At the conference on Black Women And The Radical Tradition held "in tribute to Charlene Mitchell" at Brooklyn College Graduate Center in 2009, Genna Rae McNeil recounted the origins of Mitchell's involvement in political activism. "I probably have been trying to be an organizer most of my life," Mitchell observed to McNeil in 1995. McNeil went on to relate that: Mitchell's early civil rights activism included organizing, in 1943 at the age of 13, both black and white teenagers in pickets and other actions at the Windsor Theatre in Chicago, which segregated black customers in the balcony, and also at a nearby segregated bowling alley. The lack of success of picketing and leafletting led the young Charlene to organize another action for her group of activists, who took the name American Youth for Democracy. They held a sit-in at the Windsor, with white members going up to the "colored only" balcony while black members took their seats in the auditorium's "whites only" section below. So began a long career of unrelenting activism and persistence, perhaps most famously illustrated in the success of the campaign to free Angela Davis, which she led alongside Kendra Alexander and Franklin Alexander. Speaking at the same event as McNeil, Davis described the effort to free her, spearheaded by Mitchell, as "one of the most impressive mass international campaigns of the 20th century." Davis stressed that the relative lack of celebrity Mitchell enjoys today in comparison to some contemporaries and later generations of women's movement and civil rights leaders involved in the same struggles is no indication of the impact her work has had. "I have never known anyone as consistent in her values, as collective in her outlook on life, as firm in her trajectory as a freedom fighter." At another tribute to Mitchell, at the CCDS Convention in Chicago, CCDS militant and leader Mildred Williamson said of Mitchell: "If it hadn't been for Charlene opening my eyes to many things and encouraging me, I wouldn't be here today, nor would I have been able to achieve many of the other things in my life." In 1993, Mitchell attended the Foro de São Paulo in Havana as an observer from the CCDS. In 1994 she served as an official international observer of the first democratic elections in post-apartheid South Africa and was an observer at the congress of the South African Communist Party that year. Also in 1994, she visited Namibia as a guest of the mines and energy ministry. In recent years, she returned to Cuba for rehabilitation medical treatment following a stroke suffered in 2007.
Internationalism
Lisa Brock interviewed Mitchell in her home in Harlem in 2004. Among the topics raised were anti-colonialism, Pan-Africanism and the internationalism of the Communist Party USA: Writer and CCDS militant Carl Bloice celebrated Mitchell's globe-embracing vision and work at the 2009 CCDS Convention: "I have a picture on my wall at home. It's of a hall full of Bulgarian communists, all smiling, and right in the middle is one Black woman, Charlene."
Electoral contests and party affiliations
As a third-party candidate in the Election of 1968, Mitchell was the first African-American woman to run for President of the United States. She represented the Communist Party USA and her running mate was Michael "Mike" Zagarell, the National Youth Director of the party. They were entered on the ballots in only two states. Mitchell's brother and sister-in-law Franklin and Kendra Alexander had also been active in the party. In 1988, Mitchell ran as an Independent Progressive for U.S. Senator from New York against the incumbent Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He was re-elected by a large margin. While Mitchell had long been a Communist Party member, she and other reform-minded people wanted changes. African Americans were unhappy with the leadership of Gus Hall, as they believed he failed to recognize the international Communist Party members' responsibility for problems in the Soviet Union and other European nations. They planned a reform movement and matters came to a head at a convention in December 1991. Many who signed a letter urging reform were purged by Gus Hall from the CPUSA's national committee, including Mitchell, Angela Davis, Kendra Alexander and other African-American leaders. As of 2006, Mitchell was active in the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, an independent offshoot of the Communist Party.
Selected works
The Fight to Free Angela Davis: Its Importance for the Working Class, New York: New Outlook Publishers,
Equality: its time has come, New York: New Outlook Publishers
