Joseph R. Brodsky, often known as Joseph Brodsky and Joe Brodsky, was an early 20th-century American civil rights lawyer, political activist, general counsel of the International Labor Defense (ILD), co-founder of the International Juridical Association (IJA), member of ILD defense team for members of the Scottsboro Boys Case of the 1930s, and general counsel for the International Workers Order (IWO).
Symbol of International Red Aid, used during 10th Anniversary (1932)
Lee Pressman was an early IJA member with Brodsky
Pete Seeger (here, entertaining Eleanor Roosevelt in 1944) made Brodsky attorney for People's Songs.
International Labor Defense
The International Labor Defense (ILD) (1925–1947) was a legal advocacy organization established in 1925 in the United States as the American section of the Comintern's International Red Aid network. The ILD defended Sacco and Vanzetti, was active in the anti-lynching, movements for civil rights, and prominently participated in the defense and legal appeals in the cause célèbre of the Scottsboro Boys in the early 1930s. Its work contributed to the appeal of the Communist Party among African Americans in the South. In addition to fundraising for defense and assisting in defense strategies, from January 1926 it published Labor Defender, a monthly illustrated magazine that achieved wide circulation. In 1946 the ILD was merged with the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties to form the Civil Rights Congress, which served as the new legal defense organization of the Communist Party USA. It intended to expand its appeal, especially to African Americans in the South. In several prominent cases in which blacks had been sentenced to death in the South, the CRC campaigned on behalf of black defendants. It had some conflict with former allies, such as the NAACP, and became increasingly isolated. Because of federal government pressure against organizations it considered subversive, such as the CRC, it became less useful in representing defendants in criminal justice cases. The CRC was dissolved in 1956. At the same time, in this period, black leaders were expanding the activities and reach of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1954, in a case managed by the NAACP, the US Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional.
Party leaders jailed in connection with the August 1922 raid on the CPA's Bridgman Convention. Executive Secretary C.E. Ruthenberg is seated in the front row in the middle. The Labor Defense Council was established to defend the individuals arrested in this raid.
Rare pinback button issued by the Labor Defense Council in conjunction with the 1923 trials of chief Bridgman defendants William Z. Foster and C.E. Ruthenberg
Symbol of International Red Aid used at the time of its 10th Anniversary in 1932
During its early years, the ILD tried to portray itself as a multi-tendency organization largely independent of the Communist Party, as exemplified by this ILD magazine featuring Eugene V. Debs of the rival Socialist Party of America.