Being a leftist — or worse, a child of leftists — in the mid-20th century meant constant harassment from the FBI. From my childhood in the 1940s and ’50s through the upheavals of the ’60s, I only told them one thing: take a hike.
Chan Davis, died last month at 96, faced down McCarthyite blacklists and imprisonment to pursue a brilliant academic career. Davis knew how to change and learn from political experience, but he always remained loyal to his socialist principles.
The postwar Second Red Scare successfully smashed the American left. But in the midst of its devastation, a small number of old leftists refused to be shut up by the climate of fear. Without their heroism, the New Left could never have emerged.
In the 1970s, Robeson’s admirers — boosted by the upsurge of black studies and black cultural projects, the waning of the Cold War — began to rehabilitate his reputation with various tributes, documentary films, books, concerts, exhibits, and a play
“The Fifties,” by James R. Gaines, a former managing editor of Time, People and Life, reminds us that a trip in time to much of America then would resemble “The Handmaid’s Tale” more than “Ozzie and Harriet.”
Reader Comments: Worker Strike Wave, John Deere; Dismantle Missile Systems; Democratic Primary Winner India Walton Sabotaged by Dems; Socialists and 50s Civil Rights Movement; CUNY’s Alleged Wrong Doings; Black and Puerto Rican History In Action;
Ethel Rosenberg never abetted Soviet intelligence. Nor did Julius enable Russia’s atom bomb development. Yet in the overheated cold war and Korean intervention climate, they were singularly executed. The book under review details the graphic story.
This is a sensitive portrait of the American civilian who was executed for allegedly passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. There are striking similarities between the poisonous atmosphere of the cold war and that of contemporary politics...
In legislatures across the country, Republican lawmakers are introducing bills to curtail what educators — in public schools and universities — can say and teach about racism and sexism. It's a new McCarthyism...
In the stiflingly reactionary cultural atmosphere of postwar America, most filmmakers didn’t talk much about class. But there was one significant exception: film noir was the most class-conscious genre of motion picture America has ever produced.
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