The Negro Sanhedrin was a national "All-Race Conference" held in the American city of

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

, from February 11 to 15, 1924. The gathering was attended by 250 delegates representing 61 trade unions, civic groups, and fraternal organizations in a short-lived attempt to forge a national program protecting the legal rights of

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

tenant farmers A tenant farmer is a farmer or farmworker who resides and works on land owned by a landlord, while tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and mana ...

and wage workers and extending the scope of

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...

History

Background

The idea for a national conference bringing together representatives of African-American organizations came in the spring of 1923, following

Congressional A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ad ...

defeat of the

Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill The Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill (1918) was first introduced in the 65th United States Congress by Representative Leonidas C. Dyer, a Republican Party (United States), Republican from St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States House of Representatives ...

.Joyce Moore Turner with W. Burghardt Turner, ''Caribbean Crusaders and the Harlem Renaissance.'' Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2005; pg. 113.

William Monroe Trotter William Monroe Trotter, sometimes just Monroe Trotter (April 7, 1872 – April 7, 1934), was a newspaper editor and real estate businessman based in Boston, Massachusetts. An activist for African-American civil rights, he was an early opponent o ...

of the

National Equal Rights League The National Equal Rights League (NERL) is the oldest nationwide human rights organization in the United States. It was founded in Syracuse, New York in 1864 dedicated to the liberation of black people in the United States. Its origins can be trace ...

(NERL) of

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

is credited with originating the idea for assembly of a national council of prominent black leaders. This idea was passed along to president of the NERL, Matthew A. N. Shaw, who issued a formal invitation to five like-minded organizations asking for their support. Among the groups initially solicited was the

African Blood Brotherhood The African Blood Brotherhood for African Liberation and Redemption (ABB) was a U.S. black liberation organization established in 1919 in New York City by journalist Cyril Briggs. The group was established as a propaganda organization built on t ...

(ABB), a radical semi-underground organization affiliated with the

Workers Party of America The Workers Party of America (WPA) was the name of the legal party organization used by the Communist Party USA from December 1921 until the middle of 1929. Background As a legal political party, the Workers Party accepted affiliation from indep ...

. Head of the ABB,

Cyril Briggs Cyril Valentine Briggs (May 28, 1888 – October 18, 1966) was an African-Caribbean American writer and communist political activist. Briggs founded the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), a small but historically important radical organization de ...

, took the initiative in coordinating such a gathering, initially touted by him as a "United Front Negro Conference of Civil Rights Organizations." On March 24, 1923, a formal document was signed by representatives of the six organizations pledging their support of the conference. In addition to the ABB and NERL, other groups lending their formal support included the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...

(NAACP), the International Uplift League, the Friends of Freedom, and the National Race Congress. Dean Kelly Miller of

Howard University Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and accredited by the Mid ...

, formally representing the National Race Congress, was chosen as head of the arrangements committee, with Cyril Briggs of the ABB continuing to handle day to day organizational tasks as secretary. Nearly a year of meetings and organizational outreach followed, with the moderate Miller cementing ties with mainstream community and fraternal organizations. It was Miller who chose the name for the gathering, the "

Sanhedrin The Sanhedrin (Hebrew and Middle Aramaic , a loanword from , 'assembly,' 'sitting together,' hence ' assembly' or 'council') was a Jewish legislative and judicial assembly of either 23 or 70 elders, existing at both a local and central level i ...

," a phrase originating in the Biblical

first book of Maccabees 1 Maccabees, also known as the First Book of Maccabees, First Maccabees, and abbreviated as 1 Macc., is a deuterocanonical book which details the history of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire as well as the founding and earliest his ...

and referring to a supreme council of the

Hebrew people The Hebrews (; ) were an ancient Semitic-speaking people. Historians mostly consider the Hebrews as synonymous with the Israelites, with the term "Hebrew" denoting an Israelite from the nomadic era, which preceded the establishment of the Ki ...

.Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, ''Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950.'' New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2008; p. 40.

