Herbert Aptheker (July 31, 1915 – March 17, 2003) was an American
Marxist historian
Marxist historiography, or historical materialist historiography, is an influential school of historiography. The chief tenets of Marxist historiography include the centrality of social class, social relations of production in class-divided soc ...
and political
activist
Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...
. He wrote more than 50 books, mostly in the fields of
African-American history
African-American history began with the arrival of Africans to North America in the 16th and 17th centuries. Former Spanish slaves who had been freed by Francis Drake arrived aboard the Golden Hind at New Albion in California in 1579. The ...
and general
U.S. history, most notably, ''American Negro Slave Revolts'' (1943), a classic in the field. He also compiled the 7-volume ''Documentary History of the Negro People'' (1951–1994). In addition, he compiled a wide variety of primary documents supporting study of African-American history. He was the literary executor for
W. E. B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up i ...
.
From the 1940s, Aptheker was a prominent figure in U.S.
scholarly
The scholarly method or scholarship is the body of principles and practices used by scholars and academics to make their claims about the subject as valid and trustworthy as possible, and to make them known to the scholarly public. It is the me ...
discourse. Aptheker was
blacklist
Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist (or black list) of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list. If someone is on a blacklist, ...
ed in academia during the 1950s because of his
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...
membership. He succeeded
V. J. Jerome in 1955 as editor of ''
Political Affairs
''Political Affairs Magazine'' was a monthly Marxist publication, originally published in print and later online only. It aimed to provide an analysis of events from a working class point of view. The magazine was a publication of the Communist P ...
'', a communist theory magazine.
Biography
Early life and education
Herbert Aptheker was born in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
, the youngest child of a wealthy
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...
ish family.
In 1931, when he was 16, he accompanied his father on a business trip to
Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = " Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County
, LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham
, area_total_km2 = 135,7 ...
. There he learned first-hand about the
oppression
Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment or exercise of power, often under the guise of governmental authority or cultural opprobrium. Oppression may be overt or covert, depending on how it is practiced. Oppression refers to discrimination ...
of
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
s under
Jim Crow Laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the S ...
in the
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...
. The trip proved shocking and life-altering for Aptheker, who upon his return to Brooklyn began writing a column called "The Dark Side of The South" for his
Erasmus Hall High School
Erasmus Hall High School was a four-year public high school located at 899–925 Flatbush Avenue between Church and Snyder Avenues in the Flatbush neighborhood of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It was founded in 1786 as Erasmus Hall Ac ...
newspaper
[Murrell, ''"The Most Dangerous Communist in the World,"'' pg. 5.]
Aptheker graduated from high school in the spring of 1933, during the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
. Although admitted to Columbia University, he was unable to gain admission to the main campus of
Columbia College, which had already filled a quota set for Jews by college president
Nicholas Murray Butler.
Instead, Aptheker was relegated to enrolling at
Seth Low Junior College
The School of General Studies, Columbia University (GS) is a liberal arts college and one of the undergraduate colleges of Columbia University, situated on the university's main campus in Morningside Heights, New York City. GS is known prim ...
in
Brooklyn Heights
Brooklyn Heights is a residential neighborhood within the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Old Fulton Street near the Brooklyn Bridge on the north, Cadman Plaza West on the east, Atlantic Avenue on the south, ...
,
a satellite school established by Butler as a ''de facto'' dumping ground for Jews and ethnic Italians admitted in excess of Butler's quotas.
During his time at Seth Low, Aptheker was first drawn into political activity, helping to organize anti-war rallies and speaking on behalf of the communist-backed
National Student League The National Student League was a Communist led organization of college and high school students in the United States.
Organizational history
Origins
The organizations founding came about as a result of a case of censorship on the campus of th ...
(NSL) and the socialist-backed
Student League for Industrial Democracy.
[Murrell, ''"The Most Dangerous Communist in the World,"'' pg. 6.] He began reading the
Communist Party's daily newspaper, ''
The Daily Worker,'' at this time as well as the party's literary-artistic monthly, ''
The New Masses
''New Masses'' (1926–1948) was an American Marxist magazine closely associated with the Communist Party USA. It succeeded both ''The Masses'' (1912–1917) and ''The Liberator''. ''New Masses'' was later merged into '' Masses & Mainstream'' (19 ...
,''
although he did not yet become a member of the party.
