{{Short description|20th-century American labor editor and writer}} {{Infobox writer | embed = | honorific_prefix = | name = Al Richmond | honorific_suffix = | image = Al Richmond 1951.jpg | image_size = | image_upright = | alt = | caption = Richmond {{circa}} 1951 | native_name = | native_name_lang = | pseudonym = | birth_name = | birth_date = November 17, 1913 | birth_place = London, United Kingdom | death_date = November 9, 1987 (age 73) | death_place = San Francisco, California, U.S. | occupation = Pro-labor journalist and novelist | language = English | nationality = | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = | period = | genre = | subject = Communism | movement = Communist Party USA {{small|(1929–1968)}} | notable_works = ''People's World'' contributions, ''A Long View From the Left'' memoir (1973) | spouse = <!-- or: | spouses = --> | partner = <!-- or: | partners = --> | children = | relatives = | awards = | years_active = 1930s-1970s}} '''Al Richmond''' (November 17, 1913 – November 9, 1987) was an American writer who co-founded and served as executive editor for the ''People's World'' San Francisco.<ref name=NYTobitAlRichmond> {{cite news | title = Al Richmond, Leftist Ex-Editor | newspaper = New York Times | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/09/obituaries/al-richmond-leftist-ex-editor.html | page = 15 | date = 9 November 1987 | access-date = 5 May 2022}}</ref><ref name=LongView> {{cite book | first = Al | last = Richmond | author-link = Al Richmond | title = A Long View From the Left | publisher = Houghton Mifflin | place = | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=tqcEAQAAIAAJ | pages = 70–84 (YCL), 95–6 (Philadelphia), 250–1 (Daily Worker), 255 (Sunday Worker) | date = 1973 | isbn = 9780395140055 | access-date = 5 May 2020}}</ref>
==Background== Al Richmond was born on November 17, 1913, in London, England. His mother, a revolutionary left for the United States after six years in a czarist prison, returned to Russia in 1917 with her young son, to work in the cause of labor organizing. She faced arrest by German soldiers. They came back to the United States in 1922. Worked as Union Activist
==Career== [[File:Native Daughter The Story of Anita Whitney.jpg|thumb|left|The cover of Richmond's ''Native Daughter: The Story of Anita Whitney'' (1942)]] In 1929, age 15, Richmond joined the Young Communist League (YCL). After high school, he moved to Philadelphia and helped unionize factory and dock workers.<ref name=LongView/>
In the 1930s, he wrote for ''Daily Worker'' and then moved West to co-found what was originally the ''Daily People's World'' (now ''People's World'') newspaper.<ref name=NYTobitAlRichmond/><ref name=LongView/>
Richmond also edited the ''Sunday Worker'', a weekly newspaper launched in January 1936 to try to reach more broadly than the ''Daily Worker'', with James S. Allen as foreign editor.<ref name=LongView/>
After a 1951 raid by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on ''People's World'' offices, Richmond and 13 other CPUSA members in California were tried, convicted, and sentenced to five years in prison under the Smith Act for advocating violent overthrow of the US Government. Richmond served one year.<ref name=NYTobitAlRichmond/>
[[File:Honor and tribute is paid to former People’s World Editor Al Richmond at a banquet in his honor on March 7.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.2|Richmond (center) at a dinner in his honor in Berkeley, California, March 7, 1970]]
After criticizing the USSR for invading Czechoslovakia in 1968, Richmond faced censure by CPUSA leaders and quit the Party, but remained a Marxist.<ref name=NYTobitAlRichmond/>
==Personal life and death== With wife Merle, Richmond had two children.<ref name=NYTobitAlRichmond/>
Al Richmond died age 73 on November 9, 1987, of pneumonia in San Francisco.<ref name=NYTobitAlRichmond/>
==Works== In his 1973 memoir ''A Long View From the Left'', Richmond criticized the CPUSA.<ref name=NYTobitAlRichmond/>
* ''Dangerous Thoughts'' with Mike Quin (1940)<ref> {{cite book | first1 = Mike | last1 = Quin | author-link = Mike Quin | first2 = Al | last2 = Richmond | author-link2 = Al Richmond | title = Dangerous Thoughts | publisher = People's World | place = San Francisco, California | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_PsuAQAAIAAJ | date = 1940 | access-date = 5 May 2020}}</ref> * ''A Long View From the Left'' (1973)<ref> {{cite book | first = Al | last = Richmond | author-link = Al Richmond | title = A Long View From the Left | publisher = Houghton Mifflin | place = | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=tqcEAQAAIAAJ | date = 1973 | isbn = 9780395140055 | access-date = 5 May 2020}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Richmond, Al}} Category:1987 deaths Category:1914 births Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States Category:Labor journalists Category:Members of the Communist Party USA Category:Communists from California
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