Once upon a time in America, Black people were more likely to get support from the Communist Party than the Justice Department and local police forces. Such was the case with Scottsboro Boys in 1931, who were wrongly accused of rape and would have been executed but for the support of the Communist Party and later the NAACP. That case led to the Supreme Court taking a stand on a defendant's right to counsel in Powell v. Alabama. Part of the credit for that goes to the Communist Party.
Forty-eight years later, in Greensboro, NC, the Communist Workers Party (CWP) came to town to support the primarily Black textile workers in the area. The CWP came into conflict with the local Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and the American Nazi Party (ANP), who were working together as their interests were similar. The CWP organized a “Death to the Klan” march on November 3, 1979.