Clara Colón Papers

Clara Colón (nee Bertha Teplow) was a feminist writer and activist of Ukrainian-Jewish background. For more than thirty years, she was a member of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) and served on the Party's National Committee. She was committed to social justice and fought against political persecution in the United States. Colón also participated in numerous feminist and labor organizations and was active in the struggles for civil rights and for women's rights in New York City, as well as at national and international levels. She was married to the Puerto Rican, Jesús Colón, a community organizer, political activist and writer.

Born in the city of Kiev to Isaac David Teplow and Polly Bookchin, Colón gave May 1, 1908 as her date of birth. The family had one other child a son, William. The Teplow family left Ukraine and immigrated to the United States, settling in Massachusetts. The exact date of Clara Colón's arrival in the U.S. is unknown, but her father was naturalized as a U.S. citizen on September 17, 1918.

After obtaining a B.A. in Liberal Arts from Boston University, she pursued further studies in linguistics and literary translation. The onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s forced her to interrupt her studies and to seek employment as a clerk in various business firms and organizations. As a militant member of the CPUSA she was active in the South during the politically repressive McCarthy era. In the late 1950s she was called to testify before the Johns Committee in Florida which was looking for ties between the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the CPUSA. She was also the secretary of the Gus Hall-Benjamin J. Davis Defense Committee established to defend the victims of the McCarran Act, which authorized the investigation of individuals suspected of membership in the CPUSA. In New York, Colón taught at the Center for Marxist Studies.

Teplow married her second husband Jésus Colón, the Puerto Rican activist and writer, on May 21, 1960 and took his name. Because she was proficient in written and spoken Spanish, she was able to work effectively with the Partido Comunista Puertorriqueño, the Puerto Rican independence movement and the Puerto Rican community in New York.

Clara Colón was a member of the Women's International Democratic Federation and other women's organizations. In May 1966 she visited the Soviet Union and was a special guest at Moscow's celebration of International Workers Day. A prolific writer, she contributed numerous articles and reports to publications such as the New World Review, Political Affairs and The Daily World. Among her published works are the books: An Outline on the Fight for Women's Freedom (1969) and Equality for Working Women (1970). Toward the end of her life, she wrote a book titled Enter Fighting: Today's Woman (1970), a political manifesto about women's rights and feminism from a Marxist-Leninist perspective.

Clara Colón died on May 6, 1970 in Adelphi Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. Her collection offers insight into her life as an activist for the rights of women as well as for political rights.