Civil Rights Congress Formed
The Civil Rights Congress was a left-wing civil rights and civil liberties organization, created by a merger of the International Labor Defense and the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties.
Most notably, on December 17, 1951, the CRC submitted a petition to the United Nations, “We Charge Genocide,” charging that the U.S. violated Article II of the UN Genocide Convention because of its failure to end lynching.
The Civil Rights Congress was attacked as a Communist-front group during the Cold War, including being listed by the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations in 1947. It lost members and support as a result, and finally disbanded in 1956.
Read “We Charge Genocide” (1951): http://www.blackpast.org/?q=we-charge-genocide-historic-petition-united-nations-relief-crime-united-states-government-against
Learn more: Larry Ceplair, Anti-Communism in the Twentieth Century America: A Critical History (2011)
Learn more about the Civil Rights Congress: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/civil-rights-congress-1946-1956
Learn more about the Cold War: Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (1998)
Visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture here