The Color of Fascism

Lawrence Dennis, Racial Passing, and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism in the United States

Gerald Horne

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9780814773314
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Estudios afroamericanos

What does it mean that Lawrence Dennis—arguably the “brains” behind U.S. fascism—was born black but spent his entire adult life passing for white? Born in Atlanta in 1893, Dennis began life as a highly touted African American child preacher, touring nationally and arousing audiences with his dark-skinned mother as his escort. However, at some point between leaving prep school and entering Harvard University, he chose to abandon his family and his former life as an African American in order to pass for white. Dennis went on to work for the State Department and on Wall Street, and ultimately became the public face of U.S. fascism, meeting with Mussolini and other fascist leaders in Europe. He underwent trial for sedition during World War II, almost landing in prison, and ultimately became a Cold War critic before dying in obscurity in 1977.

Based on extensive archival research, The Color of Fascism blends biography, social history, and critical race theory to illuminate the fascinating life of this complex and enigmatic man. Gerald Horne links passing and fascism, the two main poles of Dennis's life, suggesting that Dennis’s anger with the U.S. as a result of his upbringing in Jim Crow Georgia led him to alliances with the antagonists of the U.S. and that his personal isolation which resulted in his decision to pass dovetailed with his ultimate isolationism.

Dennis’s life is a lasting testament to the resilience of right-wing thought in the U.S. The first full-scale biographical portrait of this intriguing figure, The Color of Fascism also links the strange career of a prominent American who chose to pass.

1
Passing Fancy?

The United States was entering a brave new world of imperialism in January 1899, as it was dispensing with the tottering Spanish empire and taking on its mantle, including rule of “colored” peoples from Puerto Rico to the Philippines. Meanwhile, in midtown Manhattan, a surging, swaying noisy crowd fought to enter Mount Olivet Colored Baptist Church on West 52nd Street, to listen not to a learned exposition of the nation’s newest responsibilities but to hear the “‘unlanguaged prattling’” of a child, one Lawrence Dennis. For two whole hours before the doors opened, which was late in the afternoon, the increasingly unruly crowd besieged this house of worship, as if it were a medieval fortified castle. A police officer on hand sought vainly to restore order, but the impatient crowd pounded on the doors with sticks and fists begging, beseeching, imploring—demanding admittance immediately, if not sooner. A stout Negro man peeped out a side door and cracked it open, then sought to explain that the church was already filled to the rafters and could hold no more. But this crowd refused to be denied. They pressed open the door and in a blink of an eye the body of the church was packed even fuller with a mass of humanity so compact that a child—even the child they had come to hear—could not have found standing or even sitting room anywhere in this edifice.

Yet more and more continued to try to fight their way inside and soon a spirited fracas had erupted in response. Women screamed. Men vociferated loudly. Then, at the conclusion of what appeared to be the final hymn, a tiny child in a white frock and black stockings, with a curl tied with a pink ribbon hanging on each side of his near white face appeared upon the platform—and the crowd erupted in even wilder tones. The pastor in introducing this child preacher, declared, “‘he is uneducated and cannot read,’” but this did not deter the crowd—and may have endeared them—since many of them, as a result of enslavement, then a brutally imposed racial segregation, were likewise deprived. What had brought this crowd out in droves was not his lettered education, in any case, but the belief that he was inspired divinely. Little Lawrence Dennis gazed calmly at the audience for a moment, then—like a tiny emperor—clapped his hands peremptorily for silence and not being obeyed at once, stomped his small foot imperiously. The crowd quieted down, Dennis began to preach, then began to answer a blizzard of questions about religion and faith that a Doctor of Divinity would have had difficulty in responding to. According to the reporter present, Dennis was able to answer “only set questions.” But what no doubt moved the audience and impelled them to risk life and limb to jam a building in a manner that presented a clear and present hazard was Dennis’s performance. He became excited almost to the point of hysteria and screamed. He spoke in disjointed sentences, as if possessed by a higher spirit and impressed one and all as being tremendously precocious. Already displaying the disdain for the masses that later during his adulthood caused him to dismiss legions as being simply “dumb,” he referred to those assembled as “‘goats’” and “‘hellhounds.’” The crowd, accustomed to an even worse abuse, was nonplussed. There was a brisk trade in photographs of this child bidding for an early sainthood, selling for a more than meager 25 cents each. In fact, the rush for the photographs was so great and the struggle for them so fierce that the sale had to be stopped, lest a riot erupt. His dark-skinned mother remained displeased, however. She criticized the audience sharply for not giving enough donations.¹

