International Labor Defense

International Labor Defense (ILD)
PredecessorComintern's International Red Aid
Merged intowith National Federation for Constitutional Liberties and National Negro Congress
SuccessorCivil Rights Congress
FormationJune 28, 1925
FounderJames P. Cannon, William D. Haywood
Merger ofApril 28, 1947
PurposePromote world peace
Location
Servicesdefend rights of political prisoners
Membership (circa 1939)
~ 300,000
Official language
English
AffiliationsAmerican League for Peace and Democracy, American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born
Websitemarxists.org/history/usa/eam/other/ild/ild.html

The International Labor Defense (ILD) (1925–1947) was a legal advocacy organization established in 1925 in the United States as the American section of the Comintern's International Red Aid network. The ILD defended Sacco and Vanzetti, was active in the anti-lynching, movements for civil rights, and prominently participated in the defense and legal appeals in the cause célèbre of the Scottsboro Boys in the early 1930s. Its work contributed to the appeal of the Communist Party among African Americans in the South. In addition to fundraising for defense and assisting in defense strategies, from January 1926 it published Labor Defender, a monthly illustrated magazine that achieved wide circulation. In 1946 the ILD was merged with the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties to form the Civil Rights Congress, which served as the new legal defense organization of the Communist Party USA. It intended to expand its appeal, especially to African Americans in the South. In several prominent cases in which blacks had been sentenced to death in the South, the CRC campaigned on behalf of black defendants. It had some conflict with former allies, such as the NAACP, and became increasingly isolated. Because of federal government pressure against organizations it considered subversive, such as the CRC, it became less useful in representing defendants in criminal justice cases. The CRC was dissolved in 1956. At the same time, in this period, black leaders were expanding the activities and reach of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1954, in a case managed by the NAACP, the US Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional.