Red Emma’s

Black Communist women throughout the early to mid-twentieth century fought for and led mass campaigns in the service of building collective power in the fight for liberation. Through concrete materialist analysis of the conditions of Black workers, these women argued that racial and economic equality can only be achieved by overthrowing capitalism.

Organize, Fight, Win includes writings from card-carrying Communists like Dorothy Burnham, Williana Burroughs, Grace P. Campbell, Alice Childress, Marvel Cooke, Esther Cooper Jackson, Thelma Dale Perkins, Vicki Garvin, Yvonne Gregory, Claudia Jones, Maude White Katz, and Louise Thompson Patterson, and writings by those who organized alongside the Communist Party, like Ella Baker, Charlotta Bass, Thyra Edwards, Lorraine Hansberry, and Dorothy Hunton.

“Charisse Burden-Stelly is a sharp engaged radical thinker, representing the best of the Black radical tradition. Along with co-editor Jodi Dean, Burden-Stelly has curated a powerful and enormously valuable collection of writings by Black socialist and communist women, rightly placing their voices at the center of US and international left histories. A great teaching tool and a much needed source of inspiration for contemporary activists.” —Barbara Ransby, historian, author and activist

Charisse Burden-Stelly (@blackleftaf) is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science at Carleton College. She is the author, with Gerald Horne, of W. E. B. Du Bois: A Life in American History.

Jodi Dean teaches political, feminist, and media theory in Geneva, New York. She has written or edited thirteen books, including The Communist Horizon and Crowds and Party.