Maryland communist defies HUAC: 1940
Dr Albert Blumberg, former Johns Hopkins professor and secretary of the Maryland Communist Party, testifies before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) March 29, 1940.
Blumberg defiantly declined “to answer any questions about any individual except myself” and “refused to answer questions with regard” to Communist Party records seized in the Baltimore CP office “for they were unlawfully unconstitutionally taken.”
Agents from HUAC raided the Baltimore office March 29th seizing records, membership lists and a banner. Sol Cohn, Blumberg’s attorney, is shown at left, rear.
Albert Blumberg presided over the Maryland-DC Communist Party during its period of largest growth and perhaps greatest influence during the “popular front” era of the party.
He served as head of the local organization from 1937 to 1943 when he left to become legislative director of the national party.
Blumberg was educated at Yale, the Sorbonne and the University of Vienna and worked as a philosophy professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland when he became active in the party in 1933.
He inherited a party built by his predecessor Earl Reno. Reno built the party through good working class organizers like Patrick Whalen in the maritime trades, Michael Howard in steel and George Meyers in textile that effectively controlled the Baltimore and Maryland Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
Blumberg and his wife, Dorothy Rose Blumberg, led the party to help spearhead integration of the defense industry—particularly at the huge Martin’s aircraft plant outside of Baltimore and in the shipyards and steel mills. They joined with other civil rights groups to picket Baltimore theaters and demand open housing.
He led the successful fight to gain ballot access for the Communist Party in Maryland in 1940, winning despite persecution of the party for allegedly fraudulently obtaining ballot petition signatures. His wife was later convicted on this charge.
Blumberg and his wife were persecuted first in 1940 by the U.S. House of Representatives “Dies Committee” and Blumberg became one of the first persons indicted under the “Smith Act” that essentially made it a crime to be a member of the Communist Party USA after the conviction of eleven Communist Party leaders in 1949.
In 1951 his wife Dorothy was arrested for violating the “Smith Act” which made it a crime to be a member of the Communist Party. She went to jail in 1953 and served three years.
Albert Blumberg went underground in 1950 but was arrested in 1954 in New York City and convicted in 1956 under the Smith Act. However, the U.S. Supreme Court voided the act in 1957 while Blumberg’s case was under appeal and he did not have to serve his prison sentence.
For his communist beliefs, he was beaten in Atlanta Penitentiary during one of his jailings and lost most of his sight in one eye.
Ostracized during the McCarthy era, he was unable to obtain employment as a professor until 1965.
Sometime in the late 1950s, Blumberg left the Communist Party but remained an activist, becoming a Democratic Party district leader in Manhattan.
He died at the age of 91 in 1997.
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskAr2KCx
The photographer is unknown. The image is an ACME News Service photograph obtained via an Internet sale.
Maryland communist defies HUAC: 1940
Dr Albert Blumberg, former Johns Hopkins professor and secretary of the Maryland Communist Party, testifies before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) March 29, 1940.
Blumberg defiantly declined “to answer any questions about any individual except myself” and “refused to answer questions with regard” to Communist Party records seized in the Baltimore CP office “for they were unlawfully unconstitutionally taken.”
Agents from HUAC raided the Baltimore office March 29th seizing records, membership lists and a banner. Sol Cohn, Blumberg’s attorney, is shown at left, rear.
Albert Blumberg presided over the Maryland-DC Communist Party during its period of largest growth and perhaps greatest influence during the “popular front” era of the party.
He served as head of the local organization from 1937 to 1943 when he left to become legislative director of the national party.
Blumberg was educated at Yale, the Sorbonne and the University of Vienna and worked as a philosophy professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland when he became active in the party in 1933.
He inherited a party built by his predecessor Earl Reno. Reno built the party through good working class organizers like Patrick Whalen in the maritime trades, Michael Howard in steel and George Meyers in textile that effectively controlled the Baltimore and Maryland Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
Blumberg and his wife, Dorothy Rose Blumberg, led the party to help spearhead integration of the defense industry—particularly at the huge Martin’s aircraft plant outside of Baltimore and in the shipyards and steel mills. They joined with other civil rights groups to picket Baltimore theaters and demand open housing.
He led the successful fight to gain ballot access for the Communist Party in Maryland in 1940, winning despite persecution of the party for allegedly fraudulently obtaining ballot petition signatures. His wife was later convicted on this charge.
Blumberg and his wife were persecuted first in 1940 by the U.S. House of Representatives “Dies Committee” and Blumberg became one of the first persons indicted under the “Smith Act” that essentially made it a crime to be a member of the Communist Party USA after the conviction of eleven Communist Party leaders in 1949.
In 1951 his wife Dorothy was arrested for violating the “Smith Act” which made it a crime to be a member of the Communist Party. She went to jail in 1953 and served three years.
Albert Blumberg went underground in 1950 but was arrested in 1954 in New York City and convicted in 1956 under the Smith Act. However, the U.S. Supreme Court voided the act in 1957 while Blumberg’s case was under appeal and he did not have to serve his prison sentence.
For his communist beliefs, he was beaten in Atlanta Penitentiary during one of his jailings and lost most of his sight in one eye.
Ostracized during the McCarthy era, he was unable to obtain employment as a professor until 1965.
Sometime in the late 1950s, Blumberg left the Communist Party but remained an activist, becoming a Democratic Party district leader in Manhattan.
He died at the age of 91 in 1997.
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskAr2KCx
The photographer is unknown. The image is an ACME News Service photograph obtained via an Internet sale.