''We Charge Genocide'' is a paper accusing the United States government of

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...

based on the UN Genocide Convention. This paper was written by the

Civil Rights Congress The Civil Rights Congress (CRC) was a United States civil rights organization, formed in 1946 at a national conference for radicals and disbanded in 1956. It succeeded the International Labor Defense, the National Federation for Constitutional Li ...

(CRC) and presented to the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

at meetings in Paris in December 1951. The document pointed out that the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide defined genocide as any acts committed with "

intent to destroy ''Intent to Destroy: Death, Denial, & Depiction'' is a 2017 documentary film directed by Joe Berlinger about the Armenian genocide. Production Berlinger embedded in the filming crew of '' The Promise'' to shoot ''Intent to Destroy''. The film p ...

" a group, "in whole or in part." To build its case for

black genocide In the United States, black genocide is the notion that the mistreatment of African Americans by both the United States government and white Americans, both in the past and the present, amounts to genocide. The decades of Lynching in the United ...

, the document cited many instances of

lynching in the United States Lynching was the widespread occurrence of extrajudicial killings which began in the United States' pre–Civil War South in the 1830s and ended during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Although the victims of lynchings wer ...

, as well as legal

discrimination Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...

, disenfranchisement of blacks in the South, a series of incidents of police brutality dating to the present, and systematic inequalities in health and quality of life. The central argument: The U.S. government is both complicit with and responsible for a genocidal situation based on the UN's own definition of genocide. The document received international media attention and became caught up in

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

politics, as the CRC was supported by the

American Communist Party The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...

. Its many examples of shocking conditions for African Americans shaped beliefs about the United States in countries across the world. The United States government and press accused the CRC of exaggerating

racial inequality Social inequality occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons. It posses and creates gender c ...

in order to advance the cause of

Communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

. The U.S. State Department forced CRC secretary

William L. Patterson William Lorenzo Patterson (August 27, 1891 – March 5, 1980) was an African-American leader in the Communist Party USA and head of the International Labor Defense, a group that offered legal representation to communists, trade unionists, and ...

to surrender his passport after he presented the petition to a UN meeting in Paris.

Background

Soon after the

was created in 1945, it began to receive requests for assistance from peoples across the world. These came from the indigenous peoples of European colonies in Africa and Asia, but also from African Americans. The first group to petition the UN regarding African Americans was the

National Negro Congress The National Negro Congress (NNC) (1936–ca. 1946) was an American organization formed in 1936 at Howard University as a broadly based organization with the goal of fighting for Black liberation; it was the successor to the League of Struggle for N ...

(NNC), which in 1946 delivered a statement on racial discrimination to the Secretary General. The next appeal, from the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...

(NAACP) in 1947, was more than 100 pages in length.

W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in ...

presented it to the UN on 23 October 1947, over the objections of

Eleanor Roosevelt Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...

, the widow of the late president and an American delegate to the UN. Du Bois, frustrated with the State Department's opposition to the petitions, criticized president

Walter White Walter White most often refers to: * Walter White (''Breaking Bad''), character in the television series ''Breaking Bad'' * Walter Francis White (1893–1955), American leader of the NAACP Walter White may also refer to: Fictional characters ...

of the NAACP for accepting a position as consultant to the US delegation; White in turn pushed Du Bois out of the NAACP. The petitions were praised by the international press and by

Black press Black Press Group Ltd. is a Canadian publisher of prominent daily newspapers in Hawaii and Alaska and numerous non-daily newspapers in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada, and (via Sound Publishing) the U.S. state of Washington. Black Press M ...

in the United States. America's mainstream media, however, were ambivalent or hostile. Some agreed that there was some truth to the petitions, but suggested that "tattling" to the UN would aid the cause of Communism. The Soviet Union did cite these documents as evidence of poor conditions in the United States. The

(CRC), the successor to the

International Labor Defense The International Labor Defense (ILD) (1925–1947) was a legal advocacy organization established in 1925 in the United States as the American section of the Comintern's International Red Aid network. The ILD defended Sacco and Vanzetti, was activ ...

group and affiliated with the communist party, had begun to gain momentum domestically by defending Blacks sentenced to execution, such as

Rosa Lee Ingram Rosa Lee Ingram (died 1980) was an African American sharecropper and widowed mother of 12 children, who was at the center of one of the most explosive capital punishment cases in U.S. history. In the 1940s, she became an icon for the civil rights ...

and the

Trenton Six The Trenton Six is the group name for six African-American defendants tried for murder of an elderly white shopkeeper in January 1948 in Trenton, New Jersey. The six young men were convicted in August 1948 by an all-white jury of the murder and ...

