Henry Winston

Henry Winston (affectionately known as Winnie) was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he lived until 1925. At that time his parents, Lucille and Joseph Winston, moved their family of six children to Kansas City, Missouri.

In Kansas City the young Henry Winston came to the fore of his school classes and stood out on the playing field in sports. But the hard ties of the Depression years soon closed in on his school days.

Winston joined the growing lines of job seekers. He entered the job market to help sustain the family. Already a veteran I the defense of his dignity against racist practices and prejudices, he entered on the road of the class struggle. At this time he made his lifelong commitment to the cause of the workers who produce the nation's wealth. Winston championed a fair distribution of goods to satisfy the material and cultural needs of people, advocated the right of workers to become the owners of the fruits of their labor and to exercise political power to ensure the just and peaceful development of society.

In 1933 Winston joined the Young Communist League. He became a leader in the struggles of the unemployed, and for the civil rights and equality of African American people against racist repression, Jim Crow laws and lynch terror. By 1936 Winston had become the National Administrative Secretary of the Young Communist League, and at the same time he became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, USA. From that time forward, for an eventful half century, the public life of Henry Winston was inseparable from the history of the Communist Party. Gus Hall described Henry Winston on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday as "the steel cable that binds together the Party, and the Party with the working class." The Communist Party was the channel of choice for his entire life's work.

Henry Winston exerted an important influence on progressive developments of his times, in the United States and throughout the world. He was a soldier in the war against fascism for four years. He was a leading personality in the ongoing battle for peace in the world and for an end to the existence of nuclear weapons, on earth and in space. He was an internationalist who championed the brotherhood on nations. He ardently supported the cause of the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa and defended Nicaragua's inalienable right to freely determine its own path of development. He was a loyal friend of the Soviet Union, of Cuba, of Ethiopia, and of all the great community of states which have embarked on the socialist path.

Henry Winston's political outlook was always one of realism and of confidence-confidence in the power of the people to save humanity from nuclear destruction, to overcome all difficulties and to gain the high ground of the triumph of the people's cause everywhere on earth.

Additional info not in bio.

During the terrible years known as the McCarthy period Winston was sentenced to serve time in prison under the infamous Smith Act. During his time in jail he developed a brain tumor. It took a world wide struggle to get him released for medical attention. By the time he received attention the tumor had affected the optic nerve and as a result he lost his sight. The world wide struggle eventually won Winston a Presidential Pardon. Despite his blindness Winston went on to be elected as Chairman of the CPUSA and served in that capacity until his death. It was said of Winnie "They robbed him of his sight but not his vision".