At this stage in his young life, Lawrence Dennis was already a kind of celebrity. Certainly there were few his age—of any color—who had entire books devoted to informing an avid public about their lives. In his first book, written as a young boy, Dennis acknowledged that “my father’s ancestors were French and Indian. My mother’s ancestors were African and Indian.” If this admission had been uncovered in the 1930s or 1940s during the height of Dennis’s notoriety, it could have destabilized his career since according to the unique race rules of the nation, this revelation of African ancestry submerged all else—this meant that Dennis was a U.S. Negro. But back then the glib and garrulous Dennis was talking openly about his life. “As a baby,” he said, “I was red-headed. Unlike most babies, I did not care to be rocked to sleep.… I walked and talked fairly well when nine months old,” he conceded with pride and later alleged that he “could remember some things that happened when I was only nine months old.” He was “particularly fond” of his father, who —he said—was a “building contractor by trade.” Dennis’s “Christian experience began very early,” since both his “father and mother were devout Christians.” This may account for the fact that he was “certain” that “God had called” him to “preach” while he “was still a mere baby.” Then he “would arrange” his “dolls on chairs, and standing up in front of them, would preach to them.”²

Dennis spoke for the first time in public when he was 47 months old, as Thanksgiving loomed in 1897.³ Quickly the highly articulate child who could quote passages from the Bible became exceedingly popular and soon was touring, preaching mostly in “coloured” churches, though whites would also show up. His father, according to the young Dennis, traveled with him “until his death in 1902.” The press intimated that Dennis was “gifted with some such seemingly supernatural power as Blind Tom,” the musical sensation of the nineteenth century and a precursor of today’s Stevie Wonder. This was due in no small part to the fact that he would be subjected to questioning by theology students at these outings and invariably would pass with distinction.

During one memorable occasion in Boston he was “invited by the Spiritualists to hold a meeting in one of their principal halls. They believed I was controlled by the spirit of some great prophet,” said Dennis, immodest even then. “I celebrated my seventh birthday while in Boston”—this was in 1900 apparently—“and it was there that I first read my Bible. I had never gone to school a day and had never been taught by anyone. I simply picked up my knowledge of letters little by little, through the power of the Lord,” said Dennis, who as an adult rarely evinced interest in religion. “Lonnie,” said his mother, calling him by the name by which he was then known, “‘has never been to school, and I have never given him any instruction of any kind. But when he was six years old he was able to read, and now can read and write as well as anybody.’”

But, after all, Dennis was still a Negro child preacher and, thus, was exposed to indignities at an early age that his peers may have been able to avoid. While touring in Utah, Dennis said, “I had been informed by a Mormon that no coloured person would be allowed to go through the Mormon Temple—not even if he were a Mormon. He said this was because the black angels fought with Lucifer against heaven. I did not hesitate to so declare publicly and privately,” said the obviously irked and antiracist Dennis, “that if that was their belief it was not of God, for ‘God is no respecter of persons.’” Evidently his answer impressed, for while in this conservative western state, said Dennis, “I received an invitation from the Governor of Utah to come and see him at the capital. We did so”—that is, Dennis and his mother who accompanied him on his tours—“and had a very pleasant visit.”

This was a pleasant conclusion to an unfortunate incident but the question of “racial” difference was drummed into Dennis’s young brain at an early age—and he could see that professions of religiosity did not necessarily bar such occurrences.

At the age of 10, he departed New York for Europe. On board was another celebrity, he recalled. “Buffalo Bill had 80 mustang ponies and 800 head of cattle on our boat, and I went down in the hold to see them. I also went into the stoking room and saw the firemen cursing and swearing and working like slaves”—a condition that his mother’s family could have informed him about in depth. Dennis and his mother—who was as dark in visage as he was light—visited Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Jerusalem, and Egypt and were celebrated at every turn, a heady experience for a child. But somehow interested onlookers could not avoid drawing attention to one branch of his color. He was a “‘Zambo,’” said one paper that intrigued Dennis sufficiently to include in his book, “‘the child of a Negro and Red Indian. His race has furnished some of the ablest statesmen and soldiers to the Central American republics. Several Presidents of Nicaragua and Guatemala had been Zambos.’”

