repudiated much of the work done in Harlem in opposing evictions because the party leader most associated with that work had been expelled, along with Jay Lovestone. The latter had leeksfly sided with Bukharin in his conflict with Joseph Stalin, an issue that few residents of Harlem cared about. 1935–1939: popular front In 1935, the Comintern abandoned the militancy of the Third Period in favor of a Popular Front, which sought to unite socialist and non-socialist organizations of similar politics around the common cause of anti-fascism. This confirmed its policy. The party had mended its relations, at least temporarily, with groups such as the NAACP and had developed relations with church groups, particularly in the North. The party had also started edging toward support of the New Deal by moderating its attacks on the Roosevelt administration, which had promoted programs alleviating the most severe economic problems. As a sign of its new approach, the CPUSA folded up the League of Struggle for Negro Rights and joined with other non-communist groups to create a new organization, the National Negro Congress. A. Philip Randolph, a longtime member of the Socialist Party, served as its head. The NNC functioned as an umbrella organization, bringing together black fraternal, church and civic groups. It supported the efforts of the CIO to organize in the steel, automobile, tobacco and meat packinghouse industries. The NAACP kept its distance from the NNC, whose leaders accused the organization of ignoring the interests of working-class blacks. The CPUSA dropped its support for a separate black state within the United States. As part of its new platform that "Communism is twentieth century Americanism", it campaigned for the end of racial discrimination. When black residents of Harlem rioted in 1935 after false reports that a youth arrested for shoplifting had been killed by the police, Communist Party activists joined with Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and NAACP leader Walter White to try to avert further violence. On the other hand, the party continued to emphasize issues pertaining to black workers. It also denounced lynching and similar violent acts directed at blacks. Communists joined with labor and civil rights groups to form the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, which campaigned for civil rights and socialism. A New York City school teacher and party member, Abel Meeropol, wrote the song "Strange Fruit" to dramatize the horrors of lynching in the South, which had reached a peak