Changes

In 1936, Rustin joined the [[Young Communist League]], the youth wing of the Communist Party USA. “They seemed the only people who had civil-rights at heart,” he later explained. “The Party played a very active role in most civil-rights cases, like the [[Scottsboro case]].”<ref>Thomas R. Brooks, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=zsljcCM9k1cC Till Noon]'' (Xlibris Corporation, 2009) ISBN 1477167110, p. 207</ref> Despite his claim that he was attracted to the Communists by their concern for civil rights, Rustin remained a party member throughout Stalin's bloody purges.

In 1936, Rustin joined the [[Young Communist League]], the youth wing of the Communist Party USA. “They seemed the only people who had civil-rights at heart,” he later explained. “The Party played a very active role in most civil-rights cases, like the [[Scottsboro case]].”<ref>Thomas R. Brooks, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=zsljcCM9k1cC Till Noon]'' (Xlibris Corporation, 2009) ISBN 1477167110, p. 207</ref> Despite his claim that he was attracted to the Communists by their concern for civil rights, Rustin remained a party member throughout Stalin's bloody purges.

Despite his vaunted reputation as a Quaker pacifist, Rustin worked as a youth organizer for the CPUSA throughout the [[Nazi-Soviet]] pact and Hitler and Stalin's ensuing bloody joint invasion and division of Poland, the Baltic states, Finland and the Balkans. He didn't quit the party until 1941, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, causing the party line to reverse, switching from attacking the US as racist to attacking African-American protestors as subverting the war effort.<ref>Jerald Podair, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=gBH5GRFw-fkC Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer]'' (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 20080, ISBN 742564800, p. 17</ref> As NAACP leader Roy Wilkins would recount in 1949:

Despite his vaunted reputation as a Quaker pacifist, Rustin worked as a youth organizer for the CPUSA throughout the [[Nazi-Soviet]] pact and Hitler and Stalin's ensuing bloody joint invasion and division of Poland, the Baltic states, Finland and the Balkans. He didn't quit the party until 1941, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, causing the party line to reverse, switching from attacking the US as racist to attacking African-American protestors as subverting the war effort.<ref>Jerald Podair, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=gBH5GRFw-fkC Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer]'' (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 20080, ISBN 742564800, p. 17)</ref> As NAACP leader Roy Wilkins would recount in 1949:

{{cquote|We of the NAACP remember that during the war when Negro Americans were fighting for jobs on the home front and fighting for decent treatment in the armed services we could get no help from the organizations on the extreme Left. They abandoned the fight for Negro rights on the grounds that such a campaign would "interfere with the war effort." As soon as Russia was attacked by Germany they dropped the Negro question and concentrated all effort in support of the war in order to help the Soviet Union. During the war years the disciples of the extreme left sounded very much like the worst of the Negro-hating Southerners.<ref>Gilbert Jonas, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=i8-SAgAAQBAJ Freedom's Sword: The NAACP and the Struggle Against Racism in America, 1909-1969]'' (Routledge, 2005) ISBN 1135930880, p. 144</ref>}}

{{cquote|We of the NAACP remember that during the war when Negro Americans were fighting for jobs on the home front and fighting for decent treatment in the armed services we could get no help from the organizations on the extreme Left. They abandoned the fight for Negro rights on the grounds that such a campaign would "interfere with the war effort." As soon as Russia was attacked by Germany they dropped the Negro question and concentrated all effort in support of the war in order to help the Soviet Union. During the war years the disciples of the extreme left sounded very much like the worst of the Negro-hating Southerners.<ref>Gilbert Jonas, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=i8-SAgAAQBAJ Freedom's Sword: The NAACP and the Struggle Against Racism in America, 1909-1969]'' (Routledge, 2005) ISBN 1135930880, p. 144</ref>}}