WE CHARGE GENOCIDE
A CLASSIC ON AMERICAN HISTORY FROM 1951
The United Nations received the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) written 240-page
petition, "We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government Against the Negro
People," on December 17, 1951. The CRC was a civil rights organization formed in
1946 that, to highlight racial injustice in the United States, began serving as
a defense organization involved in representing black Americans sentenced to
death along with other distinguished cases.
Two United Nations General Assembly offices received the CRC petition: One was
in New York City, United States, and it was delivered by the singer/activist
Paul Robeson. William L. Patterson, executive director of the CRC, delivered the
other in Paris, France. In the document, the group accused the United States of
genocide against Black people—many leading activists, including Aubrey Grossman,
W.E.B. Du Bois, and George W. Crockett Jr., signed the document.
The petition quotes the United Nation's definition of genocide as, "Any intent
to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, racial, or religious group is
genocide." The CRC argued the portion of the definition stating attempting to
destroy a group "in part," like the United States mistreatment of blacks,
qualified as genocide. It Lists hundreds of wrongful executions and lynchings,
charging U.S. Southern states with a conspiracy against African Americans'
ability to vote and adding legal discrimination; the petition focuses on
systematic economic inequalities and quality of life differences. Saying the
U.S. government is responsible for genocide through the endorsement of both
racism and "monopoly capitalism." The document expresses that "the oppressed
Negro citizens of the United States, segregated, discriminated against, and long
the target of violence, suffer from genocide as the result of the consistent,
conscious, unified policies of every branch of government. If the General
Assembly acts as the conscience of mankind and therefore acts favorably on our
petition, it will have served the cause of peace."
Raphael Lemkin, the Polish lawyer who coined the term "genocide" during World
War II, publicly disagreed with the basis of the petition, stating it was
confuseing genocide with discrimination. The document met little fanfare from
mainstream U.S. media outlets but garnered a reasonably positive response in
Europe. American representatives criticized the document, with Eleanor Roosevelt
calling it "ridiculous." The State Department requested the NAACP reject the
document in a press release, but upon inspection, the NAACP found that many of
the petition's views aligned with their own. The United Nations never openly
acknowledged the acquisition of the petition, so any discussion on the matter
would have to come from future civil rights movement documentation.
We Charge Genocide was republished in 1970 by International Publishers after
Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party generated renewed interest. This edition
contains the original 1951 petition, William L. Patterson's 1970 Foreword, Ossie
Davis' brief Preface, and a Prologue by Communist Party USA (CPUSA) leader
Jarvis Tyner.
We Charge Genocide (Wikipedia)
Opinion 70 Years Ago Black Activists Accused the U.S. of Genocide (Politico, 12-26-21)
We Charge Genocide 1951 (PDF, Washington University)
We Charge Genocide 1970 Edition (PDF, U.S. Archive)
(1951) We Charge Genocide Transcript (Blackpast, 7-15-11)