After two years at Seth Low, Aptheker was allowed to enroll at Columbia's main campus in
Morningside Heights
Morningside Heights is a neighborhood on the West Side of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Morningside Drive to the east, 125th Street to the north, 110th Street to the south, and Riverside Drive to the west. Morningside ...
in Manhattan, but not with full status as a member of Columbia College. Instead, he was classified as a "university undergraduate", which placed him on track for a lesser
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...
degree rather than the higher-status
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
, which he received in 1936.
At Columbia, Aptheker continued to engage in the anti-war movement, both through the NSL and the
American League Against War and Fascism The American League Against War and Fascism was an organization formed in 1933 by the Communist Party USA and pacifists united by their concern as Nazism and Fascism rose in Europe. In 1937 the name of the group was changed to the American League ...
, a broader
mass organization
A mass movement denotes a political party or movement which is supported by large segments of a population. Political movements that typically advocate the creation of a mass movement include the ideologies of communism, fascism, and liberalism. Bo ...
of the Communist Party during its
Popular Front
A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault".
More generally, it is "a coalition ...
period.
Aptheker earned his
Master's degree
A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice. from Columbia in 1937 and a
Ph.D. in 1943 from the same institution. In September 1939, he joined the
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Rev ...
. He was awarded a
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...
in sociology in 1945.
Marriage and World War II
In 1942 Aptheker married Fay Philippa Aptheker (1905–1999), a first cousin who was also a native of Brooklyn.
She was a union organizer and political activist. They were married for 62 years, until her death.
Their daughter,
Bettina
Bettina is a female name predominantly found in the Italian and German languages. This name has various interpreted meanings and origins.
In Italian, Bettina originated as a diminutive of the names Elisabetta and Benedetta. Benedetta is the Ita ...
, was born in 1944 at the U.S. Army Hospital in
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Fort Bragg is a military installation of the United States Army in North Carolina, and is one of the largest military installations in the world by population, with around 54,000 military personnel. The military reservation is located within C ...
during Aptheker's service in World War II.
Aptheker participated in
Operation Overlord
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Norm ...
, the invasion of northern France; by 1945 he had been promoted to the rank of
Major
Major ( commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicato ...
in the
artillery
Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during si ...
. He commanded the all-black 350th artillery unit.
[Robin D.G. Kelley, "Interview of Herbert Aptheker," ''The Journal of American History,'' vol. 87, no. 1 (June 2000), pp. 151–167] In December 1950, after failing to respond to the U.S. Army's letter of inquiry about his Communist political activity, he lost his commission after an honorable discharge.
Work in the South
Returning with his family to the South after the war, Aptheker became an educational worker for the
Food and Tobacco Workers Union. Shortly afterward, he served as secretary of the "Abolish Peonage Committee," which had been established in 1940 by activists in New York and Chicago, with the support of the
International Labor Defense
The International Labor Defense (ILD) (1925–1947) was a legal advocacy organization established in 1925 in the United States as the American section of the Comintern's International Red Aid network. The ILD defended Sacco and Vanzetti, was activ ...
(IDL), an arm of the Communist Party. "
Peons
Peon (English language, English , from the Spanish language, Spanish ''wikt:peón#Spanish, peón'' ) usually refers to a person subject to peonage: any form of wage labor, financial exploitation, coercive economic practice, or policy in which th ...
" in the South, the vast majority of whom were African American, were typically rural sharecroppers who became tied to
plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Th ...
s by the debt they owed to the plantation owners, or to local merchants. This practice had effectively maintained African-American
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
after the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...
in all but name.
[Douglas A. Blackmon, ''Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II'', 2009]
Given repeated publicity about peonage abuses, in 1941 Attorney General
Francis Biddle
Francis Beverley Biddle (May 9, 1886 – October 4, 1968) was an American lawyer and judge who was the United States Attorney General during World War II. He also served as the primary American judge during the postwar Nuremberg Trials as well a ...
had directed all federal prosecutors to "actively investigate and try more peonage cases." On the verge of entering World War II, the US would make more effort to reduce rural peonage.
Similarly, southern states had run
convict leasing
Convict leasing was a system of forced penal labor which was practiced historically in the Southern United States, the laborers being mainly African-American men; it was ended during the 20th century. (Convict labor in general continues; f ...
programs, hiring out convicts to industries and taking the fees as revenue. Several southern states had banned convict leasing to industries in the early 20th century:
Tennessee, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas and Florida by 1923.