. The National Negro Congress joined forces with the CRC in 1947.

The petition quotes the UN's

definition of genocide Genocide definitions include many scholarly and international legal definitions of genocide,Based on a list by Adam Jones . a word coined with ''genos'' (Greek: "birth", "kind", or "race") and an English suffix ''-cide'' by Raphael Lemkin in 194 ...

as "Any intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, racial, or religious group is genocide." It concludes that "the oppressed Negro citizens of the United States, segregated, discriminated against, and long the target of violence, suffer from genocide as the result of the consistent, conscious, unified policies of every branch of government. If the General Assembly acts as the conscience of mankind and therefore acts favorably on our petition, it will have served the cause of peace." The CRC emphasized that attempting to destroy a group "in part" was part of the definition, and argued that treatment of African Americans qualified as genocide. As evidence, the 237-page petition addresses the question of racism in the United States from different angles. It lists hundreds of wrongful executions and lynchings, refers to at least 10,000 undocumented cases, and also charges that Southern states in the U.S. had engaged in a conspiracy against African Americans' ability to vote through

poll taxes A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments fr ...

and

literacy tests A literacy test assesses a person's literacy skills: their ability to read and write have been administered by various governments, particularly to immigrants. In the United States, between the 1850s and 1960s, literacy tests were administered t ...

. In addition to legal discrimination, the petition discusses systematic economic inequalities and differences in quality of life." Ultimately, the petition holds the US government responsible for genocide, through endorsement of both racism and "monopoly capitalism"—without which "the persistent, constant, widespread, institutionalized commission of the crime of genocide would be impossible. Seeking to demonstrate the urgency of the problem, and to invite explicit comparisons between American genocide and Nazi genocide, the document focuses on incidents occurring after 1945. The CRC only focused on incidents of mob violence and police terror since 1945; that is to say, since America proclaimed itself the leader of the 'free world' The charge of genocide, in the wake of the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

, was devastating; it was more wrenching under the klieg lights of the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

and American platitudes about democracy. And everyone knew it." The CRC procured source material carefully, and critics of the document acknowledged that its facts were correct. After it became clear that the CRC had, in fact, meticulously verified each incident, White tried another tactic. The 'facts are true' he lamented, but 'like all indictments drafted by a prosecutor', ''We Charge Genocide'' is one-sided ...." The CRC sought to demonstrate that systematic oppression of African Americans amounted to genocide because it reflected a violent

white supremacy White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...

at the core of American culture.

Delivery

On 17 December 1951, the petition was presented to the

by two separate venues:

Paul Robeson Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his p ...

, concert singer and activist, together with people who signed the petition, handed the document to a UN official in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, while

, executive director of the

, delivered copies of the petition to a UN delegation in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, also slated to deliver the petition in Paris, had been classified by the US State Department as an "unregistered foreign agent" and was deterred from traveling.John Docker,
Raphaël Lemkin, creator of the concept of genocide: a world history perspective
, ''Humanities Research'' 16(2), 2010; accesse
via ProQuest
Du Bois had previously had an expensive legal battle against the Justice Department. The 125 copies Patterson mailed to Paris did not arrive, allegedly intercepted by the US government. But he distributed other copies, which he had shipped separately in small packages to individuals' homes.James L. Hicks,
Patterson Charges U.S. Stole Passport
, ''Baltimore Afro-American'', 2 February 1951. The document was signed by many leading activists and family of Blacks who had suffered in the system, including: *

, African-American sociologist, historian and Pan-Africanist activist *

George W. Crockett, Jr. George William Crockett Jr. (August 10, 1909 – September 7, 1997) was an African-American attorney, jurist, and congressman from the U.S. state of Michigan. He also served as a national vice-president of the National Lawyers Guild and co- ...

, African-American lawyer and politician * Benjamin J. Davis, Jr., African-American lawyer and Communist New York councilman *

Ferdinand Smith Ferdinand Smith (5 May 1893 – 14 August 1961) was a Jamaican-born Communist labor activist. A prominent activist in the United States and the West Indies, Smith co-founded the National Maritime Union with Joseph Curran and M. Hedley Stone. By 194 ...

, Communist labor activist and co-founder of the

National Maritime Union The National Maritime Union (NMU) was an American labor union founded in May 1937. It affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in July 1937. After a failed merger with a different maritime group in 1988, the union merged w ...

