''A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century'' (occasionally ''A Radical Program for the Twentieth Century'') was the imaginary book title of a 1950s

hoax A hoax (plural: hoaxes) is a widely publicised falsehood created to deceive its audience with false and often astonishing information, with the either malicious or humorous intent of causing shock and interest in as many people as possible. S ...

purporting a foreign

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

plot to increase racial tensions in the United States. The hoax gained public notoriety when a congressman read a supposed quotation from the book to argue against the

Civil Rights Act of 1957 The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was the first federal civil rights law passed by the United States Congress since the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The bill was passed by the 85th United States Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. E ...

. The phony quotation was later traced to the

antisemite Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

Eustace Mullins Eustace Clarence Mullins Jr. (March 9, 1923 – February 2, 2010) was an American white supremacist, antisemitic conspiracy theorist, propagandist, Holocaust denier, and writer. A disciple of the poet Ezra Pound, * * * * * * * * * * * * h ...

. On June 7, 1957, during a debate on the Civil Rights Act of 1957, Rep. Thomas Abernethy of

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

read into the ''

Congressional Record The ''Congressional Record'' is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Publishing Office and issued when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record Ind ...

'' a supposed quotation from the nonexistent book, which was purported to have been written by an "Israel Cohen" in 1912. It said: "We must realize that our party's most powerful weapon is racial tensions. By propounding into the consciousness of the dark races that for centuries they have been oppressed by whites, we can mold them to the program of the Communist Party. In America we will aim for subtle victory. While inflaming the Negro minority against the whites, we will endeavor to instill in the whites a guilt complex for their exploitation of the Negroes. We will aid the Negroes to rise in prominence in every walk of life, in the professions and in the world of sports and entertainment. With this prestige, the Negro will be able to intermarry with the whites and begin a process which will deliver America to our cause."Regardless of the hoax racial disharmony is happening in western civilization today, being pushed by the Mainstream Media and Hollywoo
United States Congressional Record - House June 7, 1957, p. 8559 paragraph 3
/ref> Abernethy had found the quotation in a March 20, 1957,

letter to the editor A letter to the editor (LTE) is a Letter (message), letter sent to a publication about an issue of concern to the reader. Usually, such letters are intended for publication. In many publications, letters to the editor may be sent either through ...

of ''

The Washington Star ''The Washington Star'', previously known as the ''Washington Star-News'' and the ''Washington'' ''Evening Star'', was a daily afternoon newspaper published in Washington, D.C., between 1852 and 1981. The Sunday edition was known as the ''Sunday ...

''; he claimed it as proof that the civil rights movement was a foreign communist plot. However, ''The Washington Star'' soon apologized for having printed the quotation without verifying its authenticity and, on February 18, 1958, published an article entitled "Story of a Phony Quotation--A Futile Effort to Pin It Down--'A Racial Program for the 20th Century' Seems to Exist Only in Somebody's Imagination", which traced the quotation to

, who claimed to have found it in a Zionist publication in the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

. On August 30 of that year, Rep. Abraham J. Multer of New York read the ''Star'' article into the ''Congressional Record'' and raised several other points challenging the quotation's authenticity. These included the nonexistence of a British Communist party in 1912 (it was founded in 1920) and the nonexistence of a British Communist author named Israel Cohen. Although a British Jewish author and Zionist named Israel Cohen did exist in that period, he had no affiliation with Communism nor is there any record of him writing such a work. ''A Racial Program'' does not exist either in the Library of Congress or in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

Catalogue of Printed Books. Multer said that Mullins had been fired some years before for

antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

from a probationary job as a photographic aide at the Library of Congress. Other counterfeits were attributed to Mullins, along with a 1952 tract called "Adolf Hitler: An Appreciation" that Mullins had written for the fascist National Renaissance Party.

Eustace Mullins also invented the fabricated speech '' Our Race Will Rule Undisputed Over The World'' under the different alias of "Rabbi Emanuel Rabinovich".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Racial Program For The Twentieth Century, A Antisemitic forgeries Antisemitism in the United States Anti-communism in the United States 1950s hoaxes Far-right publications in the United States Hoaxes in the United States 1957 documents Racial hoaxes White genocide conspiracy theory White nationalism in the United States

Related

See also

References