Research in African-American history
Aptheker's
master's thesis
A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...
, a study of
Nat Turner's slave rebellion
Nat Turner's Rebellion, historically known as the Southampton Insurrection, was a rebellion of enslaved Virginians that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831.Schwarz, Frederic D.1831 Nat Turner's Rebellion" ''American He ...
in
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...
in 1831, laid the groundwork for his future work on the history of American slave revolts. Aptheker asserted Turner's heroism, demonstrating how his rebellion was rooted in resistance to the exploitative conditions of the Southern slave system. His ''Negro Slave Revolts in the United States 1526–1860'' (1939), includes a table of documented slave revolts by year and state. His doctoral dissertation, ''American Negro Slave Revolts'', was published in 1943. Doing research in Southern libraries and archives, he uncovered 250 similar episodes.
Aptheker set forth
historiographical
Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians hav ...
arguments, challenging some conservative histories, most notably the perspective in the writings of
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
-born historian
Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, who was considered part of the
Dunning School at Columbia University. Historians of this group had been critical of
Reconstruction
Reconstruction may refer to:
Politics, history, and sociology
* Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company
*''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...
and argued that slavery was no worse than urban labor conditions. Phillips had characterized enslaved African Americans as childlike, inferior, and uncivilized; he argued that slavery was a benign institution; and defended the preservation of the Southern plantation system. Such works had been common in the field before Aptheker's scholarship.
Aptheker long emphasized
W. E. B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up i ...
'
social science
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of s ...
scholarship and lifelong struggle for African Americans to achieve equality. In his work as a historian, he compiled a documentary history of African Americans in the United States, a monumental collection which he started publishing in 1951. It eventually resulted in seven volumes of primary documents, a tremendous resource for African-American studies.
Post-war activism
During the 1950s and the period of
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner.
The term origin ...
, Aptheker was
blacklisted
Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist (or black list) of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list. If someone is on a blacklist, ...
in academia because of his membership in the Communist Party. He was unable to obtain an appointment as a university lecturer for a decade. Aptheker served on the National Committee of the CPUSA from 1957 to 1991. For several years in the 1960s and 1970s, he was executive director of the
American Institute For Marxist Studies. In 1966, he ran in the
U.S. House of Representatives election in New York's 12th Congressional District for the
Peace and Freedom Party
The Peace and Freedom Party (PFP) is a left-wing political party with affiliates and former members in more than a dozen American states, including California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana and Utah, but none now have ballot status besides C ...
; he received 3,562 votes. Given his work on African-American documents and history, Aptheker was chosen by
W. E. B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up i ...
to be his literary executor.
A strong opponent of the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
, Aptheker lectured on the subject on college campuses nationwide. From 1969 to 1973, Aptheker taught a full-year course annually in Afro-American History at
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United ...
. Aptheker died at age 87 on March 17, 2003, in
Mountain View, California
Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it has a population of 82,376.
Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is t ...
. His wife had died in 1999.
[
]
Allegation of child abuse
Bettina Aptheker
Bettina Fay Aptheker (born September 13, 1944) is an American political activist, radical feminist, professor and author. Aptheker was active in civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and has since worked in developing femini ...
is a professor of feminist studies
Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppressi ...
at the University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the ed ...
. In her 2006 memoir, ''Intimate Politics,'' she claimed that she was sexually abused by her father from the age of 3 to 13. Her memories of the events began to arise in 1999, after her mother's death and when she was working on a memoir. She sought counseling for her dissociation and recovered memory
Repressed memory is an inability to recall autobiographical information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature. The concept originated in psychoanalytic theory where repression is defined as a protective mechanism that excludes memory of ...
.[Alt URL]
/ref> She also wrote that she and her father reconciled before his death in 2003.[
Her assertion caused great controversy among historians and activists. Some raised questions about her credibility; others questioned the Old Left's desire to bury the news, and still others wondered at how to look at Aptheker's work in view of this information.]
In her memoir, Bettina Aptheker wrote more at length about her father's work on African-American history. She thought that he celebrated black resistance in part "to compensate for his deep shame about the way, he believed, the Jews had acted during the Holocaust."[
The controversy about her claims about her father continued for months, with many essays and letters published on the ]History News Network
History News Network (HNN) at George Washington University is a platform for historians writing about current events.
