Because of these racial injustices, African-Americans remained in the lowest ends of poverty, without legal support, throughout the years of the Great Depression. Peter H. Clark is generally recognised as the first African-American socialist. Some of his family were part of a ``phalanx'', a kind of commune founded by followers of Charles Fourier. He also met Thomas and Maria Varney, founders of The Herald of Truth, and Clark was employed to work as stereotypist on this paper and a sister journal, the Cincinnati Herald which was a voice for the local free soil movement.
Thomas
Clark