by New Masses, Communist Party
June 1931 issue of the periodical New Masses, featuring a cover by renowned cartoonist Jacob Burck, which depicts a young black teen being lynched,most likely referring to the unjust treatment of African Americans in the 1930's American South. Includes book and film reviews, and notes on the developing Scottsboro Boys case, a landmark set of legal cases regarding an alleged rape of two white women on a train car by nine Black teenagers, later proven to be a total fabrication, and now known as a textbook example of a legal injustice. The Communist Party and NAACP teamed up to appeal the decision and obtain some form of justice for the innocent young men, which they were only partially successful in achieving. New Masses had an impressive list of contributors, from 20th century literary giants like Hemingway, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, John Dos Passos, Upton Sinclair, to working class artists and writers. This issue is replete with cartoons and illustrations in a social realist style, and covers domestic world events from a Communist perspective at the height of the Depression, which reinvigorated the movement. In very good condition overall.
(Inventory #: 19804)