We Charge Genocide is a paper accusing the United States government of genocide based on the UN Genocide Convention. This paper was written by the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) and presented to the United Nations at meetings in Paris in December 1951. The document pointed out that the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide defined genocide as any acts committed with "intent to destroy" a group, "in whole or in part." To build its case for black genocide, the document cited many instances of lynching in the United States, as well as legal discrimination, disenfranchisement of blacks in the South, a series of incidents of police brutality dating to the present, and systematic inequalities in health and quality of life. The central argument: The U.S. government is both complicit with and responsible for a genocidal situation based on the UN's own definition of genocide. The document received international media attention and became caught up in Cold War politics, as the CRC was supported by the American Communist Party. Its many examples of shocking conditions for African Americans shaped beliefs about the United States in countries across the world. The United States government and press accused the CRC of exaggerating racial inequality in order to advance the cause of Communism. The U.S. State Department forced CRC secretary William L. Patterson to surrender his passport after he presented the petition to a UN meeting in Paris. (en)