Research Catalog

Title

Hosea Hudson Papers, 1941-1980 (bulk 1952-1958)

Author

Hudson, Hosea.

Supplementary Content

Finding Aid

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Details

Description

1.2 lin. ft.

Summary

The Hosea Hudson Papers document this labor leader and communist organizer's political activities in Alabama and the Communist Party's attitude toward labor and the rights of African Americans.

Donor/Sponsor

Schomburg NEH Automated Access to Special Collections Project.

Subject

• Hudson, Hosea
• Communist Party of the United States of America
• African American communists
• African Americans > Social conditions
• Communism > United States
• Labor unions and communism > United States
• Labor unions > United States > Political activity
• African American communists > Southern States > Biography
• African Americans > Southern States > Biography
• Labor unions > Officials and employees > Southern States > Biography
• Iron and steel workers > Southern States > Biography
• African American labor union members > Southern States

Source (note)

• Hudson, Hosea

Biography (note)

• Hosea Hudson was active as a leading militant African American trade unionist and member of the Communist Party from 1931 to 1948, during which time he held prominent positions in both the Party and the United Steel Workers of America.

Processing Action (note)

• Inventoried at Rutgers University Libraries, Dept. of Special Collections
• Transferred to Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
• Accessioned
• Cataloged

Call Number

Sc MG 168

OCLC

NYPW092000007-A

Author

Hudson, Hosea.

Title

Hosea Hudson Papers, 1941-1980 (bulk 1952-1958)

Biography

Hosea Hudson was active as a leading militant African American trade unionist and member of the Communist Party from 1931 to 1948, during which time he held prominent positions in both the Party and the United Steel Workers of America. Born the son of sharecroppers in Georgia in 1898, Hudson received little formal education. In his youth and during the early 1920's, he worked as a sharecropper first with his grandmother and later with his first wife. He become an iron molder in 1923 and for the next two decades worked in various steel foundries in Georgia and Alabama.

Hudson joined the Communist Party in 1931 and was soon elected a unit leader. During the Depression, he was instrumental in organizing various mass meetings of unemployed African American workers in Birmingham, several of which culminated in marches on the Birmingham City Hall. He enrolled in the Communist Party's National Training School, New York in 1934 where he developed his reading and writing skills and studied political economy and the history of the trade union movement. His role as a successful local communist organizer and his activism on behalf of African American representation in successive meetings and conventions of the Council of Industrial Organizations in Alabama led to his dismissal from various industrial plants in the South. Hudson was also an outspoken advocate of voting rights and anti-lyncing legislation in the South. In 1951 he migrated to the North and settled in Atlantic City, New Jersey with his wife.

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Research Call Number

Sc MG 168