History
History News Network (HNN) is a non-profit corporation registered in Washington DC. HNN was founded by Richard Shenkman ...
hosted by George Mason University
George Mason University (George Mason, Mason, or GMU) is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia with an independent City of Fairfax, Virginia postal address in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. The university was origin ...
. In November 2007, the historian Christopher Phelps published an overview of the issues. He also wrote that he had interviewed Kate Miller, who had been present during Bettina Aptheker's 1999 conversation with her father about the abuse, and confirmed her account.[Christopher Phelps, "Herbert Aptheker: His daughter's partner confirms molestation charge"](_blank)
''The Nation,'' 5 November 2007, reprinted at History News Network, accessed 18 January 2012
Works
*
The Negro People in America: A Critique of Gunnar Myrdal’s “An American Dilemma”
', (International Publishers: New York, 1945)
* "Mississippi Reconstruction and the Negro Leader Charles Caldwell", Science & Society (Fall 1947)
* ''Afro American History: 1910–1932'', (Citadel Press: New York, 1951)
* ''History and Reality'' (1955), later republished as
The Era of McCarthyism
' ( Marzani & Munsell: New York, 1962)
* ''The American Revolution 1763–1783'',(International Publishers: New York, 1960)
*
The American Civil War
' (International Publishers: New York, 1961)
* ''American Negro Slave Revolts'' (1943), (Cameron Associates: NY, 1955)
*
Toward Negro Freedom
', (New Century Publishers: New York, 1956)
* ''Documentary History of the Negro People'', 7-volumes, (Carol Publishing Group: NJ, 1951–1994)
*
The Truth about Hungary
', (Kraus Reprint: NY, 1957)
*
The Colonial Era
', (International Publishers: New York, 1959)
*
And Why Not Every Man? Documentary Story of the Fight Against Slavery in the U.S.
', (Seven Seas Books: CA, 1961)
*
Dare We Be Free? The Meaning of the Attempt To Outlaw the Communist Party
', (New Century Publishers: Dublin, 1961)
*
Soul of the Republic: The Negro Today
', ( Marzani & Munsell, New York, 1964)
*
“One Continual Cry”: David Walker's Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829–1830), Its Setting & Its Meaning
', (New York: Humanities Press, 1965)
* ''Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion: Including the 1831 "Confessions"'', (Dover: NY, 1966)
*
Mission to Hanoi
', (International Publishers: New York, 1966)
*
Czechoslovakia and Counter-Revolution: Why the Socialist Countries Intervened
' (New Outlook Publishers, New York, 1969)
TELOS
Telos (; ) is a term used by philosopher Aristotle to refer to the final cause of a natural organ or entity, or of a work of human art. Intentional actualization of potential or inherent purpose,"Telos.''Philosophy Terms'' Retrieved 3 May 2020. ...
04 (Fall 1969)
*
The Urgency of Marxist-Christian Dialogue
', (Kraus Reprint: NY, 1970)
*
Afro-American History: The Modern Era
', (Citadel Press, Secaucus, 1971)
* ''American Negro Slave Revolts'', (International Publishers: New York, 1974)
* ''Early Years of the Republic: From the End of the Revolution to the First Administration of Washington'', (International Publishers: New York, 1976)
*
The World of C. Wright Mills
', (Kraus Reprint: NY, 1977)
*
American Foreign Policy and the Cold War
', (Kraus Reprint: NY, 1977)
*
Unfolding Drama
',(International Publishers: New York, 1979)
* ''The Nature of Democracy, Freedom & Revolution'',(International Publishers: New York, 1981)
*
Racism, Imperialism & Peace: Selected Essays
',(MEP Publications: MN, 1987)
*
Abolitionism: A Revolutionary Movement
', (Twayne Publishers: CT, 1989)
* ''The Literary Legacy Of W. E. B. Du Bois'', (Kraus Reprint: NY, 1989)
*
To Be Free: Studies in American Negro History
', (Citadel Press: New York, 1991)
* ''Anti-Racism in U.S. History: The First Two Hundred Years'', (Praeger: CT, 1992)
Works featuring an introduction or foreword by Aptheker
* Washington, Booker T., Herbert Aptheker (Foreword), ''The Negro in the South'' 2nd ed., (Carol Publishing Group: NJ, 1989)
