Series VI: Writings

Subseries A: The Negro Question in the U.S. contains book reviews, post-WWII Black Belt statistical data and calculations, a partial typescript for a proposed revised edition, several unpublished essays from the 1950s, CP Negro Commission meeting notes and reports by Allen, James Jackson, and Doxey Wilkerson, and the proceedings of a 1956 Conference on The South, organized by the Jefferson School.

Subseries B: Organizing in the Depression South contains a partial typescript of this work.

Subseries C: "Visions and Revisions," contains chapters on Allen's early years, travels to the Philippines and the Soviet Union, and his publishing career from his unpublished autobiographical typescript. The partial typescript in Subseries B was originally written as part of "Visions and Revisions."

Subseries D: Other Writings contains numerous brief, mostly unpublished typescripts from the late 1920s through the early 1980s. Many deal with the debates over Party policy and theory in the 1945-1960 era (critiques of Earl Browder and John Gates); others cover various topics including current events, political economy, the Soviet Union, and the developing countries, including an interview with the former leader of the Cuban Communist Party, Blas Roca (1978). There are also book contracts and reviews, memorial portraits of prominent communists, and publishing correspondence for American Communism and Black Americans (1987), Atomic Imperialism (1952), Reconstruction (1937), and The Radical Left on the Eve of War (1985). There is also correspondence pertaining to Allen's publications written after Allen's death by his sons and his collaborators, particularly Robin G. D. Kelley, who worked on Allen's manuscript, "Communism in the Deep South," later published as Organizing in the Depression South: A Communist's Memoir (2001).