Authors of the article

is a PhD Candidate in History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her writing appears in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art, Open Letter: A Canadian Journal of Writing and Theory, The International Feminist Journal of Politics, Mute, and Upping the Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action.

(1898-1985) was a communist activist and theorist. A leading figure of the Communist Party USA from its founding until the late 1950s, he was the principal architect and proponent of the Black Belt nation thesis. He also was at one time a member of the African Blood Brotherhood and the October League. His major writings include Negro Liberation (1948), For a Revolutionary Position on the Negro Question (1958), and Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro American Communist (1978).

(b. Milton Halpern) was a Communist Party USA activist.