American Association for the Advancement of Atheism

The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism (AAAA – 4A) was an atheistic and antireligious organization established in 1925.^[1][2] It was founded by Charles Lee Smith,^[3] and the organization's "only creedal requirement was a formal profession of atheism".^[1]

American Association for the Advancement of Atheism

Charles Lee Smith was the founder of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism.
Formation	1925
Location	United States of America
Key people	Charles Lee Smith James Hervey Johnson
Affiliations	Junior Atheist League

Activities

Newspaper in Russian «Amerikansky Bezbozhnik» («American Godless») 1930. Special issue with editorial against the Crusade of the Pope. Published in Chicago. 1628 W. Division St. Published by the Russian Branch of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism

The Special Committee on Un-American Activities (1938-1944) wrote that "The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism is attempting to abrogate nil laws enforcing Christian morals; to stop 'bootlegging of religion in public schools'; to stop 'issuance of religious proclamations by Government officials,' such as Thanksgiving, etc.; to tax ecclesiastical property; to repeal Sunday (blue law) legislation; to tax and nationalize church property."^[4] The Junior Atheist League was founded in 1927, and enrolled students from the age of seven to seventeen.^[5]

Elizabeth Dilling in The Red Network wrote that "Blamegiving Day has been officially established by the Association as a day of protest against Thanksgiving services."^[6] The program for a Blamegiving event run by the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism advertised itself as “a protest against Divine negligence, to be observed each year on Thanksgiving Day, on the assumption, for the day only, that God exists.”^[3] The New York Times further delineates Blamesgiving Day, writing that "A protest sermon explained the purpose of Blamesgiving: 'While others are expressing their gratefulness for the good things of the past year, there can be no harm in making a similar list of things that were not so good.'^[7]

In the 1920s, Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov "submitted to the Soviet government a project for hybridizing humans and apes by means of artificial insemination" and the "American Association for the Advancement of Atheism announced its fund-raising campaign to support Ivanov's project but gave it a scandalously racist interpretation".^[8]

Charles Smith merged the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism with the Truth Seeker Organization in the late 1930s.^[9] After 1937, Smith cultivated controversy and dissent with him changing the subtitle of his publication "The Truth Seeker" to “the journal for reasoners and racists” and perpetually publishing antisemitism, scientific racism and white supremacy until his death in 1964, which resulted in alienating many from the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism.^[10][11][9]

See also

• League of Militant Atheists

References

1. Beau, Bryan F. Le (1 March 2005). The Atheist: Madalyn Murray O'Hair. NYU Press. p. 8. ISBN 9780814751725. The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, the most explicitly antireligious movement in America prior to O'Hair's American Atheists, organized in 1925. Its only creedal requirement was a formal profession of atheism.
2. Misiroglu, Gina (26 March 2015). American Countercultures: An Encyclopedia of Nonconformists, Alternative Lifestyles, and Radical Ideas in U.S. History. Routledge. p. 49. ISBN 9781317477297. In 1925, nonbelievers organized the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, the most explicitly antireligious movement in America to date.
3. Cheadle, Harry (25 November 2013). "The Hateful History of Blamegiving Day, the Most Bitter, Godless Holiday of All Time". Vice. Retrieved 26 November 2015. Case in point: the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism (4A), a particularly ill-tempered organization founded in 1925 by activist Charles Lee Smith.
4. Investigation of Un-American propaganda activities in the United States. House Un-American Activities Committee. 1938. Retrieved 26 November 2015.
5. Robinson, Thomas A.; Ruff, Lanette R. (5 December 2011). Out of the Mouths of Babes: Girl Evangelists in the Flapper Era. Oxford University Press. p. 21. ISBN 9780199790876. Even children were invited to join the atheists'path. In public schools, atheist clubs were being formed, actively promoted by the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism and its school-level subgroup, the Junior Atheist League. This youth group was formed in 1927 for school students from age seven to seventeen--roughly from the first grade to high school graduation. The League had a number of early leaders, largely the consequence of a high turnover.
6. Dilling, Elizabeth Kirkpatrick (1934). The Red Network. Published by the author. Retrieved 26 November 2015.
7. Steinberg, Stephen (26 November 1981). "Cranberries from a Political Bog". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 November 2015.
8. Etkind, Alexander (2008). "Beyond eugenics: the forgotten scandal of hybridizing humans and apes". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. 39 (2): 205–210. doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2008.03.004. ISSN 1369-8486. PMID 18534351. In the mid-1920s, the zoology professor Ilia Ivanov submitted to the Soviet government a project for hybridizing humans and apes by means of artificial insemination. He received substantial financing and organized expeditions to Africa to catch apes for his experiments. His project caused an international sensation. The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism announced its fund-raising campaign to support Ivanov's project but gave it a scandalously racist interpretation.
9. Flynn, Tom, ed. (2007). The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. pp. 43–44, 719. ISBN 9781591023913.
10. Chalfant, Eric (24 January 2018). "Atheism in America". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.420. ISBN 978-0-19-934037-8.
11. Melton, J. Gordon. (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions. Gale. p. 663. ISBN 978-0787663841 "Around 1950 Smith began to let his dislike of Jews and blacks become visible on the pages of The Truth Seeker, which began to publish an increasing number of racist and anti-Semitic articles. These led to further loss of support and the isolation of the Association from other atheist organizations."