Pioneering Black Socialist George Woodbey's 1921 Letter to Eugene Debs
Another find from the archives: Woodbey, a Christian socialist, writing to a still-imprisoned Debs.
Mr. E.V. Debs
Dear comrade, am writing you to extend my heartfelt thanks for your brave stand for our cause, which is that of the workers throughout the world. My sympathy goes out for you at your age because I was 66 years old Oct. 5 last, but am still as able and anxious as ever for the fight. You made the first socialist speech I ever heard in Omaha in 1896, which set me to thinking. As you know, have been a socialist since 1900. As a leftist preacher I am a firm believer that passage of scripture concerning the first of Jerusalem, which says “they had all things common, and no one lacked anything.” This is what they are striving for in Russia. I was filled full of revolution, when a boy, by listening to the fiery speeches of 4th of July orators telling about the glory of the American Revolution.
You can console yourself with the fact that even the founder of the Christian religion for the salvation of men was put to death. And he told his followers “I send you out as lambs among wolves and some of you they will kill, and think they have done God service.” If Christ had been here and said as He did “Put up the sword and he that fights with it shall perish by it,” he would now be with you in the prison. Galileo was put in prison for his astronomical discoveries, many of the advocates of religious liberty in the 16th century lost their lives. I was once a slave; and John Brown was hung, and many abolitionists died in prison because they said I ought to be free. You are making history, and being right, the course for which you stand is bound to triumph. Like you I have no bitterness against the men who once enslaved me. May God speed the time when you and all the other military prisoners will be at liberty.
Yours in the course of humanity,
G.W. Woodbey
PS. We are now standing at the death bed of capitalism.