Herbert Aptheker

Who was Herbert Aptheker?

Herbert Aptheker was an American Marxist historian and political activist. He wrote more than 50 books, mostly in the fields of African-American history and general U.S. history, most notably, American Negro Slave Revolts, a classic in the field, and the 7-volume Documentary History of the Negro People. He compiled a wide variety of primary documents supporting study of African-American history.

From the 1940s, Aptheker was a prominent figure in U.S. scholarly discourse. David Horowitz described Aptheker as "the Communist Party’s most prominent Cold War intellectual". Aptheker was blacklisted in academia during the 1950s because of his Communist Party membership.