* Du Bois, W. E. B., Herbert Aptheker (Introduction), ''The Quest of the Silver Fleece''
Works edited by Aptheker
* Du Bois, W. E. B., Herbert Aptheker(Ed.), ''The Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century'', (International Publishers: NY, 1968)
* Du Bois, W. E. B., Herbert Aptheker (Ed.), ''The Education of Black People: Ten Critiques, 1906–1960'', (Monthly Review Press: NY, 1973)
* Du Bois, W. E. B., Herbert Aptheker (Ed.), ''Contributions by W. E. B. Du Bois in Government Publications and Proceedings'', (Kraus-Thomson Organization: NY, 1980)
* Du Bois, W. E. B., Herbert Aptheker, Bettina Aptheker, David Graham Dnm Dubois (Ed.),''Prayers for Dark People'', (University of Massachusetts Press: MA, 1980)
* Du Bois, W. E. B., Herbert Aptheker (Ed.), ''Selections from the Crisis'', (Kraus-Thomson Organization: NY, 1980)
* Du Bois, W. E. B., Herbert Aptheker (Ed.), ''Writings by W. E. B. Du Bois in Non-Periodical Literature Edited by Others'', (Kraus-Thomson Organization: NY, 1982)
* Du Bois, W. E. B., Herbert Aptheker (Ed.), ''Creative Writings by W. E. B. Du Bois: A Pageant, Poems, Short Stories, and Playlets'', (Kraus-Thomson Organization: NY, 1985)
* Du Bois, W. E. B., Herbert Aptheker (Ed.), ''Against Racism: Unpublished Essays, Papers, Addresses, 1887–1961'', (University of Massachusetts Press: MA, 1985)
* Du Bois, W. E. B., Herbert Aptheker (Ed.), ''Newspaper Columns'', (Kraus-Thomson Organization: NY, 1986)
* Knutson, April A., Herbert Aptheker (Ed.), ''Ideology and Independence in the Americas'', (MEP Publications: MN, 1989)
* Du Bois, W. E. B., Herbert Aptheker (Ed.), ''The Correspondence of W. E. B. Du Bois'', (University of Massachusetts Press: MA, 1997)
References
Further reading
* Anthony Flood
"The History of Herbert Aptheker"
''Opera Historica,'' 22(1), 2021, 127–144 ,
* Anthony Flood, ''Herbert Aptheker: Studies in Willful Blindness'' (Independently published on Amazon, 2019).
* Anthony Flood
"C. L. R. James: Herbert Aptheker's Invisible Man"
''The C. L. R. James Journal,'' vol. 19, nos. 1 & 2 (Fall 2013), pp. 276–297.
* Robin D.G. Kelley, "Interview of Herbert Aptheker," ''The Journal of American History,'' vol. 87, no. 1 (June 2000), pp. 151–167.
* Gary Murrell, "Herbert Aptheker's Unity of Theory and Practice in the Communist Party USA: On the Last Night, and during the First Two Decades," ''Science & Society,'' vol. 70, no. 1, (Jan. 2006), pp. 98–118.
* Gary Murrell, ''"The Most Dangerous Communist in the United States": A Biography of Herbert Aptheker'' (University of Massachusetts Press, 2015).
Research resources
"Herbert Aptheker Papers, 1842–2005"
(122 linear ft.), Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA
Text Finding Aid
External links
Bettina and Herbert Aptheker
History News Network
History News Network (HNN) at George Washington University is a platform for historians writing about current events.
History
History News Network (HNN) is a non-profit corporation registered in Washington DC. HNN was founded by Richard Shenkman ...
.
Christopher Phelps, "Herbert Aptheker: The Contradictions of History"
''Chronicle of Higher Education,'' 12 July 2006
Anthony G. Flood, "Herbert Aptheker: Apothecary for a Red Teenager"
Anthony G. Flood website
A. J. Muste Papers
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Swarthmore College Peace Collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aptheker, Herbert
20th-century American historians
Historians of the United States
Historians of African Americans
Jewish American historians
American Marxist historians
American male non-fiction writers
Activists for African-American civil rights
American anti–Vietnam War activists
Trade unionists from New York (state)
Peace and Freedom Party politicians
Members of the Communist Party USA
Jewish socialists
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Columbia University alumni
United States Army officers
United States Army personnel of World War II
Erasmus Hall High School alumni
Activists from New York (state)
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1915 births
2003 deaths
Historians from New York (state)