343

an ideological broadening. Hence there was a dialectic between internal
development and input from the broader freedom movement of the day that
prepared the Forum for its convergence with the white PUl^based Socialists.
Juanita Jackson's particular experiences, therefore, may in many ways be more
emblematic of, rather than directly causal to the Forum ideological growth,
although she, as the Forum's most influential leader no doubt had much to say
about the direction of that growth.

Whatever the exact mix of internal and external causality, in 1934 the Forum
youth and the PUL-oriented Socialists increasingly found they had much in
common. At the end of that year they united in a Socialist Party election campaign,
and the possibility was raised that a radical interracial leadership core, that could
affect several of Baltimore's social movements, was in the making.