Indiana prof is expert on first Black woman to run for VP

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) - Denise Lynn slapped a Washington Post article onto her Facebook page with the intention of reading it later.

She had no idea she was one of its main sources.

The University of Southern Indiana history professor has spent years researching the American Communist Party's tribulations through the Depression and Cold War. That eventually led her to the story of Charlotta Bass: the first Black woman to ever run for vice president of the United States.

When Joe Biden chose Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate last week, she became the first woman of color to nab the VP nomination for a major political party.

But Bass came before her. Publisher of the Los Angeles Black newspaper The California Eagle, she ran for VP on the Progressive Party ticket in 1952.

Writing for the Black Perspectives blog, Lynn penned an expansive essay about that campaign back in January. Last Wednesday her work attracted the attention of the Post, which ran a piece on Bass in the wake of the Harris announcement.

It still takes extreme bravery for a woman to run for any office, let alone when it's a minority woman. So it's tough to imagine the spine it took for Bass to make that leap way back in the days of Joseph McCarthy and Jim Crow.

Harris will likely battle some of the same criticisms Bass did, Lynn said '“ racism; dismissiveness; a dyed-in misogyny that measures women more by their looks than their policy positions '“ but it won't be anything compared to the road Bass forged 68 years ago.

She stood miles to the left of the comparatively centrist Harris. She lashed the country's Cold War policies and freely criticized both political parties '“ all while navigating a deeply conservative and backward landscape.

'œShe was followed by the CIA every time she left the country. She was monitored by the FBI,'ť Lynn said. 'œSo yeah: it was an extremely bold stand to be a radical.'ť

Here's an insanely boiled-down version of Bass' life.

For health reasons, she moved to California in 1910, Lynn said, where she quickly landed a gig selling subscriptions for editor Joseph Neimore's Black-centric newspaper.

On his deathbed, Neimore ceded control to Bass, who renamed the paper The California Eagle and used her role as publisher to push for equal housing rights and progressive policies that could help Black people in California and the rest of the country.

That helped her rise in prominence, and in 1952 she landed on The Progressive Party ticket alongside presidential candidate Vince Hallinan: a west coast lawyer who spent a large chunk of that year locked in jail thanks to a contempt of court charge.

'œSo Charlotta did most of the campaigning,'ť Lynn said.

Bass was never a member of the Communist Party, but she was often treated like she was. Back then, the national media fainted at the mere hint of commies (it still kinda does), and Bass' progressive policies sparked a horde of criticism.

An article published in The Evansville Press in 1952 lambasted Florida Gov. Fuller Warren for hosting a group of progressives and Black people at the governor's mansion, including Bass.

'œThe FBI ought to take (Warren) aside and tell him the facts of life,'ť it read. 'œOtherwise, he's going to go down in history as one governor who gave aid and comfort to the communists.'ť

Of course she attracted J. Edgar Hoover's attention, too. Lynn said the FBI kept a fat file on Bass, but the bureau only released about 50 pages of it 20 years ago. It's now unavailable.

Lynn has never seen the file herself, but she's spoken to people who have. She said the FBI kept close tabs on Bass wherever she went.

But she soldiered on. And on March 30, 1952, she sauntered to the lectern at the Progressive Party Convention in Chicago and accepted the nomination.

'œThis is a historic moment in American political life. Historic for myself, for my people, for all women,'ť she said in her speech. 'œIt is a great honor to be chosen as a pioneer. And a great responsibility. But I am strengthened by thousands on thousands of pioneers who stand by my side and look over my shoulder.'ť

Bass knew she would never be elected, Lynn said.

Just like today, a third-party nominee didn't stand a chance against money-drenched Democrats and Republicans. Bass viewed the Progressives as a protest vote against an establishment that started the conflict in Korea and barreled headlong into the Cold War.

The public apparently saw it the same way.

That fall, the Evansville Press sent a reporter wandering around New York to see if Black people there would support the Progressives after they named an African American woman to their ticket.

Turns out, the discourse around third parties has barely changed in the last seven decades.

'œA vote for the Progressives is a vote for Eisenhower,'ť one man said. 'œWe're not wasting our votes this year.'ť

Dwight D. Eisenhower went on to demoralize Adlai Stevenson, carrying 39 states. The Progressives managed only 140,000 total votes, and as the Red Scare increasingly linked any progressive thought to communism, the party quietly dissipated.

'œThe political parties, Bass argued, remained committed to white America and to a system that did not work for the average American,'ť Lynn wrote in her essay.

But Bass kept fighting for progressive causes until her death. And the Washington Post argued that her trail-igniting run helped normalize the idea of a Black woman candidate, bringing us to where we are today.

'œShe's one of those folks who have been written out of history because she was a radical,'ť Lynn said. 'œ(But) she was a pretty awesome lady.'ť

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Source: Evansville Courier & Press