People you didn’t know were socialists
By Chelsea S with additional support from ATL DSA Digicom
There’s a lot they don’t teach us in school. So, it might surprise you to learn that so many of the heroes we were taught to admire in school were actually socialists.
Helen Keller
Keller was a member of the Socialist Party and actively campaigned and wrote in support of the working class from 1909 to 1921. Many of her speeches and writings were about women’s right to vote and the impacts of war. She was even friends with socialist presidential candidate Eugene V Debs. When the Rockefeller-owned press refused to print Keller’s articles, she protested until her work was finally published. (Source)
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Why don’t we ever see the anti-capitalist quotes from King when it comes time to celebrate MLK Day? They make plenty of yard signs that say “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Why can’t we get just one that says “America must move toward a democratic socialism?” It’s almost like they want us to forget that he had a lot to say on the evils of capitalism…and that he may have even been killed for those views. 🤭
Kurt Vonnegut
If you’re a Vonnegut fan and you didn’t realize he was a socialist…we’re not sure what book you were reading. For many an American school child, Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle was an early introduction to anti-imperialist ideas — and the possibility that maybe America isn’t the good guy we were all raised to believe it is.
Charlie Chaplin
Maybe you only know Chaplin as an early pioneer of film comedy. Maybe you had to watch his satirical film The Great Dictator, a lampoon of Hitler, when you were in school. What you may not realize is that a lot of these anti-fascists of the 1930’s and 40’s (the original “antifa”) were also socialist — including Chaplin’s comrade author George Orwell.
Albert Einstein
Of course Einstein was another member of this original antifa. As a German Jew, he was lucky to escape with his life. Following the war, he wrote an essay for the May 1949 issue of the Monthly Review called “Why Socialism?” in which he criticized the capitalist profit-motive and advocated a socialist economy dictated by principles of democracy.
W.E.B. DuBois
Remember how your history textbook presented a comparison between DuBois and Booker T. Washington? And, if you learned history in an American school, how that textbook implied that Washington, with his message that Black Americans should work to improve themselves, presented the superior solution to solving America’s racial injustices? Well, turns out that textbook was full of it. DuBois developed one of the earliest critiques of racial capitalism, and showed how systems shape people — and, therefore, why we need a better one if we’re ever to truly address our country’s racial injustices.
Woody Guthrie & Pete Seeger
Don’t let J Lo’s performance of “This Land Is Our Land” at Biden’s inauguration fool you: When Guthrie wrote the song, he meant it as a satire of how drastically divided America is between the haves and the have-nots. (Unfortunately J Lo didn’t perform his later verses where the irony is more obvious in the lyrics.) While a lot of folk singers of the era professed progressive politics, both Guthrie and Pete Seeger were openly, unapologetically socialist.
Lewis Black
If you’re a millennial, you may have grown up listening to Lewis Black’s epic rants on Jon Stewart’s original The Daily Show. When asked his political identity in an interview, he answered, “”I’m a socialist, so that puts me totally outside any concept…the Canadians get it. But seriously, most people don’t get it. The idea of capping people’s income just scares people. ‘Oh, you’re taking money from the rich.’ Ooh, what a horrifying thing. These people really need $200 million.” (Source)
Harry Belafonte
We owe such a debt to Belafonte — and not just for his contribution to the Beetlejuice soundtrack. This “King of Calypso” brought Trinidadian music to the American music mainstream, a style of music that has lent itself to the evolution of modern hip-hop. But Belafonte was also on the right side of history from an early age. He vocally supported MLK and the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s, he praised Castro and condemned US imperialism in Latin America, and he was active in the Anti-Apartheid movement. He also hated George W. Bush and criticized his entire administration, quoting Malcom X’s famous “field versus house slaves” analogy to Colin Powell and Condaleeza Rice in what can only be characterized as an “epic takedown”. Among a lifetime of notable activism, Belafonte also endorsed Bernie Sanders.
Dead Prez
It shouldn’t surprise you this New York hip-hop duo is openly socialist. Their lyrics focus on themes of self-determination, Pan-Africanism, and militant social justice. The duo’s debut album was 2000’s Let’s Get Free, which included political monologues from prominent black activist Omali Yeshitela, as well as “Animal in Man” — a retelling of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Still wondering who these guys are? The instrumental version of their song “Hip Hop” was used as Dave Chappelle’s entrance music for his show on Comedy Central, and can be heard on every episode.
Julian Casablancas
Remember when The Strokes played the Bernie rally in New Hampshire at the beginning of 2020? Frontman Julian Casablancas had this to say about it: ““We are honored to be associated with such a dedicated, diligent, & trustworthy patriot… As the only truly non-corporate candidate, Bernie Sanders represents our only chance to overthrow corporate power and help return America to democracy. This is why we support him.” (Other acts that supported Bernie on his campaign trail include Bon Iver and Vampire Weekend.)
Ernest Hemingway
Scholars have spent decades wondering why Ernest Hemingway committed suicide. Biographer AE Hotchner believes Hemingway was pushed to the brink by his “paranoia” that the FBI was monitoring his every move for his believed links to Cuba and the Soviets. While Hemingway may indeed have been mentally ill, it’s also been verified by recently released FBI files that J Edgar Hoover was indeed tracking his every move, and had discovered that Hemingway was involved in an effort to set up an anti-fascist spy network called the Crook Factory. (Source)
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda does more than fitness videos and movies your mom likes. Now in her 80s, Fonda continues to protest against fossil fuel’s big money influence and advocate for climate action. She’s enticed many a Hollywood comrade to join her in protesting — and getting arrested for it, including Sally Field, Ted Danson, and Sam Waterston.
Arthur Miller
Miller’s plays were very personal. In Death of a Salesman, he captured the experience of many an American man, trapped in a life controlled by the forces of capitalism and patriarchy. His play The Crucible went one step further. Though ostensibly about the madness of the Salem Witch Trials, it was actually a critique of the witch hunt he himself had become a victim of — during the second red scare spearheaded by Senator Joe McCarthy, Miller had been compelled to come in for questioning in front of the House of Un-American Activities. (His once-wife, Marilyn Monroe, held many a leftist ideal of her own thanks to her diverse and working class upbringing.)
Lucille Ball
That’s right, America — even your beloved Lucy was a card-carrying Communist! She was also forced to submit testimony to the House of Un-American Activities, and though she disavowed any allegiance whatsoever, the evidence suggests this was simply an act of self-preservation. Lucille Ball was a woman ahead of her time in many ways — not just as a comedic actress or even as a trailblazing studio head. She even fought the studio and conservative sponsors of I Love Lucy to push television’s very first pregnancy and delivery storyline (Ball herself was pregnant at the time). The episode in which she gave birth earned an estimated 44 million viewers for the episode, beating the inauguration of Dwight Eisenhower the same week (which only 29 million viewers). (Source)
