A marginalized voice for racial justice, Charlotta Bass and oppositional politics, 1914--1960

This dissertation examines the life of Charlotta Bass, grass-roots journalist and third vice-presidential candidate. In focusing upon this little known figure, the study views "high politics" through Bass's eyes by examining the ways in which gender and race constructed political power and marginality. Female, black, and radical---the ultimate outsider---Bass situated herself at the intersection of the most contested issues of the twentieth century: civil rights, economic justice, feminism, colonialism, and peace. Her long career as an outspoken newspaper editor and political activist, and most especially her political ideology, put her at odds with mainstream American politics and culture.; Editor of the Los Angeles California Eagle, the West's oldest black newspaper, Bass equated journalism with community activism. Throughout her career, she used her newspaper to raise awareness about race discrimination as well as mobilize her community to take action. She led the Universal Negro Improvement Association in the 1920s and rejected the New Deal in the 1930s, because she believed the Roosevelt Administration's programs re-inscribed racial inequity and fostered black dependency. During the Second World War, the intrepid editor supported the Double V, but refused to stifle her dissent, attacking those she termed "domestic fascists" throughout the war. Disillusioned with both Democrats and Republicans for their resistance to racial justice, Bass became a founding member of the Progressive Party in 1947 and an architect of the radical critique of the cold war. In 1952, she was nominated as the party's vice-presidential candidate in what marked the culmination of her political career. As an oppositional voice in national politics, she campaigned for peace, social equality, and economic justice. Her ideas offer a critique of cold war liberalism in an era of presumed complacency.