Otto Eduard Gerardus Majella Huiswoud (October 28, 1893 – February 20, 1961) was a Surinamese political activist who was a charter member of the Communist Party of America.
He was the son of Rudolf Huiswoud, a former slave who had gained his freedom as a boy of 11 and who learned the skills of a tailor, working at the trade until his death in 1920.
[4] Huiswoud was unhappy with his lot in life as a printer's apprentice, however, so in January 1910 the 16-year-old convinced his father to allow him to depart to see the world and he shipped out on a banana boat bound for the Netherlands.
[2] Due to the abysmal working conditions on board, Huiswoud and two of his Surinamese mates decided to jump ship when it was docked in New York.
[2] Black crew members were not organized by the International Seamen's Union, so Huiswoud took it upon himself to lead a walkout that led the company to negotiate for better pay and improved working conditions for its minority workers.
[7] Between his attendance of the Rand School and his participation in the 21st Assembly Branch of the SPA, located in Harlem, Huiswoud made the acquaintance of a number of influential figures in the history of American radicalism, including Japanese expatriate Sen Katayama—later a high-ranking functionary in the Communist International—trade unionist and newspaper editor A. Philip Randolph and his associate Chandler Owen, Richard B. Moore, Lovett Fort-Whiteman, Frank Crosswaith, and Edward Welsh.
[11] Huiswoud was an official delegate of the Workers Party of America to the 4th World Congress of the Comintern, held in Moscow from November 5 to December 5, 1922, attending its sessions together the Caribbean poet Claude McKay.
[14] Huiswoud was set to work as a functionary in the African Blood Brotherhood, by then a mass organization of the Communist Party targeted towards black workers.
In February 1924, Huiswood attended the so-called "Negro Sanhedrin," a national anti-racism conference, as one of two official delegates of the African Blood Brotherhood.
[12] A white Texas farmer rose to oppose Huiswoud's proposal, declaring that American blacks did not truly desire social equality with caucasians, only material benefits.
[12] Huiswoud responded by taking to the floor to denounce the farmer, an action that threatened the fragile alliance that the communists were attempting to build and which was regarded as a serious breach of discipline.
The party's best-regarded black activists, including Huiswoud, James W. Ford, Harry Haywood, Cyril Briggs, Richard B. Moore were put to work as functionaries of this new group, called the American Negro Labor Congress.
[18] Following the 6th Convention, Huiswoud was chosen as one of ten delegates to travel to Moscow in support of National Secretary Jay Lovestone and his policies, which was under review by a special American Commission established by the Presidium of the executive committee of the Communist International.
[19] Although the delegates presented a united front arguing for a continuation of the Lovestone leadership, the powerful American Commission, which included such top Soviet leaders as Joseph Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Otto Kuusinen, ultimately decided to take decisive action against the factionalism which had plagued the American party throughout the decade of its existence by removing opposing factional leaders Lovestone and Alexander Bittelman and sending them to work in other communist parties abroad.
[20] This would serve as the directing center for an organization called the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW), established in Hamburg, Germany, in July 1930.