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(CIVIL RIGHTS.) Papers of the Garveyite and Trotskyist activist Simon Williamson of New York. Approximately 200 pages in one box; moderate to heavy wear, some of the collection on chipped pulp paper. Various places, 1930-1942 and undated
Simon Williamson (born 1908) was a radical Garveyite and Trotskyist activist. He was born and raised in Kansas City, and while attending Lincoln Junior College, wrote several editorials for the Kansas City American in 1929. He was active in the Kansas City branch of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association, and traveled in Jamaica and South America from 1929 to 1931. He became involved in the Workers Party, a Trotskyist splinter of the Communist Party, and was sent to organize Black workers in Harlem in 1934. His correspondence with his friend the writer Claude McKay is preserved at the Schomburg Library. He was living at 133 West 144th Street in 1940 when he filled out his draft registration, and had enlisted as a private in the 9th Quartermaster Regiment by 1942. He seems to have kept a lower profile after the war, but was thanked for his research assistance in a New York Age retrospective on Harlem riots, 19 November 1955; and he was listed in the New York phone directories at his old 133 West 143rd address through 1960.
This collection includes 4 pieces of correspondence, and dozens of typescript essays and articles written by Williamson during the 1930s, both for his political activism and for his work with the Federal Writers' Project. The correspondence includes:
Partial retained typescript of letter from Williamson to the Kansas City Call, describing social conditions in Jamaica. St. Andrew, Jamaica, 15 March 1930.
Partial letter to Williamson from the Organizational Committee of the Negro World Unity Congress. Paris, 23 March 1935.
Summons to Simon Williamson to "appear before the Un-American Act[ivities] Committee . . . of which the Hon. Martin Dies is chairman," signed by Speaker of the House William Brockman Bankhead. Washington, 11 June 1938.
Postcard addressed to Williamson in the service, from Charles H. White (not the artist) of Harlem: "I just wrote McKay. . . . I invited him over for pig feet and beer Saturday. I got a job as a street car operator in Bklyn., and I thought he might get appointed temporarily if he was interested in transit. . . . Now that I got a real job, I can do some shopping for the Xmas season." New York, 4 October 1942.
His political writings include: "Afro-American Union of the Unemployed and W.P.A. Fights Non-Settlement Act." First page only.
"The Agrarian Question." 13 pages.
"Facts Taken from the Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey." 11 pages.
"A Glimpse at Jamaica." 2 pages (fragment).
"[It]alian Abyssinian Situation / Ethiopia and European Politics." 7, [4] pages.
"Negro Poetry in American Literature: Racial Contributions in American Culture, an Essay for the Creative Writers Magazine."
"New Trial Granted the Scottsboro Boys, United Front Needed." Page 1 only.
"Opportunity." First page of typescript only; references the UNIA, and written on verso of UNIA circular letter.
"Statement on Joining the League for a Revolutionary Workers Party." First 2 pages only.
"The Story of Mr. Douglass's Second or White Marriage." 3 typed pages.
"The Supreme Court Refuses to Review Scottsboro Case, Black Exposes Self." Page 1 only.
The Federal Writers' Project material was written as part of Negro Group No. 16 under the editorship of Charles Alexander, and includes mainly partial articles and research notes for a history of Negroes in New York. Some of the more developed stand-alone essays include a biographical article on Arthur Schomburg (pages 2-9 only) dated 18 July 1938; "Birth and Development of Negro Churches in New York City"; "A Brief History of the St. Phillips Parish Home"; "Brief History of the Coalition Democratic Club"; "Political Appointments of Harlem Negroes During the Last Decade, Collected by Simon Williamson," circa 1935; "Prominent Negro Business Men in New York City"; and "Sports and Amusements of Negro New York" (15 pages).
Williamson was president of New York's short-lived Inter-Racial Liberal Club, founded in 1937 and active at least into April of the next year. The collection includes two manuscript announcements of the club's events: one to hear Chinese scholar Dr. Linn [22 January 1938]; and the other for performances by pianist Neil O'Jon and singer Luther Lamont at a private home, 18 February 1938.
Finally, the collection includes 4 pieces of printed ephemera: a pamphlet titled "The Road to Liberation for the American People"; the March 1946 issue of The Crisis; a flier for "Mass Meeting on the Conditions of Domestic Employees," 27 June 1940; and a flier for "Forum. One Big Union Club, at Labor Temple . . . subject: Which Solution for the American Race Problem: Amalgamation or Separation? Negro guest speaker S. Williamson."
