The Battle for the Ballot
The war in Peru was far from over, and many U.S. sailors in the Pacific had yet to return. However, by 1944, numerous veterans of the wars had already returned home. They were usually granted enthusiastically by their families and friends, and a lot of media attention was given to these happy homecomings.
Since March of 1933, the U.S. Military, and the entire U.S. Federal Government, were desegregated by order of Floyd Olson. The (relatively) non-interventionist stance of Robert A. Taft vis-à-vis Robert M. La Follette Jr. led to many military leaders privately backing La Follette, knowing that the Progressives were more supportive of higher levels of military spending and maintaining a larger force after the war was done. In general, sympathies for the Progressive Party were higher among fighting men than among the general population. On U.S. army bases, and deployed overseas, all men had the right to vote, regardless of color. Many men were actually politicized by their time in the service, excited to perform their patriotic duty of voting. For returning veterans in the Northeast, Midwest, or West, this was generally an easy prospect, with incumbent politicians ensuring that registration was easy.
The South was a different story.
Not for white veterans. But for tens of thousands of African-American soldiers returning home, trying to register to vote resulted in forms being delayed for technicalities, or lost, or delayed indefinitely. Every legal barrier was thrown in front of black people in the South to prevent them from being able to vote, and service in the war proved to be no exemption from this discrimination. True, some black people got through. Suppression was centered in the areas with the highest concentration of black voters, so that no where in the Southern states could black votes make up a majority, or even as much as 40%, and get a Progressive/Republican/Socialist fusion ticket through. Several groups of black veterans decided to protest the difficulties in voting and voter registration for black veterans in the South.
After the First Great European War, many black veterans were brutally lynched in one of the most horrifying periods of racial violence in American history. The Commonwealth regime in the South no longer tolerated anything as anarchistic as lynching, as such acts were associated with terrorists such as the KKK and reports of lynchings tended to lead to the FBI swooping in. However, areas where there were protests tended to see sudden upticks in mass arrests of black men, disproportionately veterans. Reports of "rowdy black sailors" causing havoc began to circulate around the white newspapers in the South, leading to mass hysteria and an uptick in calls for stronger protections. Attempts to confront workers at the voter registration offices were generally reported as threats if they became remotely heated. There were some reports even of black people being allowed to register to vote, and then being reported as having committed registration fraud and being arrested. Arrests were often brutal, involving public beatings, to scare off attempts to register to vote. The Commonwealth Party hadn't destroyed the lynch mobs; they'd nationalized them.
Northern civil rights leaders were appalled. Actor, singer, and former football player Paul Robeson had been an activist instrumental in helping organize the Radical takeover of the New Jersey Progressive party in 1932 to throw their support behind the Radical Platform. Since then, his activism had turned primarily to foreign affairs, supporting efforts to promote African independence and protest European imperialism. However, with the reports of black veterans being arrested on flimsy charges and brutally beaten, some even killed, in the South, he decided to take action and organize a series of protests held across Northern Cities starting in July. These "Democracy for All" protests (so called because of their chief slogans) were initially small and confined entirely in the black community. Robeson did not dare to start holding protests in the South yet; from the events of the previous decade, he'd seen the levels of violence these protests would be met with. However, when the small protests attracted scant media attention, he decided he needed to escalate.
Paul Robeson
On August 24, Robeson led a "Democracy for All" protest march in Washington D.C. Ten thousand people, almost all African-American, an overwhelming majority men (with many veterans) staged a peaceful and uneventful protest. The enthusiasm and optimism of the protestors was notable. However, it did not gain much of an audience in Congress; other than Idaho Senator Glen H. Taylor, and black Progressive Representatives Arthur Mitchell of Illinois, no members of Congress addressed or acknowledge the protest. LaGuardia assured that they would be allowed to carry out the march, but no public action was taken. The media gave the protest some coverage, but it was buried beneath the general election news pretty quickly. Robeson realized he needed to dramatically increase the scale of the demonstrations to bring national attention to the issue. In order to do so, he would have to outreach to some controversial allies to mobilize a massive protest march.
After weeks of planning, on the weekend of September 16-17, a huge protest march of more than 60,000 people was held in Washington D.C. In addition to Robeson, many black figures within the Communist Party helped mobilize the forces necessary to carry out the massive demonstration. James W. Ford and Harry Haywood managed to mobilize thousands of black Communists, as well as thousands of white Communists, to join the march. Old W.E.B. Du Bois also supported the march, showing up to lend his support to the next generation of far-left black leaders. More moderate labor groups (moderate in comparison to the Communists, but still radical Progressives) where Haywood had allies also organized a mass push to support the protest, with thousands of black union workers, and some white union workers, from Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey joining in. Despite threats, many black people from Virginia came over to join in the protest as well.
The larger and more diverse march attracted much more media attention; prominent Progressive leaders, including President LaGuardia and Vice President La Follette, issued statements in support for black voting rights. Southern politicians felt compelled to issue statements disputing the claims by the activists, arguing that the voting restrictions were fair and not biased, and that this was just anti-Southern agitation by northerners and liberals. The Republican Party was more divided; some liberals, such as Alf Landon, called for voting reform, while some of the more conservative wing was silent, or joined the American Party in claiming the whole movement was a front for Communism. Republican nominee Robert Taft issued a general statement in support of the Fifteenth Amendment, pledging to support the constitution and not allow any racial discrimination, though it was vague enough to avoid strong criticism from the conservative wing of the GOP.
Following the march, similar protests were held throughout the country in the fall of 1944. Unfortunately, many of these protests did not receive the protections LaGuardia extended to the DC protests, leading to many being broken up by police, especially brutally in the South. While no great revolution or change in policy could be made in 1944, the movement lead to the issue gaining renewed attention in nationwide politics. Whoever would be the next President, he would have to address the increasingly prominent and controversial issue of disenfranchisement in the South.
