Pettis Perry

Perry was born on a tenant farm near Marion, Alabama.^[1] He moved to Los Angeles in the 1920s, where he worked as a farm laborer in the Imperial Valley.^[2] Perry was inspired to join the Communist Party because of its work on behalf of the Scottsboro Boys.^[3] In 1933, Perry became the first African-American candidate for Lieutenant Governor of California, running on the Communist Party ticket.^[4]

Perry moved from California to New York City in 1948.^[5] In New York, Perry directed the Party's National Negro Commission until 1954.^[6] In 1949, Perry began a campaign to eliminate white chauvinism and racism in the Party, traveling to Party branches around the country to discuss the issue.^[7] While acknowledging the validity of Perry's concerns, Steve Nelson and Joseph Starobin argued that the campaign had been divisive and harmful to the Party.^[8]

Perry was arrested on June 20, 1951, with twenty other Communist Party leaders, under the Smith Act.^[9] During the trial, Perry argued that the proceedings were unfair, describing them as "a frameup so enormous as to resemble the Reichstag Fire trial".^[10] He and seven of the other defendants were sentenced to three years in jail and fined $5000.^[11] After his release from prison in 1957, Perry continued working in the Party and died in Moscow in 1965.^[12]

Perry was the inspiration for the character of Bart, a Black Communist leader, in Chester Himes' novel Lonely Crusade.^[13]