The best chapter of Armowitz book, "Roll Over Beethoven, " was his autobiographical reflections on NYC CPUSA Popular Front '40's and '50's culture, both the ersatz middle class playing proletarian (Seeger) folk music scene and avant-garde dance and painting.
Two books, off the top of my head that delve into the CPUSA and Guthrie and Dylan are, "Guerrilla Minstrels: John Lennon, Joe Hill, Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, " by Wayne Hampton and , " "My Song Is My Weapon." People's Songs, American Communism, and the Politics of Culture, 1930 - 1950, " by Robbie Lieberson. Lieberson also has a book that I've read on the Peace Movement in the post WWII period till Vietnam War, American Communism and Left anti-Communism.
In SCLC, Jack O'Dell and Stanley Levison, both important aides to M.L. King, Jr. were ex-CPUSA cadre. Say that to old CPUSA types like Hunter Bear on marxmail, with material from SCLC historian, David Garrow though, and get the tired, "red-baiter, " charge thrown your way.
And, I've seen comments from Anne Braden, a legend on the Southern Left, about her anger over 70's Maoists from Mike Klonsky's M-L sect, attempt to take over the SCEF, an old New Deal/Left civil rights org.
-- Michael Pugliese