* Oakley C. Johnson, Communist activist * Aubrey Grossman, labor and civil rights lawyer *

Claudia Jones Claudia Vera Jones (; 21 February 1915 – 24 December 1964) was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist. As a child, she migrated with her family to the US, where she became a Communist political activist, feminist and black national ...

, Communist and Black nationalist activist * Rosalie McGee, the widow of

Willie McGee Willie Dean McGee (born November 2, 1958) is an American professional baseball coach and former outfielder who is an assistant coach for the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball (MLB). He played in MLB for four teams, over 18 seasons. He ...

, who in 1951 was executed after being controversially convicted of rape by an all-white jury * Josephine Grayson, the widow of Francis Grayson, one of the "

Martinsville Seven The Martinsville Seven were a group of seven African-American men from Martinsville, Virginia, who were all executed in 1951 by the United States government after being accused of raping a white woman. At the time of their arrest, all but one were b ...

", who in 1951 were executed in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

after a much-publicized trial and conviction by an all-white jury * Amy Mallard and Doris Mallard, remaining family of Robert Childs Mallard, lynched in 1948 for voting * Paul Washington, veteran on death row in Louisiana * Wesley R. Wells, prisoner in California facing execution for throwing a

cuspidor A spittoon (or spitoon) is a receptacle made for spitting into, especially by users of chewing and dipping tobacco. It is also known as a cuspidor (which is the Portuguese word for "spitter" or "spittoon", from the verb "cuspir" meaning "to sp ...

at a guard * Horace Wilson, James Thorpe, Collis English, and Ralph Cooper, four of the

* Leon Josephson, Communist attorney who was imprisoned for contempt of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) Patterson said he was ignored by US ambassador

Ralph Bunche Ralph Johnson Bunche (; August 7, 1904 – December 9, 1971) was an American political scientist, diplomat, and leading actor in the mid-20th-century decolonization process and US civil rights movement, who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize f ...

and delegate Channing Tobias, but that

Edith Sampson Edith Spurlock Sampson (October 13, 1901 – October 8, 1979) was an American lawyer and judge, and the first Black people in the United States, Black U.S. delegate appointed to the United Nations on 24 August 1950. She conceded that Black people ...

would talk to him. Patterson was ordered to surrender his passport at the United States embassy in France. When he refused, U.S. agents said they would seize it at his hotel room. Patterson fled to Budapest, where through the newspaper '' Szabad Nép,'' he accused the U.S. government of attempting to stifle the charges. The U.S. government ordered Patterson to be detained when he passed through Britain and seized his passport when he returned to the United States. As Paul Robeson had been unable to obtain a passport at all, the difficulty these two men faced in traveling led some to accuse the United States government of censorship.

Reception

''We Charge Genocide'' was ignored by much of the mainstream American press. One exception, the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'', called it "shameful lies" (and evidence against the value of the Genocide Convention itself). I. F. Stone was the only white American journalist to write favorably of the document. The CRC had communist affiliations, and the document attracted international attention through the worldwide communist movement.

Raphael Lemkin Raphael Lemkin ( pl, Rafał Lemkin; 24 June 1900 – 28 August 1959) was a Polish lawyer who is best known for coining the term ''genocide'' and initiating the Genocide Convention, an interest spurred on after learning about the Armenian genocid ...

, who invented the term "genocide" and advocated for the Genocide Convention, disagreed with the petition because the African-American population was increasing in size. He accused its authors of wishing to distract attention from the alleged "genocide" in the Soviet Union, which had resulted in millions of deaths, because of their communist sympathies. Lemkin accused Patterson and Robeson of serving foreign powers. He published an op-ed in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' arguing that Blacks did not experience the "destruction, death, annihilation" that would qualify their treatment as genocide. The petition was particularly well received in Europe, where it received abundant press coverage. ''We Charge Genocide'' was popular almost everywhere in the world except in the United States. One American writer traveling India in 1952 found that many people had become familiar with the cases of the

and

through the document.Martin, "Internationalizing 'The American Dilemma'" (1997), p. 54. The American delegation heavily criticized the document. Eleanor Roosevelt called it "ridiculous." Black delegates

and Channing Tobias spoke to European audiences about how the situation of African Americans was improving. At the request of the State Department, the NAACP drafted a press release repudiating ''We Charge Genocide'', calling it "a gross and subversive conspiracy." However, upon hearing initial press reports of the petition and the expected NAACP response, Walter White decided against issuing the release. He and the board decided that the petition did reflect many of the NAACP views. For instance, the organization had long been publishing the toll of blacks who had been lynched. "How can we 'blast' a book that uses our records as source material?" asked

Roy Wilkins Roy Ottoway Wilkins (August 30, 1901 – September 8, 1981) was a prominent activist in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States from the 1930s to the 1970s. Wilkins' most notable role was his leadership of the National Association for the ...

