Lola Belle Holmes at the 1968 Wanderer Forum: Communism is to Blame For Racism
In 1968, our Wanderer Forum National Forum hosted speaker Lola Belle Holmes. Mrs. Holmes had been an uncover FBI agent working with the Communist Party’s group targeting the black population in Chicago. She gives a moving account of a number of problems facing the United States at the time, but it was her impression that the problem was Communism, and it was Communism that was agitating the civil turmoil, especially, at that time, racism.
The Program and Addresses book of the Fourth Wanderer Forum summarized it this, way:
Her talk is incredible to read in light of things happening today. Recall that just a few years ago, Black Lives Matter, literally a Marxist organization, was called out by Fr. Rothrock, who spoke truthfully of it — in fact, Lola Bella Holmes would have said the same, as she pretty much identified several similar groups in the 60’s. Fr. Rothrock was eventually restored and a very weak retraction made by the bishop, but the situation appears to be ripe again.
We will be presenting the entire talks of the conferences soon, but I wanted to highlight this section of Mrs. Holmes talk in 1968:
There is danger ahead for America. The coming negro violence is but one more of the knives aimed at our heart. The Vietnam war is killing off the cream of young Americans, leaving the void to be filled with men unacceptable for military service or unwilling to serve their country. The financial condition is bad with a depression in the offing that will make the 1930’s look like ‘the good old days’.
But before I begin predicting the future I would like to bring you up to date on my past, so that you can understand why I feel qualified to speak as I do. I didn’t know very much about Communism when I joined the Communist Party in 1957 at the request of the FBI. But when I surfaced seven years later I really knew, and what I found out and helped to do during those seven years, I’m going to spend the rest of my life telling the American people, so that all of you can take action to help halt what the Communist conspiracy has planned for you.
[…]
When I joined the Communist Party in 1957 they were attempting to force Negroes to consider themselves a separate nation. Therefore we should seek self-determination. The Communist Party were so stupid themselves, and they thought we were stupid too, they were telling us that the land below the Mason-Dixon Line, the so-called ‘Black Belt’ of the United States were the negroes. They didn’t know it was soil and not people. So they were telling us we should petition the Government of the United States to permit us to set up what they called the so-called Black Belt’ of the United States. They had designated what they called the so-called ‘Black Belt,’ Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, by which they intended to force the negroes to set up what the Communist Party called a Negro Soviet Republic. Is this not aggravating segregation; is this not fostering discrimination or secession?
[…]
As a Communist I found out, they would try to keep negroes from building anything of our own; they tell us to take to the streets and demand what we want instead of working, building, putting our own people to work to achieve the same things that the whites have.
[…]
Yes my friends, I spent 26 years in the civil rights movement in Chicago. I am one of the people who worked, walked the streets in the cold, the sleet, the snow, the rain, day and night; spent my earnings along with others of the old civil righis leaders to help bring about Lake Meadows, Prairie Show, State Street. We are responsible for the massive building programs in Chicago. We went through three or four mayors in Chicago to get Mayor Daley.
[…]
I know that real advancement by the negroes, or anyone, cannot be gained in the streets by creating civil turmoil. What we must do is take advantage of the opportunities that are available, and create more, if you please; prove our worth before the status for which we are grasping will be ours.
We must remember that the negro problem did not develop in this country by itself. It has been carefully planned and nursed along by power-seeking political leaders of all races, and it has been a long time goal of the Communists to work this difference of races into such a problem of hatred and fear that our country would destroy itself.
Now let me tell you what I mean. We are constantly being reminded of the status of slaves that was abolished over a hundred years ago. The children of Israel were enslaved by the Egyptians, but when Moses finally got them out he did not hand them a license to misbehave for a century or so. He gave them the Ten Commandments and told them to live by them. Today we have liberal leaders who are telling the negroes that it is okay to break some laws, and we have the beginning of the complete break down of all laws because of this permissive attitude of our leaders in every walk of life.
[…]
When I came to Chicago in the 1940’s, the schools were disgraceful. The children were going to school 4 hours a day, and the rest of the day they roamed the streets while their parents were at work. So I took my 8 year old daughter out of the schools in Chicago and sent her to Los Angeles, and they had wonderful schools there, and she got a beautiful education in integrated schools, my friends. But it was there that the white man, any white man, suddenly found himself a target for no other reason than that he was a White man. The first businesses that were looted and burned were those of whites, not because the mob had a bill of particulars against the woner, but because they were white. Had the reverse happened, had four or five Negro businesses in Atlanta, Georgia, for instance, been looted or burned or even picketed, there would have been a great rush of protest by college professors, students, preachers, nuns. If they couldn’t have gotten any nuns to go down there, they would have bought some nuns’ garbs to put on some of the women and sent them down there!
My friends, there’s something going on. There’s something behind all of these inconsistencies and that something is Communism that seeks to destroy our nation and bring slavery to us all.
Holmes, Lola Belle, CIVIL RIGHTS AND THE WAR ON POVERTY, address given at the Fourth National Wanderer Forum, 1968.
She outlines a number of movements and initiatives the purport to help minorities, but actually misdirect them into turmoil, rather than help.
The similarity of the plans and events, however. Is she not describing today?
Ms. Holmes described how it works this way:
At the end of the war many new manifestations of fundamental Communist principles of reverse truth came into play on a massive world wide scale, and to understand what I am saying, it must be understood that everything about Communism is a part of a big lie. It is the purpose of those who control the Communist world to turn all world values upside down; to replace truth with falsehood, order with chaos, religious ideas with satanic morality, freedom with slavers, compassion with cruelty and love with hate. These are all ends in themselves for Communists, but they are also the means of achieving Communist power, as has been spelled out in the Communistic literature for over one hundred years.
Id.
It was shocking to me to read her account of events back then and how the communist war works. It’s the very same thing we see today, isn’t it?
Communism does not discriminate based on race, color, creed, or anything else, rather, is an enemy of all! Ms. Holmes’s voice was clear in 1968, and it seems to be even clearer today! May she rest in peace, but may her message carry forth!
We’ll present the entire conference, including the audio of her talk and the others very soon.
This article, Lola Belle Holmes at the 1968 Wanderer Forum: Communism is to Blame For Racism is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
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