SOCIALIST PARTY OF AMERICA PAPERS. 215,262 items and 33 volumes
Correspondence, minutes, speeches, convention proceedings, and organizers' reports of the
Socialist Party of America. The papers chronicle the activities of American Socialists both
within their party and in their contacts with other individuals, organizations, and movements
during the 20th century. Beginning in the 1930s, with the party's organization of the
Southern Tenant Farmer's Union—a biracial, sharecropper's organization—
there is consistent overlap and interaction between the Socialist Party and the civil rights
movement. The work of black activists Baynard Rustin, A. Phillip Randolph, Norman Hill, and
Arthur Parker emerges from the collection at various points. The party had state chapters
that were involved in activities organized by local civil rights groups.
