The Workers' Defense League (WDL) is an American socialist organization devoted to promoting labor rights. The group was founded on August 29, 1936 with the endorsement of Norman Thomas, six-time presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America. The WDL described itself as a "militant, politically nonpartisan organization which would devote itself exclusively to the protection of workers' rights".[1] Its officers included Thomas, David Clendenin, George S. Counts, Pauli Murray, and Joe Felmet.[2][3][4] Philosopher Richard Rorty's parents were active with the WDL when he was a child, and he acted as an errand boy for the group.[5] Harry Fleischman acted as the group's chairman for twenty-five years.[6]
During World War II, the WDL supported war resisters, fought for desegregation of the armed forces, and opposed Japanese American internment.[7] The group also took on the case of Odell Waller, a Virginia sharecropper sentenced to death in 1940 for killing his white landlord. Arguing that the landlord had cheated Waller and that he had in any case acted in self-defense, the WDL raised money for Waller's defense, lobbied for the commutation of his sentence, and mounted a nationwide publicity campaign on his behalf. The effort was unsuccessful, and Waller was executed on July 2, 1942.[8]
In the 1960s, the organization worked to integrate minorities and women into traditionally white male labor unions, though with little success.[7]