Dennis “supposed that I must have addressed at least 4000 audiences and a million [and] a quarter of people in the United States and Canada alone and perhaps not less than 5000 people professed conversion [to Christianity] in our meetings.”⁴

Yet Dennis had to return to the United States at some point and his home was Atlanta, which was no prize—particularly for one not of “pure European descent.” Shortly before he was born Jim Crow was legalized in the state of Georgia and his hometown, Atlanta. Perhaps not coincidentally a spate of racist lynchings erupted in this Deep South state, to the point where it was ranked with Mississippi as a leader in this gruesome category. Also—not coincidentally—it was during this era that the “successes of such Afro-Americans as W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington and Walter White who were of much lighter hue, contributed significantly to the use of bleaches and hair straighteners [sic] by heavily pigmented and curly haired blacks.”⁵ It was as if those of African descent were seeking to eradicate the markers—skin color and hair texture—that marked them indelibly for punishment and penalty.

This Grand Guignol of bias exploded decisively in 1906 during the fabled “riot”—racist pogrom is a more accurate term—that exploded in the city that was to pride itself later on being “too busy to hate.”⁶ At this point Lawrence Dennis was 13 years old and a globe-trotter who had tasted a bit of what the world had to offer. Defined as a “Negro” it was no doubt discomfiting for him to hear the words of his contemporary, William Benjamin Smith, who “pondered what the South stood for and affirmed, ‘the answer is simple: she stands for blood, for the continuous germ plasma of the Caucasian race’” (emphasis in original). Such full-throated expressions of white supremacy helped to fuel massacres of Negroes in Atlanta. In response one Negro leader “‘advised the race to go to Africa. The Atlanta trouble is the greatest proof of the wisdom and judgment of my project’”—African emigration—“‘than anything. In the name of all that is good and righteous,’” thundered Bishop [Henry] Turner, “‘what do you see in this country for the black man but constant trouble?’” His words were echoed by highly placed white leaders who agreed that deportation was “‘the only solution.’”⁷ But there were some Negroes—like Dennis—who chose instead not to migrate abroad but to migrate across the color line.

By 1908, in Jim Crow Georgia, Negroes were deprived of the right to vote in most elections by dint of the “white primary” and the state constitution. They could vote on bond issues only if they paid their poll taxes—which were inherently discriminatory. A price had to be paid for being part of the Negro community.⁸

As Dennis gained prominence as the “brain” behind U.S. fascism—as tensions between Berlin and Washington intensified—the FBI chose to investigate his background. They arrived at various conclusions.

According to one report, he was the “illegitimate son of Sallie Montgomery, adopted by Green Dennis” in October 1896. The latter was a mechanic who died in late 1901, leaving his estate to Cornelia Green, his spouse, and Lawrence Dennis, his adopted son, whose name originally was Lawrence Montgomery. Green Dennis was born in 1841 in the slave state that was Georgia—his “color” was “mixed.”⁹ Apparently, Sallie Montgomery was the sister of Cornelia Green. The mother of the two was described as being of a “very bright” complexion, and their father was not known to the agency. An early FBI report observed that Dennis’s father was “not known,” though later the agency explored “rumors” that “Green Dennis is actual father of subject,” that is, he had impregnated his sister-in-law. Sallie Montgomery died in May 1934—at this juncture, Lawrence Dennis already was established as rising star of the right. She was described then as a “widow” who had done “laundry work”; her “mother’s maiden name” was “Amanda Williams.” Her “cause of death” was “cardiovascular heart disease.” But the FBI gumshoe in charge of this investigation concluded that the “description” of her “did not appear to fit the description” of the “mother” of Lawrence Dennis—she “did not appear to be old enough to fit the description,” he said—so he “deemed it inadvisable to continue the investigation along these lines.”

