What became of Tom Johnson?
From early 1930 until mid-1931, a man known only as Tom Johnson was the director of the CPUSA's District 17 (the Deep South). Current accounts of his life say that he had a "nervous breakdown" in Birmingham and in the midst of it returned to New York. The story ends there. However, once he was in New York he was elevated to the Org Buro, assigned to teach a course in a Party school, and tasked with fund-raising for the burgeoning "strike" in Harlan and other Kentucy andTennessee counties. In early 1932 he was put in charge of the Party's operation there.
