Joins the Communist Party in California
Poet involved
What happened
In the early 1930s, Orrick Johns joined the Communist Party in California, committing himself fully to leftist politics after years of bohemian sympathy. He became involved in labor organizing and wrote for Communist newspapers, aligning his literary work with the proletarian movement and the struggle for social justice.
Literary impact
Johns's membership in the Communist Party infused his poetry with a more explicitly political consciousness, shifting his focus toward social justice and the struggles of the working class. This ideological commitment also led him to editorial work on leftist publications and to his role as director of the Federal Writers' Project, where he supported fellow writers during the Great Depression.
Source: Wikiwand
