Leon Katzen
Leon Katzen
Abraham Lincoln School
The Abraham Lincoln School for Social Sciences was a Chicago institution of the 1930s and 1940s, run by the Communist Party USA.
Faculty members were Morris Backall, Michael Baker, Frank Marshall Davis, Horace Davis, David Englestein, Morton Goldsholl, Pat Hoverder, Alfonso Iannelli, Leon Katzen, Ludwig Kruhe, Herschel Meyer, Henry Noyes, William L. Patterson, Fred Ptashne, Eleanore Redwin, Boris M. Revsine, Frank Sokolik, William Rose, Herman Schendel, Bernice Targ and Morris Topchevsky.
A South Side annex to the school was is located at 4448 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago. Dr. Walter S. Neff was director. Instructors included Albert George, Charlie Mitchell, Lester Fox, Geraldyne Lightfoot, Ishmael Flory, David Englestein, Irving Herman, Earl Durham, Claude Lightfoot and Walter Miller[1].
Communist Party member
In the early 1950s Katzen was treasurer of Communist Party USA in Illinois and was subject to several "black bag jobs" by the FBI[2].
In the 1959 Katzen was identified as a member of the Communist Party USA, and formerly was the section organizer of the Communist Party on the northwest side of Chicago[3].
At the time he was chairman of the Chicago Committee to Defend Democratic Rights
Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights
In 1965 Leon Katzen was a Board Member of Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights[4]
References
- ↑ "Testimony of Walter S. Steele regarding Communist activities in the United States. Hearings before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, first session, on H. R. 1884 and H. R. 2122, bills to curb or outlaw the Communist Party in the United States. Public law 601 (section 121, subsection Q (2) July 21, 1947" pages 52-53
- ↑ FBI secrets: an agents exposé By M. Wesley Swearingen
- ↑ Communist infiltration of vital industries and current communist techniques in the Chicago, Ill., area. Hearings 86th Congress may 5-7 1959 page 520
- ↑ Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights Letterhead Feb 1965