W.E.B. Du Bois Clubs of America

Du Bois Clubs of America was a national mass organization conceived and sponsored by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and directed at young people.

"[2] This small group proved the inspiration for sister Du Bois Clubs across the bay in Berkeley and at San Francisco State College.

This gathering was sponsored by the four California Du Bois Clubs (San Francisco, USF, Berkeley, and Los Angeles) and by a Marxist group called the Youth Action Union.

A founding convention was called for June 19–21, 1964 for Chicago, but this location was quickly shifted to San Francisco, the place from whence the pioneer California groups had sprung.

Du Bois Clubs of America was attended by about 200 delegates, including such leading communist activists as Bettina Aptheker, Carl Bloice, Mickey Lima, and People's World editor Al Richmond.

[10] The remaining delegates to the convention, about 139 in all,[10] elected Phil Davis, a former field secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee as President and Eugene Dennis, Jr. as editor of the organization's publication, The Convener, which was renamed The Insurgent early in 1965.

[12] It was there that the 1966 convention of the organization was held, with speakers including Donna Allen of Women Strike for Peace, communist historian Herbert Aptheker, and radical attorney William Kunstler.

"[14] This action led to a 1967 attempt at a legal challenge of the constitutionality of the Subversive Activities Control Board, a case which was lost in the United States Court of Appeals.

"[12] As the 1960s came to a close, the Du Bois Clubs were rendered virtually obsolete by various radical youth organizations of the so-called "New Left," including in particular the Students for a Democratic Society.

Membership in the Du Bois Clubs plummeted to less than 100, prompting the Communist Party to rethink its commitment to a formally non-party mass organization of youth.