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Background
The Southern Negro Youth Congress (1937-1949), was an organization formed in Richmond, Virginia that was established in order to bring awareness and fight against the inequalities amongst people of color in the South. The National Negro Congress was a parent organization to the Southern Negro Youth Congress. The Southern Negro Youth Congress consisted mainly of African Americans, but not exclusively.

Founders of the Southern Negro Youth Congress included many influential leaders such as Esther Cooper Jackson, James Jackson, Edward Strong, James Cox, and Helen Gray. Other members consisted of white Americans, representatives from black colleges, YMCA members, Boys and Girl Scouts, and even young steel workers. The Southern Negro Youth Congress' goal was to achieve freedom, equality, and opportunity.

Early Beginnings
In 1936, in order to have people join the Southern Negro Youth Congress, Edward Strong posted two publications titled “Call for Southern Negro Youth Conference”, and the “Prospectus of the Southern Negro Youth Conference”. In these publications, Strong pointed out that slavery had ended over seventy-three years prior, but blacks still faced oppression.

The Great Depression had been a leading factor in the establishment of the SYNC. African Americans throughout the nation were losing their jobs, receiving lower pay, getting their hours cut back, and being laid off more as opposed to white employees. African Americans did the same work as whites, but their titles were different and they were paid substantially less. The Southern Negro Youth Congress aimed to change these issues throughout the South and the rest of the United States.

The Southern Negro Youth Congress, with high school students and college students involved, created a lot of commotion within civil rights activities. Negro Americans were holding better conferences, informing one another of rights they believed they deserved, and started unions in order to better themselves and others who were also oppressed. SNYC members protested lynching, retrenchment in education, and unfair labor and hiring practices. The SYNC’s inauguration conference was held in Richmond on February 13-14, 1937 to coincide with Frederick Douglass’ birthday. For the first time, southern blacks could take action and bring about change. Their events were publicized and with the participation of many, the Southern Negro Youth Congress had many resolutions; “They fought for the repeal of the poll tax law, universal Negro suffrage, equal treatment before the law, modification of the sharecropping system, economic security and more federal aid to black southerners through public works and school programs.” The SNYC urged blacks to vote, register, and participate.

History
After the Great Depression and introduction into movements such as the New Deal, problems became more apparent. African Americans became involved in the “Great Migration” in which thousands of African Americans left the rural south in search of land, jobs, and equality. The south was becoming increasingly racist and dangerous. People were being verbally abused, beat, killed, and lynched. In many cities, police enforcement would not interfere with lynching’s of African Americans – even if it was not the police force that ordered the lynching’s – essentially making it legal for whites to lynch Africans without trial or just cause. The New Deal’s Agricultural Adjustment Act was intended to combat agricultural by restricting agricultural, but in return, it forced African American tenant farmers and sharecroppers off the land. This led to union formations and support of African Americans by the Communist Party.

As the SYNC attempted to assemble, segregation was still a crime. Since the Southern Negro Youth Congress was composed of not only African Americans, but also white folk, people in the city opposed of the organization. The SNYC appealed to numerous churches and asked to use their locations to hold meetings, but were often shut down. Life in the south became increasingly difficult for African Americans but with the help of founding members such as James and Esther Jackson, Edward Strong, and Louis Burnham – among others – they helped create commotion and interest in the Southern Negro Youth Conference. After the relocation to Birmingham, Alabama, their work challenged racial segregation in the south. The Southern Negro Youth Congress attempted to change the south by organizing workers from different jobs such as tobacco workers, fighting for the right to vote, and even held demonstrations against lynching.

The Socialist Party
The Socialist Party recognized that Negros were treated differently throughout the United States – specifically the south – but made little to no changes to prevent the discrepancies. As Eugene V. Debs mentioned in an article published in the International Socialist Review, “We have nothing special to offer the Negro, and we cannot make separate appeals to all races.” This stance has been an echoed position throughout the years within the Socialist Party. Debs believed that “race hatred was a direct attribute of economic inequality created by the capitalist system and would disappear through the process of class struggle an the eventual triumph of socialism.” Although some socialists did believe there was harsh discrimination and hatred for the American Negro, they were not willing as a party, to take a public stance for the “Negro problem”.

The Communist Party
The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) believed that the “Negro problem” should be addressed – mainly because the Negro problem was not actually a problem about race, but of an ethnicity that was marginalized. From as early as the 1920s and 1930s, the Communist Party of the United States emphasized the hardships and struggles faced by African Americans for liberation and for equality within the realm of the working class. Unlike the Socialist Party, the Communist Party of the United States was not afraid of explicitly promoting the equality and liberation of the American Negro. In their opinion, it was essential to bring this issue to light. In order to start promoting equality, the Communist Party of the United States held many meetings in which they attempted to tackle the problem. The Communist Party did not view the American Negros as a racial group, but rather as allies in the working-class struggle. Additionally, the Communist Party of the United States explicitly supported the right of African Americans to engage in armed self-defense against the terrorism of racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.

Opposition
Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor did everything in his power to prevent the meetings. Connor called in pastors, reverends, and other members of the churches to scare them into refusing to let the Southern Negro Youth Congress assemble in their churches. The churches were threatened with anti-segregation laws, while Connor and others explicitly showed their support from the Ku Klux Klan and through Jim Crow laws. One church allowed the organization to assemble, but it was not an easy task to complete. Whites who attempted to enter had to use the back door or be confronted by police enforcement and anti-segregationists.

Other organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Socialist party did not support the Communist involvement within the Southern Negro Youth Congress.

The Aftermath
After coming to an end in 1949, the Southern Negro Youth Congress was known as the first southern-based black organization that fought for civil rights during and after the Great Depression. It helped lay foundations for more modern civil rights campaigns to occur. With the creation of the SNYC, blacks gained consciousness and began to understand the importance of organizing, voting, and efforts towards advancing their political and economic standing.