Wow. I’ve read excerpts from this piece before, but making the whole version web friendly forced me to really read it through and it as an amazing essay. Herndon’s positive view of Stalin-era Soviet Union notwithstanding, this is one of those essays that really made me exclaim at the end “History IS A Weapon!” The first person accounting of a black communist in the early twentieth century, there is so much in there that just blows the mind. The essay was originally printed while Herndon’s future was very much in doubt and precarious, he was out on bail and facing a chain gang, but he ended up dying of old age in the 1990s. A great essay, well worth reading.
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