The first African American to join the Communist Party was born in Texas, and died as a prisoner in a Soviet gulag.

Lovett Huey Whiteman was the son of a freed slave from South Carolina, Moses Whiteman, and Elizabeth Fort, a Texas native. In early adulthood Lovett replaced his middle name with his mother’s maiden name, thereafter identifying himself as Lovett Fort-Whiteman.

Born in Dallas and educated in its segregated public schools, in 1905 Whiteman enrolled in Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, and upon graduation, spent a brief spell at Nashville’s Fisk University. His mother soon left Dallas, without Moses, and moved to New York City, wherewith the wages from a job at a steamship company, she paid Lovett’s college expenses and those of his younger sister, Hazel. By 1910 Elizabeth, Hazel, and Lovett had reunited in New York. Lovett aspired to become an actor, pianist, or showman, but Census records show him employed as a bellman.