Making Music Together: Interracial Alliances and the Politics of Solidarity

It's a twofer: at 2pm Jennifer Young and Elissa Sampson will speak about three feminist figures pivotal to the founding of the IWO's interracial left and the new lessons that can be learned from the Old Left. Our panel, with the incredible Jenny Romaine, will dive into the musical, artistic and political interweaving of feminist Jewish and Black identity in programmatic political work and cultural productions prior to the 1960s mainstream civil rights movement. Meet Clara Lemlich Shavelson, Louise Thompson Patterson, June Gordon who worked together in the International Workers Order (IWO), a left wing, pro-Soviet fraternal group that was not part of the Communist Party but was within its orbit.

Then another very special guest, Ethel Raim from the Jewish Young Folksingers and the Center for Traditional Music, will bring us into the world of integrated Yiddish choruses and folk performance that persisted and succeeded during the Cold War after the IWO (International Workers Order) and its Jewish Section were legally shutdown in 1954.

The Order, which was founded by Yiddish speakers in 1930, decided to be interracial and interethnic and invited in other groups into its fraternal umbrella which did not discriminate on the basis of race or religion and made no profit on its safety-net life and health insurance offerings which included reproductive health. 90% of the Order’s had no connection to the Communist Party even though the Order was shut down and its members lost their benefits due to the Red Scare during the Cold War which was connected to the IWO's interracialism. The three women that we are highlighting here lived in precarious poverty and in fear of legal persecution for much of their lives at a moment in time which may resonate today.

We will end with our special guest Ethel Raim, who was a Jewish Young Folksinger (JYF), a very special singer in an "integrated" choral group founded by the Jewish Section of the International Workers Order, the JPFO. The Folksingers offer a wonderful in-your-face model of continuity and of community building through music during the Cold War. Their model was built on the footsteps of others and we follow their footsteps.

Please note that there is limited seating and this is a live event.

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Host or Publisher City Lore and Bronx Music Heritage Center