Why John Lennon was worried about being labelled a communist before landing in America
It’s no secret that America and communism aren’t the greatest of friends. Constantly terrified by the thought that the far-left ideology threatens their very freedom and rights, the US has spent the years since the end of the Second World War cowering at the idea that a belief in government control on the distribution of wealth could have detrimental effects on the constitution they founded their nation on.
Yet, there has always been a skewed interpretation in the States of what communism entails, and many US citizens have, over the years, mistakenly conflated it with having any vaguely progressive values. While equality is one of communism’s key features, the two ideologies do not necessarily go hand in hand, and it’s this misconception that has led to communism being treated as America’s invisible bogeyman for years.
Throughout the 1960s, one ever-present topic of society in America was the civil rights movement that sought to abolish all forms of racial segregation and discriminatory acts, with activists such as Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks often having the ‘communist’ label being levelled at them for simply fighting for equal rights. It wasn’t just in America that the movement caught traction however, and one vocal supporter of the movement in the UK was none other than John Lennon.
Often recognised in his post-Beatles career as a voice advocating for peace in war-torn nations, Lennon also voiced sympathy earlier in his career for the civil rights movement. After arriving in America in 1964, the Beatles famously came close to withdrawing from a concert in Jacksonville, Florida, after learning of the fact that the audience would be segregated between black and white attendees. After threatening a boycott, the organisers bowed to the will of the band and removed all barriers that were initially proposed to be put in the crowd.
This wasn’t the first instance of the band voicing concern over US politics, though, as even before they arrived in the country, they were apprehensive about how the public would receive them for their views. As explained by the band’s photographer and documenter Harry Benson, he said that while on their way to the States for the first time, “As we got nearer, they began to get apprehensive.”
Benson went on to explain the reason for their concern: “This is no bullshit, but because John Lennon had talked about civil rights, they were worried about what kind of reception they might get as a result. They’d heard stories they were being called communists and things like that. The one thing they did was read the papers – McCartney and Lennon, especially.”
In actual fact, there was little for Lennon and his bandmates to be concerned about, as their arrival in the US saw them reach stratospheric heights that no British act had previously achieved, leading to the eponymous cultural phenomenon of Beatlemania. They played to sold-out crowds across the country with legions of screaming fans and famously appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show to a TV audience of over 70 million viewers, a staggering number when compared to the performances of other popular acts at the time.
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