Henry O. Mayfield (February 15, 1907 – December 31, 1963) was an American miner and social activist. Mayfield was one of the prominent Black miners who played an active role in forming the new Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) between 1935 and 1955, as well as having a leadership role in the SNYC. Mayfield served as chairman of the board for Freedomways Associates, the publishing company for the popular cultural magazine Freedomways, up until his death.
Biography
Henry O. Mayfield was born in 1907 in Florida. He received a primary school education before migrating to the foundries, mills, and mines of Jefferson County, Alabama. Mayfield became a miner and worked for seven years in the biggest foundry in Birmingham, the Stockholm Pipe and Fitting Company and became a member of the United Mine Workers, one of the few labor unions of the time. From that union, he became an active organizer of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the late 1930s. The CIO flourished during the time that Mayfield was an organizer. Deplorable working conditions led to a list of demands as part of a strike that included higher pay and better working hours. The communities that Mayfield targeted as part of the organizing drives were miners, churches, civic organizations, and voters' leagues. He was of the strand of black male leaders that tried to abstain from drinking, opposed womanizing and felt free to intervene in comrades' marital problems. Mayfield was a singer in the East Birmingham Stars quartet. He had two children in his first marriage. After he and his wife separated, her family "cut him up", so he fled to Greenwood to live with his mother. Mayfield joined the NAACP around 1938 with his good friend and fellow member of the Communist Party, Hosea Hudson. He enlisted in the military in 1943 during World War II at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he held the rank of Private. Following his activist work with the CIO and the SNYC, Mayfield transitioned to working as the chairman of the board for Freedomways Associates, a popular black political and cultural journal. Mayfield died on December 31, 1963, at 56 years old. At the time of his death, Mayfield was living in Brooklyn, New York, still working on the Freedomways Journal.
Communist Party
Henry O. Mayfield was recruited into the Communist Party (CPUSA) by Hosea Hudson, with whom he worked as the CIO, and his main goal was to attract radical black workers. To educate himself on Communist beliefs, including self-determination, he began by reading The Liberator with John Beidel, West Hibbard, Joe Howard, Charles DeBardelebel and Hudson. He was selected to go to Russia during his time with the Party to attend a Communist training school, and was arrested in 1950 as part of Birmingham's "Anti-Red Drive." They found Communist literature at his house during the arrest. He became an active member of the Party and, during the spring of 1932, was selected to be part of the Southern Section Committee, and later became a District 17 bureau member, two roles that increased his involvement even more. In 1938 he was chosen as a delegate to the national Party convention in New York City, another high honor.
Mayfield's involvement with the Party included helping to create CPUSA-led trade unions that allowed Black workers, which was unheard of at the time. He also used his ties in the CIO to urge members to join initiatives he was heading at the Party: joining anti-poll tax campaigns, registering to vote; reading New South and Daily Worker, two Communist newspapers; and attending nonunion political functions headed by the Party. Another of Mayfield's roles in the Communist Party was delivering the Party's messages to prospective members in the South. Hudson was adamant about Mayfield having this role because of his approachability and well-spoken nature. This essentially meant handing out leaflets with the Party's 15-point program. The program's aims included confronting police brutality against people of color, ending poll taxes, federal housing, and voting rights for all citizens. As part of this last initiative, voting rights for all citizens, Mayfield and others founded the Right to Vote Club. This made procedural and legal information about voting easy to access and helped communities that were being barred from voting, primarily the black community. This also marked the first time that the Communist Party created a program with the main focus of equal voting rights.