Research Catalog

Details

Additional authors

1. Damon, Anna
2. Talmadge, Eugene, 1884-1946
3. Davis, Benjamin J. (Benjamin Jefferson), 1903-1964
4. International Labor Defense

Description

1. 0.8 linear ft.

Summary

1. The Angelo Herndon papers comprise two series, Correspondence and Writings, in addition to legal and financial documents related to his defense. The collection complements the Angelo Herndon case files in the records of the International Labor Defense available on microfilm.

Subject

1. Herndon, Angelo, 1913-1997
2. Mooney, Tom
3. International Labor Defense
4. Angelo Herndon Petition Committee
5. African American activists
6. African American comunists
7. African American writers
8. Political prisoners -- United States
9. Trials (Sedition) -- Georgia
10. Communist trials
11. Chain gangs -- Georgia
12. Death row inmates -- Georgia

Call number

1. Sc MG 124

Source (note)

1. Angelo Herndon

Biography (note)

1. Communist Party organizer in Georgia and renowned African-American political prisoner in the 1930s. Angelo Herndon, who helped organized a protest march of Black and white unemployed workers in Atlanta in 1932, was found guilty of "inciting to insurrection" in a Fulton County court, under an 1861 slave stature, and condemned to 18 to 20 years on a Georgia chain gang. A petition drive for his release organized by the International Labor Defense collected two million signatures. Freed on bail in December 1934, he toured the United States, speaking to thousands of supporters. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the lower court's decision, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor in April 1937. Earlier that year, his autobiography "Let Me Live" was published by Random House. Herndon continued with his literary and political activities into the next decade, co-editing with Ralph Ellison the short-lived "Negro Quarterly: a Review of Negro Life and Culture," but retired to private life before the onset of the Cold War. He died in 1997.

Author

1. Herndon, Angelo, 1913-1997.

Title

1. Angelo Herndon papers, 1932-1940.

Biography

1. Communist Party organizer in Georgia and renowned African-American political prisoner in the 1930s. Angelo Herndon, who helped organized a protest march of Black and white unemployed workers in Atlanta in 1932, was found guilty of "inciting to insurrection" in a Fulton County court, under an 1861 slave stature, and condemned to 18 to 20 years on a Georgia chain gang. A petition drive for his release organized by the International Labor Defense collected two million signatures. Freed on bail in December 1934, he toured the United States, speaking to thousands of supporters. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the lower court's decision, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor in April 1937. Earlier that year, his autobiography "Let Me Live" was published by Random House. Herndon continued with his literary and political activities into the next decade, co-editing with Ralph Ellison the short-lived "Negro Quarterly: a Review of Negro Life and Culture," but retired to private life before the onset of the Cold War. He died in 1997.

Added author

1. Damon, Anna.
2. Talmadge, Eugene, 1884-1946.
3. Davis, Benjamin J. (Benjamin Jefferson), 1903-1964.
4. International Labor Defense.

Research call number

1. Sc MG 124