Hunter Pitts O'Dell

Jack O'Dell (aka Hunter Pitts O'Dell) is a prominent African-American member of the U.S. Civil Rights movement.

Early life

Jack O'Dell was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1924. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Merchant Marines. During this time, he joined the National Maritime Union, one of the few racially integrated labor unions in the U.S..

Communist party

During the 1950s, Jack O'Dell was a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).

An espionage cell was under the leadership of a black busboy at the Holsum Cafeteria in New Orleans named Hunter Pitts (“Jack”) O’Dell, and the federal marshals who called at his room to serve our subpoena on him found there—not O’Dell; he had fled—but enough Party documents to establish that O’Dell was in fact the district organizer of the Communist Party in New Orleans.

Martin Luther King, Jr and the civil rights movement

In the late 1950s O'Dell withdrew his membership from the CPUSA to work in the Civil Rights movement in the South. He worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. O'Dell was a director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Because of O'Dell's past involvement with the Communist Party, Dr. King received pressure from many liberal leaders -- including the Kennedy brothers, John and Robert -- to distance himself from O'Dell. After conferring with King, O'Dell decided to accept a less prominent post within the movement in order not to alienate important allies of the Civil Rights struggle; nevertheless, he continued to play a decisive role in the SCLC, as well as in King's move towards the political left towards the end of his life.

Jesse Jackson

Jack O'Dell worked closely with the Rev. Jesse Jackson. He was a senior foreign policy advisor to the "Jesse Jackson for President" campaign in 1984. He also worked with Jackson as an international affairs consultant to the National Rainbow Coalition

Today

Jack O'Dell lives with his wife, Jane Power, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He is active in mentoring new generations of political activists -- as well as historians of the Civil Rights movement -- in the Pacific Northwest.

References

• Kenneth R. Timmerman. Shakedown: Exposing the real Jesse Jackson (2002). Regnery Publishing, Inc.
• Diane McWhorter. Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (2001). Simon & Shuster. ISBN 0-7432-1772-1
• Michael Zweig, ed. Jack O'Dell: The Urgency of Now (2005). State University of New York, Stony Brook, Department of Economics.

External links

• Jack O'Dell: A Biographical Sketch Retrieved 28 January 2006
• Seven Questions: Jack O'Dell and Jane Power Retrieved 28 January 2006