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This article is from the Encyclopedia of North Carolina edited by William S. Powell. Copyright © 2006 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

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Socialist Party of North Carolina

by Wiley J. Williams, 2006Eugene V. Debs, 5 times Socialist candidate for President, set free from prison on Christmas Day, December 25, 1921. Image courtesy of Library of Congress.

The Socialist Party of North Carolina (SPNC), formed in 1996, is the modern affiliate of the national Socialist Party, which was organized in July 1901 by the merger of the Social Democratic Party, under Eugene V. Debs, with the reformer wing of the Socialist Labor Party, under Morris Hillquit. The SPNC has small, organized groups in Raleigh and Jacksonville. In the 2000 presidential election, for the first time since 1936, a Socialist Party member was an official write-in candidate in North Carolina. In the early 2000s the SPNC was involved in a variety of causes, including a boycott of Mt. Olive Pickles and People of Faith against the Death Penalty. Again as a write-in, the national Socialist Party presidential candidate in 2004, Walter Brown, received about 300 votes in North Carolina.

Additional Resources:

Socialist Party, USA: http://socialistparty-usa.net/

Image Credit:

Eugene V. Debs, 5 times Socialist candidate for President, set free from prison on Christmas Day, December 25, 1921. Image courtesy of Library of Congress. Available from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002697720/ (accessed August 6, 2012).

Subjects: 
21st Century (2001-present)
N.C. Industrial Revolution (1900-1929)
Political movements and parties
Post War 20th Century (1946-2000)
Authors: 
Williams, Wiley J.
From: 
Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press.

1 January 2006 | Williams, Wiley J.