ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the International Labor Defense (ILD), a legal defense organization associated with the Communist Party (CPUSA) and the US section of International Red Aid that approaches the families of the defendants offering free legal representation for appeals to the Scottsboro rulings. The argument about the importance of CPUSA pamphlets unfolds through two examples: the first, the outwardly focused Scottsboro Trial pamphlets, which function as propaganda for the CPUSA; and the second, internally focused pamphlets that highlight the speculative form of Party pedagogy around race and class. This essay tells the story of Scottsboro pamphlets as well as pamphlets organized around the call for self-determination for black people in the Black Belt, a move later called the Black Nation Thesis. Specifically, this essay offers the idea of productive fiction to examine how pamphlets enabled social movement activists, leaders, and rank-and-file members of the Party to reflect on cultural and economic conventions.