Convention

The Sanhedrin assembled in Chicago on February 11, 1924, attended by 250 delegates representing 61 organizations.Gilmore, ''Defying Dixie,'' p. 41. The gathering was attended by organizations ranging across the ideological spectrum, from conservative civic groups to the African Blood Brotherhood. A considerable number of professionals, scholars, and businesspeople were included among the delegates, who hailed from no fewer than 20 American states. As a result, the gathering was far from radical, with the convention electing Kelly Miller its chairman following a short debate — a decision bitterly opposed by the radical caucus of delegates, which included Briggs and his Workers Party comrades, Lovett Fort-Whiteman, and

Otto Huiswoud Otto Eduard Gerardus Majella Huiswoud (October 28, 1893 – February 20, 1961) was a Surinamese political activist who was a charter member of the Communist Party of America. Huiswoud is regarded as the first black member of the American co ...

Program

Lovett Fort-Whiteman spoke on the floor of the convention for the agenda of radical delegates, headed by Communists and the ABB. He urged the adoption of a program calling for an end to

racial segregation Racial segregation is the separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, ...

in the housing market, termination of

colonialism Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...

in Africa, legally binding contracts to protect

, abolition of

anti-miscegenation laws Anti-miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage sometimes, also criminalizing sex between members of different races. In the United Stat ...

, and

diplomatic recognition Diplomatic recognition in international law is a unilateral declarative political act of a state that acknowledges an act or status of another state or government in control of a state (may be also a recognized state). Recognition can be acc ...

Soviet Russia The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

by the United States government, among other things.Gilmore, ''Defying Dixie,'' pp. 41–42. Resolutions condemning the

American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual ...

for allowing its affiliated unions the freedom to exclude black workers from membership and calling for African Americans to join the Communist-sponsored Farmer-Labor Party were prepared.Gilmore, ''Defying Dixie,'' p. 42. Convention chairman Miller short-circuited the agenda of the radicals, however, using his power to appoint an official of the Chicago Chamber of Commerce as head of the Sanhedrin's Labor Committee. This forced the ABB and its allies to bring its proposed resolutions for action directly from the floor of the gathering, a process which ended in failure for its resolutions dealing with

school segregation School segregation is the division of people into different groups in the education system by characteristics such as race, religion, or ethnicity. See also *'' D.H. and Others v. the Czech Republic'' *Single-sex education By country * School s ...

, opposing the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to KKK or Klan, is an American Protestant-led Christian terrorism, Christian extremist, white supremacist, Right-wing terrorism, far-right hate group. It was founded in 1865 during Reconstruction era, ...

, and seeking recognition of Soviet Russia.Turner with Turner, ''Caribbean Crusaders and the Harlem Renaissance,'' p. 114. Those resolutions which were passed were severely tempered from the preferred wording of the radicals, including a comparatively mild rebuke of labor union locals for exclusion of black members rather than ringing condemnation of the leadership of the American Federation of Labor and opining in favor of equal pay for workers without respect to race and organized financial assistance to the struggling agricultural workers being crushed by the agricultural depression that gripped the nation. The Sanhedrin was adjourned sine die on February 15, 1924.

Legacy

The Negro Sanhedrin was the first national gathering of black Americans at which members of the Communist movement openly participated. In the view of one scholar, the Sanhedrin represented "a grand opportunity for mainstream black organizations and black radicals to set aside their differences and formulate a program of mutual benefit."Herb Boyd, "Radicalism and Resistance: The Evolution of Black Radical Thought," ''The Black Scholar,'' vol. 28, no. 1 (Spring 1998), p. 47. In this the Sanhedrin was a great failure, with the factional activities of the Communists in Chicago deeply resented and the organization banned from a subsequent and final gathering held in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Nor would the Sanhedrin movement be a successful or lasting vehicle for the coordination of activity by the myriad of mainstream black organizations, with momentum dissipating almost immediately after the close of the Chicago gathering.

Footnotes