Henry Winston

Henry Winston
Henry Winston speaks in East-Berlin, 1963
Chairman of the National Committee of the Communist Party USA
In office 1966 – 13 December 1986
Preceded by	Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Henry M. Winston (2 April 1911 – 13 December 1986) was an African-American political leader and Marxist civil rights activist.

Winston, committed to equal rights and communism, was an advocate of civil rights for African Americans decades before the idea of racial equality emerged as a mainstream current of American political thought.

An early member of the American Communist Party, Winston was elected to the party's National Board in 1936, serving as Chairman of the CPUSA from 1966 to 1986.

Born on 2 April 1911 to Joseph and Lucille Winston in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Henry grew up there and in Kansas City, Missouri. The economic situation of the poor Winston family was troubling enough to force Henry to leave high school early. Though once again unemployed after the start of the Great Depression, Winston's organizational skills and intellect came to the fore when he took a position with the Kansas City Unemployed Council at 19.

By 1936, Winston was serving the Communist Party USA as both the national organizational secretary of the Young Communist League and a member of the Communist Party National Board.

As a high-ranking member of the Communist Party organization, Winston encouraged members of the party to sign up for military service to fight Fascism and Nazism in the Second World War. Winston himself served in the Army, participating in the liberation of France from Nazi occupation. He marked the war's end with an honorable discharge from the military.