A Life in Red: A Story of Forbidden Love, the Great Depression, and the Communist Fight for a Black Nation in the Deep South

by David Beasley

A Life in Red reveals the true story of star-crossed lovers Herbert Newton, a black communist seeking the end of an oppressive America, and Jane Newton, the white daughter of a wealthy American Legion commander, and their part in the Depression-Era, communist fight for a black sovereign nation.

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published October 6, 2015

Reviews

[Audra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fascinating read. It's not a long read at all, but life happens so it took me almost a month. I tend to think of history in a linear fashion. I know other things happen simultaneously but I just don't put things together.

This book really adds some pieces to the puzzle of The Great Depression, World War II, and the Civil Rights movement. I came to understand Richard Wright and his connection with the Communist party in a whole new light as well.

A must read.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick look at the life of Jane and Herbert Newton and the events and people that influenced their lives.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

During the 1920s and 1930s, maybe as many as million Americans called themselves Communists or leaned toward the principles of communism, attracted by the promise of economic equality.  It is not at all surprising that a large number of black Americans were drawn to communism, not only for economic equality and opportunity, but also for the promised racial equality.  Jim Crow laws, lynchings and racial violence, and racial discrimination were ubiquitous throughout the United States, and, in the 1930s,  the hardships of being black in America were exacerbated by the Great Depression, the rise of the KKK and racist demagoguery, and the racist implementation of the New Deal.  


The Communist Party of the Soviet Union worked to capitalize - pun intended - on the situation by inserting agents on college campuses and in black neighborhoods to recruit and to promote communism.  Some promising organizers were educated and trained in the USSR and then returned to the US as paid agents and agitators.  Some even saw their ultimate goal as the creation of a black state in the Deep South, following a violent revolution if necessary.


Herbert Newton was one of those black agents.  Along the way, he met and married Jane Emery, the white upper-middle class daughter of a former national commander of the American Legion.  His activities got him beaten, arrested, and indicted for promoting insurrection in Georgia for passing out party literature. An insurrection law in Georgia at the time (struck down by the US Supreme Court in 1937) made that activity a capital offense. For her communist beliefs and for marrying a black man, Jane was committed to a mental institution by a Chicago judge.  A Life in Red makes the most of limited information to depict the lives of the couple, including their friendship with author Richard Wright, who lived with them for years.  Jane served as a sounding board and inspiration for many of his works including Native Son.  Not a great book, but not bad.  3/5 stars

[Artie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read about a neglected part of our nation's history.