Jack O'Dell

Jack O'Dell (born Hunter Pitts O'Dell, August 11, 1923 – October 31, 2019) was an African-American activist writer and communist,^[1] best known for his role in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. During World War II, he was an organizer for the National Maritime Union.^[2] He was also involved with the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) as well as working with Martin Luther King Jr.^[3]

Hunter “Jack” Pitts O'Dell was born in Detroit, Michigan, on August 11, 1923.^[1] Due to his parents' divorce, he was raised by his grandfather, John O’Dell, a janitor at a public library, and his grandmother, Georgianna O’Dell, who was a strict Catholic. His father's name was George Edwin O’Dell, and he worked in hotels and restaurants in Detroit. O’Dell’s mother, Emily (Pitts) O’Dell, loved music and teaching people to play piano after studying music at Howard University. Growing up, Jack witnessed racial violence, labor strikes, and social injustice, which would later lead to his involvement in labor and social reformation.^[4] O'Dell attended an all-black college, Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, from 1941 until 1943. He studied pharmacology but left to enlist in the U.S. Marines.^[4] During World War II, he served in the U.S. Merchant Marines, which functioned as a branch of the military forces for the duration of the conflict. He was an organizer for the National Maritime Union, one of the few racially integrated labor unions in the United States.^[5] During the 1948 presidential election, he was leader of a campaign group called Seamen for Wallace that campaigned for George Wallace. He undertook graduate studies at the New York University School of Management, receiving a certificate in 1960. While he was in New York, he helped organize the April 1959 Youth March for Integrated Schools, which Martin Luther King, Jr., addressed.^[6] Coming back from the war, O’Dell signed up with “Operation Dixie”, which attempted to organize Southern workers into labor unions to change the most conservative region in the country.^[5] Later on, O’Dell moved to the South, and instantly showed his leadership skills. Those skills allowed him to successfully intervene a radical situation in a local store, which led him to earn a “Citizen of the Year” award from Miami’s African-American Press.^[5]

During the 1950s, O'Dell was a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and lost his position as a unionist as a result.^[7] In the 1950s, O’Dell heard Martin Luther King Jr., speak at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.^[8] In March 1962, Robert F. Kennedy, who was the US Attorney General, authorized surveillance of Stanley Levison and King by the FBI. In October 1962, an article was published in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. It accused O’Dell of being a communist who had “infiltrated to the top administrative post” in King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). It also claimed that he had been acting on behalf of the Communist Party.^[9] Upon a raid of O'Dell's home, the FBI found communist books as well as instructions for the members of the CPUSA; O'Dell was outraged saying the search was illegal and was in violation of his 4th amendment rights.^[7] King defended the SCLC by saying they were “on guard against any such infiltration.” He acknowledged that these allegations by House Un-American Activities Committee were “a means of [harassing] Negroes and whites merely because of their belief in integration.”^[9] O’Dell decided to submit a temporary letter of resignation because of the charges. However, he still helped with planning for the Birmingham campaign.^[9]

Because of O'Dell's past involvement with the Communist Party, King received pressure from many liberal leaders, including the Kennedy brothers John and Robert, to distance himself from O'Dell. Taylor Branch, a historian of the Civil Rights era, remarked that it was ultimately the Kennedy administration that influenced King's decision, not a reflection of King's own feelings towards O'Dell.^[10] In June 1963, some civil rights leaders including King met with President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy told King to cut ties with O’Dell and Levison due to their Communist connections. King did not part ways with Levison, but he wrote to O’Dell asking him to permanently resign. King explained that “any allusion to the left brings forth an emotional response which would seem to indicate that SCLC and the Southern Freedom Movement are Communist inspired.” King said that "O’Dell leaving was a significant sacrifice with sufferings in jail and loss of jobs under racist intimidation.”^[11] O’Dell submitted his final resignation on July 12, 1963. He said that his work with the SCLC was “a rewarding experience which I shall always cherish.”^[11]

After conferring with King, O'Dell decided to accept a less prominent post within the movement not to alienate important allies of the Civil Rights struggle, but O'Dell continued to play a decisive role in the SCLC as well as in King's move to the political left towards the end of his life.^[1] O’Dell was on the path towards becoming the executive director of SCLC, which forced him out of the organization by the pressure of President Kennedy’s administration put on Martin Luther King.^[11]

O'Dell wrote as an associate editor for Freedomways, an African-American political journal, from its beginning in 1961 to its end in 1985.^[12] He served on the National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam from 1965 to 1972. He then served as a student mentor for Institute for Community Leadership and the Jack O’Dell Education Center in King County, Washington.^[12] O'Dell worked closely with Jesse Jackson as a senior foreign policy advisor to the "Jesse Jackson for President" campaign in 1984. He also worked with Jackson as an international affairs consultant to the National Rainbow Coalition. He served as chairman of the board of the Pacifica Foundation, which operates the listener-sponsored Pacifica Radio Network, from 1977 to 1997.^[13]

He lived with his wife, Jane Power, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In later life he was active in mentoring new generations of political activists—as well as historians of the Civil Rights Movement—in the Pacific Northwest.^[14]

A documentary film was made about O'Dell called The Issue of Mr. O’Dell (2018) that was directed and produced by Rami Katz.^[14]

O'Dell died of a stroke on October 31, 2019 at the age of 96.^[12]

• Kenneth R. Timmerman. Shakedown: Exposing the real Jesse Jackson (2002). Regnery Publishing, Inc.
• Diane McWhorter. Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (2001). Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-1772-1
• Michael Zweig, ed. Jack O'Dell: The Urgency of Now (2005). State University of New York, Stony Brook, Department of Economics.
• Singh, Nikhil (2012). Climbin' Jacob's Ladder; the Black Freedom Movement Writings of Jack O'Dell. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. p. 330. ISBN 9780520274549.

• Seven Questions: Jack O'Dell and Jane Power. Retrieved January 28, 2006
• Subversives: Stories from the Red Scare. Lesson by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca (Jack O’Dell is featured in this lesson).