. The CRC's power was already declining due to accusations of Communism during the

Red Scare A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which ar ...

, and it disbanded in 1956. The United Nations did not acknowledge receiving the petition. Given the strength of U.S. influence, it was not really expected to do so.

Legacy

The document has been credited with popularizing the term "genocide" among Black people for their treatment in the US. After renewed interest generated by

Malcolm X Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Is ...

and the

Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...

, ''We Charge Genocide'' was republished in 1970 by

International Publishers International Publishers is a book publishing company based in New York City, specializing in Marxism, Marxist works of economics, political science, and history. Company history Establishment International Publishers Company, Inc., was founded ...

.Martin, "Internationalizing 'The American Dilemma'" (1997), pp. 55. Allegations of genocide were renewed in relation to the disproportionate effects of

crack cocaine Crack cocaine, commonly known simply as crack, and also known as rock, is a free base form of the stimulant cocaine that can be smoked. Crack offers a short, intense high to smokers. The ''Manual of Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment'' calls ...

and

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

in the black communities in the United States. The

National Black United Front The National Black United Front (NBUF) is an African-American organization formed in the late 1970s in Brooklyn, New York. Its headquarters are in South Shore, Chicago, Illinois. It has been described as Christian, Left-leaning, somewhat Black na ...

petitioned the United Nations in 1996–1997, directly citing ''We Charge Genocide'' and using the same slogan.Worrill, Conrad W., "We Charge Genocide", ''New York Amsterdam News'', 19 April 1997; accesse
via ProQuest
Their petition begins: The high rate of incarceration of minorities is another American phenomenon sometimes connected to the word "genocide." Disproportionate application of the death penalty to blacks convicted of the same crime as whites has also been cited, as it was in the 1946–1951 era by the CRC. The United Nations,

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

s, and mass media have generally not applied the term after 1945 to the internal affairs of Western states. The petition also represented one of the first high-profile uses of the modern concept of "

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

", framed in relation to the

eugenic Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...

ideology of the reviled

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

s. ''We Charge Genocide'' was used as an example of how the Genocide Convention could be used against the United States. The convention remained unpopular with the United States government and was not ratified until 1986. During the

United Nations Convention against Torture The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (commonly known as the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT)) is an international human rights treaty under the review of the United Nation ...

Committee Review of the U.S. in November 2014, a group of eight young activists from

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, (Breanna Champion, Page May, Monica Trinidad, Ethan Viets-VanLear, Asha Rosa, Ric Wilson, Todd St. Hill, and Malcolm London) submitted a shadow report using the name, ''We Charge Genocide.'' Their report addressed police brutality toward blacks in Chicago, the lack of police accountability, and the misuse of

taser A taser is an electroshock weapon used to incapacitate people, allowing them to be approached and handled in an unresisting and thus safe manner. It is sold by Axon, formerly TASER International. It fires two small barbed darts intended to ...

s by the

Chicago Police Department The Chicago Police Department (CPD) is the municipal law enforcement agency of the U.S. city of Chicago, Illinois, under the jurisdiction of the City Council. It is the second-largest municipal police department in the United States, behind t ...

References

Works cited

* Anderson, Carol Elaine. ''Eyes off the prize: African-Americans, the United Nations, and the struggle for human rights, 1944–1952''. Dissertation (approved), submitted 1995 at Ohio State University; accesse
via ProQuest
* Martin, Charles H., "Internationalizing "The American Dilemma": The Civil Rights Congress and the 1951 Genocide", ''Journal of American Ethnic History'' 16(4), Summer 1997, accesse
via JStor
* Vargas, João H. Costa, "Genocide in the African Diaspora: United States, Brazil, and the Need for a Holistic Research and Political Method", ''Cultural Dynamics'' 17(3), November 2005; accesse
via SAGE
DOI: 10.1177/0921374005061991.

External links

* ttp://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis51.htm Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement – Timeline
Civil Rights Movement Bibliography

We Charge Genocide: The Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relief from a Crime of the United States Government against the Negro People
{{Genocide topics History of civil rights in the United States United States and the United Nations Genocide Petitions Paul Robeson Civil Rights Congress 1951 documents Genocides in North America