We are pleased to invite you to the second lecture of the American Studies Colloquium Series in the 2025 Fall semester!
Aaron J. Leonard
(independent scholar)
“Menace of Our Time: The Long War Against American Communism”
Thursday, November 20, 2025
at 4:45 p.m.
You can get 3 OZN points for participating in this event.
Where?
Dobra 55, room 2.118
(the building features some mobility accommodations: ramp and lift)
What?
Beginning at the turn of the century, and ending only with communism’s collapse, the US government and major elements in the wider society undertook an unrelenting effort to suppress and criminalize domestic communism. This book tracks those efforts; from the state laws of the twenties that imprisoned the fledgling communist leadership, the efforts by police and local authorities against communists as they fought for unions, racial equality, and the unemployed, the trials and imprisonment of communist leaders mid-century, the extra-legal efforts of the Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) in the sixties, and the ongoing, relentless attention by the FBI afterward. This is a long-overdue book about the most extensive, repressive effort ever undertaken by US authorities against a political organization that, however problematic, was largely operating within the scope of constitutionally mandated freedoms.
Who?
Aaron J. Leonard is an author and historian focused on the history of radicalism and state repression in twentieth-century America. Among his books are Heavy Radicals: The FBI’s Secret War on America’s Maoists, The Folk Singers & the Bureau, and Whole World in an Uproar: Music, Rebellion & Repression 1955-1972. He lives in Sacramento, California.
