Bücher von Gerald Horne

There is a fundamental contradiction in U.S. Imperialism: the capital of this empire for decades has had a majority Black population, which-in turn-has created favorable conditions not only for the erosion of the pestilence that is racism but the flourishing of the antidote that is radicalism. In this sweeping history, Gerald Horne traces this phenomenon over a century, in a book which should be understood and studied by all anti-imperialist and progressive forces. This relatively small metropolis also has influenced profoundly its neighbors in Maryland and Virginia, especially in the potent area of labor organizing.

Based upon exhaustive research in court records, memoirs, the files of the New York State Athletic Commissions and related bodies from Nevada to New Jersey - not to mention the gangster venues from garish Las Vegas to venal South Philadelphia, this pioneering work tells the untold story of the grimy intersection of racism and racketeering in boxing. Revealing previously unrecorded stories of punchers from Jack Johnson to Joe Louis to Sugar Ray Robinson to Muhammad Ali, Horne also details a fascinating story of the waxing and waning of anti-Semitism. Toxic masculinity and other offshoots (including homophobia) are a major theme of this book and the author does not neglect women boxers--and wrestlers too---whose skills were honed in day-to-day battles with the pestilence that is male supremacy. An intriguing chapter concerns--ironically--the mob's chief executive in boxing in the 1950s, when profits piled up because of television broadcasts: Truman Gibson, a Negro, became the "fall guy", however, when a scapegoat was needed to take the blame for the fixed fights, the murderous attacks on those who refused to cooperate and the broken lives of what amounted to desperate workers eager to make a buck to support their starving families. This book traces the story of Black dominance in the sport, from fighting enslavers in Africa, through the brutal "battle royals" of slavery when enslaved men were placed in a ring blindfolded and forced to fight until one man was left standing, while, at the same time, it exposes the gross exploitation of fighters and the gargantuan profits garnered by the likes of Don King, Bob Arum--and a former Atlantic City casino poseur named Donald J. Trump.

Black Liberation/Red Scare is a study of an African American Communist leader, Ben Davis, Jr. (1904-64). Though it examines the numerous grassroots campaigns that he was involved in, it is first and foremost a study of the man and secondarily a study of the Communist party from the 1930s to the 1960s. By examining the public life of an important party leader, Gerald Horne uniquely approaches the story of how and why the party rose and fell. Ben Davis, Jr., was the son of a prominent Atlanta publisher and businessman who was also the top African American leader of the Republican party until the onset of the Great Depression. Davis was trained for the black elite at Morehouse, Amherst, and Harvard Law School. After graduating from Harvard, he joined the Communist party, where he remained as one of its most visible leaders for thirty years. In 1943, after being endorsed by his predecessor, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., he was elected to the New York City Council from Harlem and subsequently reelected by a larger margin in 1945. Davis received support from such community figures as NAACP leader Roy Wilkins, boxer Joe Louis, and musician Duke Ellington. While on the council Davis fought for rent control and progressive taxation and struggled against transit fare hikes and police brutality. With the onset of the Red Scare and the Cold War, Davis-like the Communist party itselfwas marginalized. The Cold War made it difficult for the U.S. to compete with Moscow forthe hearts and minds of African Americans while they were subjected to third-classcitizenship at home. Yet in return for civil rights concessions, African American organizationssuch as the NAACP were forced to distance themselves from figures such as Ben Davis. In1949 he was ousted unceremoniously (and perhaps illegally from the City Council. He wasput on trial, jailed in 1951, and not released until 1956, when the civil rights movement wasgathering momentum. His friendship with the King family, based upon family ties in Atlanta,was the ostensible cause for the FBI surveillance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.COINTEL-PRO, the counterintelligence program of the FBI, which was aimed initially atthe CPUSA, made sure to keep a close eye on Davis as well. But when the civil rightsmovement reached full strength in the 1960s Davis''s controversial appearances at collegecampuses helped to set the stage for a new era of activism at universities.Davis died in 1964. According to Horne, the time has now come when he, along with his good friend Paul Robeson and W. E. B. DuBois, should be regarded as a premier leader of African- Americans and the U.S. Left during the twentieth century.

Based upon exhaustive research in all presidential libraries from Hoover to Clinton, the voluminous archives of the African National Congress [ANC] at Fort Hare University in South Africa, along with allied archives of the NAACP, the Ford and Rockefeller fortunes, etc., this is the most comprehensive account to date of the entangled histories of apartheid and Jim Crow that culminated in 1994 with the election of Nelson Mandela as president in Pretoria.The author traces in detail the close ties between e.g. Mandela, Robeson, and Du Bois--among others--and how their working in tandem with the socialist camp (particularly the Soviet Union and Cuba) was the deciding factor (along with the struggles of Africans and their allies on both sides of the Atlantic) in compelling the reluctant retreat of the comrades-in-arms: apartheid and Jim Crow. However, weeks after the collapse of the Berlin Wall the apartheid regime chose to free Mandela and to legalize the ANC and its close ally, the South African Communist Party--while anticommunism, a major ideological weapon of the ruling class in Washington and Pretoria alike, surged--putting the Mandela government in a weakened position in the prelude to the nation's first democratic elections in 1994 and thereafter.Also detailed in these riveting pages are the allied struggles in Namibia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Congo, Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique, along with the massive solidarity movement in the U.S.--particularly among unions and students--that contributed mightily to victory.This is a story well worth studying as we continue to combat anticommunism--and struggle for socialism.

';A taut narrative in elegant prose... Horne has unearthed a vitally important and mostly forgotten aspect of Hollywood and labor history.' Publishers Weekly As World War II wound down in 1945 and the cold war heated up, the skilled trades that made up the Conference of Studio Unions (CSU) began a tumultuous strike at the major Hollywood studios. This turmoil escalated further when the studios retaliated by locking out CSU in 1946. This labor unrest unleashed a fury of Red-baiting that allowed studio moguls to crush the union and seize control of the production process, with far-reaching consequences. This engrossing book probes the motives and actions of all the players to reveal the full story of the CSU strike and the resulting lockout of 1946. Gerald Horne draws extensively on primary materials and oral histories to document how limited a ';threat' the Communist party actually posed in Hollywood, even as studio moguls successfully used the Red scare to undermine union clout, prevent film stars from supporting labor, and prove the moguls' own patriotism. Horne also discloses that, unnoticed amid the turmoil, organized crime entrenched itself in management and labor, gaining considerable control over both the ';product' and the profits of Hollywood. This research demonstrates that the CSU strike and lockout were a pivotal moment in Hollywood history, with consequences for everything from production values, to the kinds of stories told in films, to permanent shifts in the centers of power.

A comprehensive account of America's involvement in the war against Zimbabwe, which occurred after Smith's Rhodesian government made a unilateral declaration of independence and broke with Britain in 1965. Smith received tacit support from the US (American mercenaries fought with Rhodesia).

This biography of W.E.B. Du Bois gives full measure to his entire life, including his controversial final decades.