Early years Clifton DeBerry was born in September 1923 in
Holly Springs, Mississippi. He worked as a house painter and was a
trade unionist. In the 1940s, DeBerry left his native South and moved to
Chicago, where he worked in a factory owned by
International Harvester. He became active in the Farm Equipment Workers Union and joined the
Communist Party. DeBerry gave up on the city and moved to
New York in 1960. DeBerry married Carol Dobbs, daughter of SWP national secretary
Farrell Dobbs.
Political career DeBerry's career as a political activist began in earnest in the 1950s. In 1955 he helped organize a mass protest in Chicago to protest the
lynching of
Emmett Till back home in his native Mississippi. DeBerry was the Socialist Workers Party's candidate in the
1964 election. He was the party's first
African American candidate as well as the first African American candidate for president of any existing party (he was preceded in 1960 by marginal candidate
Clennon King). DeBerry's running mate was
Ed Shaw, a printer from
Illinois. In the 1965 city election, DeBerry was the SWP's candidate for
Mayor of New York. In
1970, he ran for
Governor of New York and polled 5,766 votes. DeBerry ran again in the
1980 United States presidential election as one of three candidates the party had that year, the others being
Andrew Pulley and
Richard Congress.
Matilde Zimmermann was the
vice presidential candidate on all three tickets.
Death and legacy Clifton DeBerry died of heart failure on March 24, 2006 in a hospital near his home of
Union City, California. He was 82 years old. A memorial meeting was held in his honor by the Socialist Workers Party in New York City on April 29, 2006. ==Footnotes==