Arnold Johnson (activist)

Arnold Samuel Johnson (September 23, 1904 – September 26, 1989) was an American activist and Communist Party leader.

Biography

Johnson was born in Seattle, to parents who had immigrated from Sweden and Finland to Minnesota.[1] Johnson joined the Socialist Party in 1929, while studying at Union Theological Seminary.[2] Johnson became politically active in the early 1930s, working with pacifist groups like the Fellowship of Reconciliation.[3] Following the advice of his professor, Harry F. Ward, Johnson traveled to Harlan in 1932 to aid striking miners.[4] Johnson graduated from Union Theological Seminary in 1932 with a bachelor's degree in Divinity.[5]

Johnson became a member of the American Workers Party, lead by A.J. Muste.[6] In October 1936, Johnson joined the Communist Party, defecting from the Workers Party with Louis Budenz.[7] Johnson and the other departing members opposed the merger of the American Workers Party with the Trotskyist Communist League of America.[8]

In 1940, Johnson was the Communist Party's candidate for governor of Ohio.[9] He was the leader of the Ohio Communist Party between 1940 and 1947.[10] Johnson was arrested in Pittsburgh on June 20, 1951 and charged under the Smith Act with conspiring to overthrow the government.[11] At the time of his arrest, Johnson was serving as the Communist Party's chairman for Western Pennsylvania.[12] On February 3, 1953, Judge Edward J. Dimock found Johnson guilty of violating the Smith Act and sentenced him to three years in prison.[13]

Johnson represented the Communist Party in discussions about the Independent-Socialist ticket in 1958, but left following disagreements about whether the group should nominate Corliss Lamont as a gubernatorial candidate or support W. Averill Harriman[14]

Johnson exchanged several letters with Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963, after Oswald wrote to the Communist Party asking for political advice.[15] As a result, Johnson provided testimony to the Warren Commission following the Kennedy assassination.[16]

Johnson was Communist Party's representative on the steering committee of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam.[16] In the spring of 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. demanded that Johnson's name be removed from the letterhead of the Committee because of his Communist views.[17] Due to illness, Johnson abandoned his political work for the Communist Party in 1979.[5]

References

  1. ^ Beam, Hank (November 1955). "Portrait of a "Fanatic"". Masses & Mainstream. 8 (11): 36.
  2. ^ Pollock, Sylvia Winter, ed. (2011). American Letters, 1927-1947. Polity Press. p. 60. ISBN 9780745651552.
  3. ^ Chatfield, Charles. For peace and justice: Pacificism in America, 1914-1941. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press. p. 187. ISBN 0870491261.
  4. ^ Link, Eugene P. (1984). Labor-Religion Prophet: The Times and Life of Harry F. Ward. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. p. 238.
  5. ^ a b "Arnold Johnson Papers: NYU Special Collections Finding Aids". findingaids.library.nyu.edu. Retrieved 2025-09-10.
  6. ^ Palmer, Bryan D. (2021). James P. Cannon and the Emergence of Trotskyism in the United States, 1928-38. Brill. p. 843. ISBN 9789004471528.
  7. ^ Muste, A.J. (1967). Hentoff, Nat (ed.). The Essays of A.J. Muste. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. p. 170.
  8. ^ Breitman, George; Le Blanc, Paul; Wald, Alan (1996). Trotskyism in the United States: Historical Essays and Reconsiderations. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. p. 20. ISBN 0391039229.
  9. ^ "Ohio C.P. Wins 34,198 Signatures for Ballot". Daily Worker. August 28, 1940. p. 1.
  10. ^ "Arnold Johnson Is Dead at 84; A Leading American Communist (Published 1989)". The New York Times. 1989-09-28. p. 22. Retrieved 2025-09-14.
  11. ^ Singer, Michael (June 21, 1951). "F.B.I. Seizes 17; Roundup Aimed at the Peace Movement". The Daily Worker. p. 1.
  12. ^ "Two Communists Freed in Bail Here". The New York Times. August 17, 1951. p. 9.
  13. ^ "13 New York Communists sentenced to jail; Russia 'alternative' rejected". National Guardian. February 5, 1953. p. 7.
  14. ^ Ness, Immanuel; Ciment, James, eds. (2000). The Encyclopedia of Third Parties in America. Vol. 2. Armonk, NY: Sharpe Reference. p. 300. ISBN 0765680203.
  15. ^ Kaiser, David (2008). The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press. p. 232. ISBN 9780674027664.
  16. ^ a b Abt, John J. (1993). Advocate and Activist: Memoirs of an American Communist Lawyer. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. p. 267. ISBN 0252020308.
  17. ^ Zaroulis, Nancy (1984). Who spoke up? : American protest against the war in Vietnam, 1963-1975. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. p. 110. ISBN 0030056039.
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