Arnold Johnson (activist)

Arnold Samuel Johnson (September 23, 1904 – September 26, 1989) was an American activist and Communist Party leader.

Biography

Johnson was born on September 23, 1904, in Seattle, to parents who had immigrated from Sweden and Finland to Minnesota.[1] Johnson joined the Socialist Party in 1929, while studying at Union Theological Seminary.[2] Johnson became politically active in the early 1930s, working with pacifist groups like the Fellowship of Reconciliation.[3] Following the advice of his professor, Harry F. Ward, Johnson traveled to Harlan in 1932 to aid striking miners.[4] Johnson graduated from Union Theological Seminary in 1932 with a bachelor's degree in Divinity.[5]

Johnson became a member of the American Workers Party, lead by A.J. Muste.[6] In October 1936, Johnson joined the Communist Party, defecting from the Workers Party with Louis Budenz.[7] Johnson and the other departing members opposed the merger of the American Workers Party with the Trotskyist Communist League of America.[8]

In 1940, Johnson was the Communist Party's candidate for governor of Ohio.[9] He was the leader of the Ohio Communist Party between 1940 and 1947.[10] Johnson was arrested in Pittsburgh on June 20, 1951 and charged under the Smith Act with conspiring to overthrow the government.[11] At the time of his arrest, Johnson was serving as the Communist Party's chairman for Western Pennsylvania.[12] On February 3, 1953, Judge Edward J. Dimock found Johnson guilty of violating the Smith Act and sentenced him to three years in prison.[13]

Johnson represented the Communist Party in discussions about the Independent-Socialist ticket in 1958, but left following disagreements about whether the group should nominate Corliss Lamont as a gubernatorial candidate or support W. Averill Harriman[14]

Johnson exchanged several letters with Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963, after Oswald wrote to the Communist Party asking for political advice.[15] As a result, Johnson provided testimony to the Warren Commission following the Kennedy assassination.[16]

Johnson was Communist Party's representative on the steering committee of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam.[16] In the spring of 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. demanded that Johnson's name be removed from the letterhead of the Committee because of his Communist views.[17] Due to illness, Johnson abandoned his political work for the Communist Party in 1979.[5]

References

  1. ^ Beam, Hank (November 1955). "Portrait of a "Fanatic"". Masses & Mainstream. 8 (11): 36.
  2. ^ Pollock, Sylvia Winter, ed. (2011). American Letters, 1927-1947. Polity Press. p. 60. ISBN 9780745651552.
  3. ^ Chatfield, Charles. For peace and justice: Pacificism in America, 1914-1941. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press. p. 187. ISBN 0870491261.
  4. ^ Link, Eugene P. (1984). Labor-Religion Prophet: The Times and Life of Harry F. Ward. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. p. 238.
  5. ^ a b "Arnold Johnson Papers: NYU Special Collections Finding Aids". findingaids.library.nyu.edu. Retrieved 2025-09-10.
  6. ^ Palmer, Bryan D. (2021). James P. Cannon and the Emergence of Trotskyism in the United States, 1928-38. Brill. p. 843. ISBN 9789004471528.
  7. ^ Muste, A.J. (1967). Hentoff, Nat (ed.). The Essays of A.J. Muste. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. p. 170.
  8. ^ Breitman, George; Le Blanc, Paul; Wald, Alan (1996). Trotskyism in the United States: Historical Essays and Reconsiderations. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. p. 20. ISBN 0391039229.
  9. ^ "Ohio C.P. Wins 34,198 Signatures for Ballot". Daily Worker. August 28, 1940. p. 1.
  10. ^ "Arnold Johnson Is Dead at 84; A Leading American Communist (Published 1989)". The New York Times. 1989-09-28. p. 22. Retrieved 2025-09-14.
  11. ^ Singer, Michael (June 21, 1951). "F.B.I. Seizes 17; Roundup Aimed at the Peace Movement". The Daily Worker. p. 1.
  12. ^ "Two Communists Freed in Bail Here". The New York Times. August 17, 1951. p. 9.
  13. ^ "13 New York Communists sentenced to jail; Russia 'alternative' rejected". National Guardian. February 5, 1953. p. 7.
  14. ^ Ness, Immanuel; Ciment, James, eds. (2000). The Encyclopedia of Third Parties in America. Vol. 2. Armonk, NY: Sharpe Reference. p. 300. ISBN 0765680203.
  15. ^ Kaiser, David (2008). The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press. p. 232. ISBN 9780674027664.
  16. ^ a b Abt, John J. (1993). Advocate and Activist: Memoirs of an American Communist Lawyer. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. p. 267. ISBN 0252020308.
  17. ^ Zaroulis, Nancy (1984). Who spoke up? : American protest against the war in Vietnam, 1963-1975. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. p. 110. ISBN 0030056039.
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