Benjamin J. Davis, born on this day in 1903, was American lawyer and communist who was elected in 1943 to the New York City Council, representing Harlem. Davis was persecuted by the state via the anti-communist Smith and McCarran Acts.

Davis became radicalized through his role as defense attorney in the 1933 trial of Angelo Herndon, a 19-year-old black communist who had been charged “attempting to incite insurrection” because he tried to organize a farm workers’ union.

In 1949, Davis was among a number of communist leaders prosecuted for violating the Smith Act. He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. In 1962 Davis was charged with violating the Internal Security Act (also known as the McCarran Act), but died before the case could come to trial.

“Whether one agrees with the Communist Party or not, one must at least know the truth about it. One must not permit his ideas to be shaped by the hysteria which now passes as a ‘crusade against Communism’… For example, the canard that every Communist has his pockets lined with ‘Moscow gold.’ If that were true, one could be sure that there would scarcely be any room in our party for workers. The capitalists, to whom gold is god of the universe, would crowd them out.”

  • Benjamin J. Davis

Ben Davis: The Communist Councilman from Harlem cpusa

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  • Torenico [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    10 months ago

    I’ve been developing some attention span and memory issues. First, I’m having trouble concentrating on, for example, studying. I read texts for Uni mostly on PDF format, it’s quite tiring sometimes and the texts are huge, and so it happens that I lose attention very quickly (like right now, I should be reading about internal markets in the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru and I’m posting on hexbear instead). I’m easily distracted, maybe this isn’t a massive issue and it happens to pretty much everyone.

    But the issue that kinda worries me the most is my terrible memory as of late. For example, I was playing Minecraft today and I was walking around my unfinished base thinking about possible layouts, then I figured out I needed more stone and so I went to the chests to gather some sticks, iron and spare pickaxes. But by the time I made it to the storage area, I completely forgot what I wanted to do. So I grabbed a fishing rod instead and went fishing, only later I realized I wanted to gather supplies to go mining for a bit. On other instances I suffer the classic “What was I going to tell you?” when I speak with someone else, or I completely lose track of what I was thinking and then struggle really hard to remember. For example, it could be me just thinking about something like a certain historial event (Let’s just say, the Battle of Kadesh) that I want to read a little bit on (that means, googling it). Mere seconds later I completely forget what I was trying to google and no matter how hard I try, I can’t remember it.

    Maybe it’s just temporary and I am not developing alzheimer at the age of 30. Maybe it’s just the context I am in that troubles me: Exams coming up, I am without a job, money is running short, the economy is fucked and the fascists are going to win the elections. Maybe my mind is busy with something else and that is causing distractions or whatever, maybe? I’ve had this happen before when I wasn’t too troubled by external things, though.

    What to do? I’m open to suggestions from people who had similar experiences.