Though it never revealed publicly its thorough investigation of Dennis’s ancestry, it is remarkable how color-obsessed the agency was at this point. They interviewed those who had known Dennis in Atlanta, including one person who collected rents for the Green Dennis estate during the first decade of the twentieth century. M. L. Thrower advised that Cornelia Green could be easily described as a mulatto and that Green Dennis was a brownish color though he would not describe him as being either yellow or black. Fayette Landrum, who delivered mail to the Green Dennis household, suggested that the latter was not only Lawrence Dennis’s adoptive father but actual father. He added that Sallie Montgomery had lived in this household for a lengthy period, along with her own mother, and that the two and Cornelia Dennis—though all being defined as Negroes—were rather light-skinned. He said Sallie Montgomery’s mother was “very fair” and that Sallie too had a similar complexion and that Cornelia was slightly darker in complexion. He said that he was nearly certain that Sallie and Cornelia were related. He also alleged that Green Dennis was a very good carpenter and that shortly after he adopted Lawrence Dennis, he retired and spent a greater portion of his time teaching the scriptures to his son. A witness who chose not to be identified “stated that [Lawrence Dennis] was an illegitimate child” with a “bright complexion and straight black hair” and that “in their travels Green Dennis had been able to pass for a white person.” She stated further that the Dennis family belonged to the “Old Wheat Street Baptist Church.” Another unidentified witness recalled Lawrence Dennis as having “olive skin, characterizing him as a Greek” in looks. Yet another unidentified witness declared that Dennis’s father “was supposed to have been a white man,” not Green Dennis, and that “Lawrence’s mother Sallie could not very well keep him since he was so light-skinned, it being apparent that his father was not a colored man,” an allegation that could mortally threaten both mother and son—hence, the apparent ruse of moving into the Dennis household and subsequent adoption.¹⁰

The FBI also spoke at length with Sally McDuffie—“colored”—who stated “that many years ago she had lived for about one year in the Dennis home in [the] 1800 block of Vernon Street” in Washington, D.C. Supposedly she “possessed an excellent memory.” “She recalled that Lawrence Dennis knew Cornelia Dennis as his mother [but] that in reality she was his aunt. Lawrence was the son,” it was said, “of Cornelia’s niece Sallie whose last name Mrs. McDuffie was unable to recall. She understood that Lawrence had been the illegitimate son of Sallie and that his father was supposed to have been a white man.” Mrs. McDuffie thought that Lawrence Dennis’s aunt and uncle “took [him] as a small baby and reared him as their own son. She explained that Lawrence could easily pass as the son of Cornelia and Green inasmuch as Green himself was a very light-skinned Negro. Mrs. McDuffie was of the opinion that Lawrence’s mother Sallie could not very well keep him since he was so light-skinned, it being apparent that his father was not a colored man.” Though others knew him as “Lonnie,” she knew him as “Larney.” Cornelia Dennis belonged to Lincoln Temple in Washington, D.C., “but Lawrence belonged to the Metropolitan AME church.” When Green Dennis died, it was reported, “a white man became Lawrence’s manager” and, presumably, was largely responsible for his globe-trotting.¹¹

The erosion of memory and fact that comes with time makes it difficult to make definitive declarations about the true ancestry of Dennis, though it is evident that his mother was probably a Negro—and he chose not to be so defined. One has to be cautious, however, in accepting these FBI reports as holy gospel not least since they are internally inconsistent. Thus, contrary to the notion above about the “mother” of Dennis, “Sallie Montgomery” passing away in 1934, a 1946 agency report from Chicago observed that “Sallie Smith, who advised that she was the mother of Lawrence Dennis” was “recently released from the State Hospital at Manteno, Illinois, a hospital for the insane, in April 1946, and that she had been incarcerated there for approximately four years as an alcoholic.… her full name is Sallie Montgomery Smith… born on May 12, 1870 in Athens, Georgia. She is presently at an Old Folks Home for the aged and crippled at 4647 Calumet Avenue. This home is in the Negro district but Mrs. Smith appears to be of mixed white and Negro blood. Mrs. Smith stated that her grandfather was English and that his name was Captain Montgomery of Athens, Georgia, who she claimed to have been an officer in the Civil War. She said that her father, a white man, was Scotch-Irish.” She also claimed that “the father of Lawrence Dennis is W. C. Richards, a prominent business man of Atlanta” and “at the age of 22 months he [Lawrence Dennis] was taken from her by her sister and given to her uncle and aunt, Mr. [and] Mrs. Dennis. Mr. Dennis died while Lawrence was quite young.” She also claimed that “she has been receiving money from Dennis through her sister but that Dennis does not visit her.”¹²

Dennis was characteristically guarded when queried about his peculiar family background. Interviewed in 1967, he acknowledged that “my father died after McKinley was shot”;...