Manning Johnson

Biography

In the perjury trial of Labor Leader Harry Bridges in 1949, he was a government witness. In a Time magazine article dated Dec. 26, 1949 and entitled "You'd Be Thin, Too", he was described as "husky, big-jawed ... A smooth, deep-voiced Negro." His testimony that he saw Bridges address a Communist National Committee meeting in 1936, and how he recalled voting to "re-elect" Bridges to the national committee two years later under the alias of "Rossi" was instrumental in Bridges' conviction.

In 1953 he testified before the Committee on Un-American Activities of the U.S. House of Representatives, 83rd Congress. Robert L. Kunzig, chief counsel for the committee, asked "Was deceit a major policy of Communist propaganda and activity?" Manning R. Johnson answered, "Yes, it was. They made fine gestures and honeyed words to the church people which could be well likened unto the song of the fabled sea nymphs luring millions to moral decay, spiritual death, and spiritual slavery...". He also testified in 1949., He died following an auto accident which had occurred on June 26, 1959 just south of Lake Arrowhead Village, California.

His book, Color, Communism, and Common sense, was quoted by G. Edward Griffin in his 1969 motion picture lecture More Deadly than War ... the Communist Revolution in America.

He recorded a speech, known as "Manning Johnson's Farewell Address", with his views on equality, respect and vision for the future, criticizing the practices of the NAACP and of Negro radicals. It was available on an LP recording from KEY Records in the mid 1960s.