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Kahler of the Eastern Division was well known for his opposition to integrated
social events.   For Cline and the Communist Party, though, the most important
feature of attack was that the white dance participants had surrounded and
"heroically" defended their Black compatriots from the attacking white mob. And
Cline swore that the WID would continue to have integrated dances. "

As if to prove Cline's accusations, the Baltimore World, a local weekly paper
undoubtedly controlled by local business elements, published a different account of
the January 8 incident which was widely distributed in the neighborhood around the
Polish American Hall. The article, which included a poem, is especially interesting
in that it exemplified a racist discourse that was clearly promoted by elements in
the local white elite, and that had adherents among local workers. It contained
lurid images of interracial sexuality mixed with animalistic portrayals of Black men:
"A thick Black hand on a slim, white back... Black paws fondle the white girl's
charms." The attackers were depicted as defenders of a combined Americanism
and white purity — one of the attackers is quoted as saying mWe are proud of our
ancestry and our American citizenship'" — thereby making white synonymous with
American and Black synonymous with foreign (a potentially effective approach to
those segments of a largely ethnic and immigrant community anxious to rid
themselves of foreignness). Communism and radicalism were not only depicted as
foreign, they were racialized: "the red of Russia, the black of the Congo, and the
white of European nationals will not mix." A claim that Roosevelt Coleman was
saved by the police "just as the mob was threatening an Eastern shore necktie party"
expressed solidarity with the well-known recent lynching on the Eastern Shore and
juxtaposed to a statement from a mob "leader" that, "'If they try to repeat these
dances, there will be trouble.*" To refer to this article as an incitement to riot and
possible lynching, as the Communist Party did, was entirely justified.   It is
significant that the incident at the dance, the party's response, and the racist article
in the Baltimore World were all covered prominently and in detail in the Afro-