
Career timeline
- 1922Emigrates with family to Chicago, USA
- 1928Expelled from CPUSA youth organization for defending Trotskyism
- 1929Joins independent Trotskyist group in Boston led by Antoinette Konikow
- 1937–1938Serves as Trotsky's Russian-language secretary and stenographer in Mexico
- 1939Breaks with Trotsky over the character of the Soviet Union
- 1940Participates in SWP split → formation of the Workers Party
- 1941–1943Forms Johnson–Forest Tendency with C.L.R. James; state-capitalist analysis of USSR
- 1947Returns to the SWP
- 1951Leaves SWP over Korean War; forms Correspondence Publishing Committee
- 1953Studies Hegel's Phenomenology; advances interpretation of absolutes as 'philosophic moment'
- 1955Splits with C.L.R. James; founds News and Letters Committees
- 1958Publishes Marxism and Freedom (preface by Herbert Marcuse)
- 1973Publishes Philosophy and Revolution
- 1982Publishes Rosa Luxemburg, Women's Liberation, and Marx's Philosophy of Revolution
- 1987Dies in Chicago aged 77
From first translator of Marx's 1844 Manuscripts to philosopher of Detroit's revolution
“We are the leaders we've been looking for.” — interviewed in her 90s in Detroit
Daughter of Chinese immigrants, she earned a PhD at Bryn Mawr but was barred from academia by racism and joined the Workers Party. With C.L.R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya she formed the Johnson–Forest Tendency triad, co-authoring State Capitalism and World Revolution and producing the first English translation of Marx's 1844 Manuscripts. In 1953 she married Black autoworker James Boggs, settled in Detroit, broke from Trotskyism, and turned toward community-based revolutionary praxis centered on Black liberation, writing into her 90s.
Career timeline
- 1915Born in Providence, Rhode Island, to Chinese immigrant restaurateur Chin Lee; Chinese given name Yu Ping (玉平)
- 1935Graduates from Barnard College, Columbia University
- 1940Earns PhD in philosophy from Bryn Mawr College with dissertation on George Herbert Mead
- 1940–1945Works as low-wage librarian at University of Chicago Philosophy Library; joins Workers Party through tenants' rights activism
- 1945–1947Forms Johnson–Forest Tendency with C.L.R. James and Dunayevskaya; produces first English translation of Marx's 1844 Manuscripts
- 1947Joins SWP with the tendency; writes under party pseudonym 'Ria Stone'
- 1950Co-authors State Capitalism and World Revolution with James and Dunayevskaya
- 1951Leaves SWP; helps form Correspondence Publishing Committee
- 1953Marries Black autoworker and political activist James Boggs; moves to Detroit
- 1962Breaks with C.L.R. James; leads Correspondence with James Boggs on independent Detroit-community orientation
- 1964Attempts to persuade Malcolm X to run for US Senate, unsuccessfully
- 1970Co-founds Detroit Asian Political Alliance
- 1974Publishes Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century with James Boggs
- 1979Co-founds National Organization for an American Revolution (NOAR)
- 1992Founds Detroit Summer, a multicultural intergenerational youth program
- 1998Publishes autobiography Living for Change
- 2011At 95, publishes The Next American Revolution with Scott Kurashige
- 2015Dies in Detroit at 100; President Obama issues statement mourning her passing
Marxist feminist philosopher who theorised the prison-industrial complex, co-founder of Critical Resistance
"I now declare publicly before the court, before the people of this country that I am innocent of all charges which have been leveled against me by the state of California." — courtroom declaration, 5 January 1971
American Marxist-feminist philosopher and foundational theorist of prison abolition. Joining CPUSA in 1968, she ran for Vice President in 1980 and 1984. Her 1970 arrest and sixteen-month imprisonment, ending in full acquittal, sparked a global solidarity campaign. Her landmark Women, Race & Class (1981) established intersectional analysis of race, gender and class; she went on to theorise the prison-industrial complex. In 1997 she co-founded Critical Resistance to advance abolition democracy. Distinguished Professor Emerita at UC Santa Cruz, she has stood at the crossroads of radical thought and practice for over five decades.
Career timeline
- 1944Born in Birmingham, Alabama; raised in the 'Dynamite Hill' Black middle-class neighbourhood
- 1965Graduates Brandeis magna cum laude; studies under Herbert Marcuse
- 1968Joins CPUSA; directs political education for Black Panther Party's LA chapter
- 1969Appointed assistant professor of philosophy at UCLA; fired for CPUSA membership, reinstated by court order
- 1970–1972Arrested, placed on FBI Ten Most Wanted list; acquitted of all charges after 16 months' imprisonment
- 1979Awarded the Lenin Peace Prize by the Soviet Union
- 1980CPUSA vice-presidential candidate, running mate of Gus Hall
- 1984CPUSA vice-presidential candidate, running mate of Gus Hall
- 1981Publishes Women, Race & Class, a classic of intersectional analysis
- 1991Leaves CPUSA; co-founds Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
- 1991–2008Professor of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz; retires as Distinguished Professor Emerita in 2008
- 1997Co-founds Critical Resistance, institutional anchor of the prison abolition movement
- 2003Publishes Are Prisons Obsolete?, a popular manifesto for abolition democracy
