Angelo Braxton Herndon (May 6, 1913 – December 9, 1997) was an

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

organizer arrested and convicted of

insurrection Rebellion is an uprising that resists and is organized against one's government. A rebel is a person who engages in a rebellion. A rebel group is a consciously coordinated group that seeks to gain political control over an entire state or a ...

after attempting to organize black and white industrial workers in 1932 in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

. The prosecution case rested heavily on Herndon's possession of "communist literature", which police found in his hotel room. Herndon was defended by the

International Labor Defense The International Labor Defense (ILD) (1925–1947) was a legal advocacy organization established in 1925 in the United States as the American section of the Comintern's International Red Aid network. The ILD defended Sacco and Vanzetti, was active ...

, the legal arm of the

Communist Party of America The Communist Party USA (CPUSA), officially the Communist Party of the United States of America, also referred to as the American Communist Party mainly during the 20th century, is a communist party in the United States. It was established ...

, which hired two young local attorneys, Benjamin J. Davis Jr. and

John H. Geer John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second Ep ...

, and provided guidance. Davis later became prominent in leftist circles. Over a five-year period, Herndon's case twice reached the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

, which ruled that Georgia's insurrection law was unconstitutional, as it violated

First Amendment First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

rights of free speech and assembly. Herndon became nationally prominent because of his case, and Southern justice was under review. By the end of the 1940s he left the Communist Party, moved to the Midwest, and lived there quietly.

Early life and education

Born into a poor family in southwestern Ohio, Angelo Herndon endured

racial Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of va ...

discrimination Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong, such as race, gender, age, class, religion, or sex ...

in his city, where African Americans have been a minority. He attended public schools but moved to Kentucky at the age of 14 to work in the mines. By 1930 he was working in Birmingham, Alabama, for the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company. As a youth, Herndon was given a copy of the ''

Communist Manifesto ''The Communist Manifesto'' (), originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (), is a political pamphlet written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, commissioned by the Communist League and originally published in London in 1848. The t ...

'' by a white worker in the

Unemployed Councils The Unemployed Councils of the USA (UC) was a mass organization of the Communist Party, USA established in 1930 in an effort to organize and mobilize unemployed workers. The UC was the organizational successor of the Unemployment Council of N ...

, a group affiliated with the Communist Party. He was impressed with the Party's campaigning in the South to promote labor reform and interracial cooperation, and its teachings on racial equality and class conflict. He joined the party in 1930. After being arrested several times in Alabama for labor organizing, Herndon was sent to

in the fall of 1931.

Political activism

Herndon went to Atlanta as a labor organizer for the Unemployment Council. His involvement with the Communist Party brought him national prominence after he was arrested in Atlanta, convicted of insurrection, and his case twice reached the US Supreme Court on appeal. He campaigned to organize working-class blacks and whites to become politically active. He solicited blacks and whites alike for membership in an integrated Communist Party of Atlanta.Brown-Nagin, ''Courage to Dissent'' (2011), p. 285. Nearly 1,000 unemployed workers, both black and white, demonstrated at the federal courthouse on June 30, 1932, seeking resumption of relief payments. Officials were alarmed that the protest was biracial, as it crossed the segregated lines of the Jim Crow South. They began to monitor known and suspected radicals, even as the city became more crowded with rural migrants. On July 11, Herndon checked on his mail at the Post Office and was arrested by two Atlanta police detectives. A few days later his hotel room was searched, and Communist Party publications were found. At first, Herndon was charged for being a communist. Then, Herndon was charged with insurrection under a Georgia

Reconstruction era The Reconstruction era was a period in History of the United States, US history that followed the American Civil War (1861-65) and was dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of the Abolitionism in the United States, abol ...

law. He was held for nearly six months in jail and was released on

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, after his bail of $7,000 was paid by the

, a legal organization affiliated with the Communist Party USA. An

all-white jury Racial discrimination in jury selection is specifically prohibited by law in many jurisdictions throughout the world. In the United States, it has been defined through a series of judicial decisions. However, juries composed solely of one racial ...

found Herndon guilty at trial on January 18, 1933. Hired by the ILD, his young attorneys were Benjamin J. Davis Jr. and John H. Geer. The

International Juridical Association The International Juridical Association (IJA; 1931–1942) was an association of socially minded American lawyers, established by Carol Weiss King and considered by the U.S. federal government (in the form of the U.S. House Un-American Activities ...

provided support by reviewing their brief for Herndon. The prosecutor, John Hudson, wanted the death penalty for Herndon for possessing communist literature, however, Geer and Davis made it known that the literature could be found in the public library. Herndon was sentenced to 18 to 20 years of hard labor "on the

chain gang A chain gang or road gang is a group of prisoners chained together to perform menial or physically challenging work as a form of punishment. Such punishment might include repairing buildings, building roads, or clearing land. The system was nota ...

." On December 7, 1935, Herndon's conviction was overturned by the state appeals court and he was released on bail. After the Georgia Supreme Court upheld his original conviction, Herndon went on a national speaking tour in 1936 to promote his case while his defense appealed it to the Supreme Court. He appeared before crowds in

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;

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; and

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. On April 26, 1937, a narrow five-to-four majority of the United States Supreme Court ruled in Herndon's favor, striking down Georgia's insurrection statute as unconstitutional, as it violated the First Amendment, which protects individual's right to free speech and the right of assembly. Herndon was greeted as a hero by a crowd of 6,000 well-wishers when he returned by train to

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. Several leading Communist Party officials were on hand to welcome him. On October 13, 1937, Angelo's brother Milton Herndon was killed fighting for the

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in the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

. Like Angelo, Milton was a Communist Party member. Milton had sought to use his previous experience as a National Guard while in Spain. In the 1940s, Herndon founded the Negro Publication Society of America, which published the radical African-American newspaper ''The People's Advocate'' in

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, among other works. But by the end of the 1940s, Herndon left the Party. He moved to the Midwest, where he lived quietly and worked as a salesman.Edward A. Hatfield, "Angelo Herndon Case"
2013, ''New Georgia Encyclopedia''; accessed 18 February 2019

Notes

Writings

* ''The Case of Angelo Herndon'', New York: Joint Committee To Aid the Herndon Defense, 1935.
''Let Me Live''
New York:

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

, 1937.
''Let Me Live! a book review''
''Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line: Proletarian Cause,'' N. Sanders.
''"You cannot kill the working class"''
New York:

and the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, 1937.
''The Scottsboro Boys: Four Freed! Five to Go!''
New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1937. *''The Road to Liberation for the Negro People'' (with others), New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1939.
''Victory: Decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Case of Angelo Herndon, April 1937: Full text of the majority decision setting aside the verdict in the Herndon case, by Justice Roberts; with the dissenting opinion of the minority, by Justice Van Devanter. With an Introduction by Anna Damon''
New York State: International Labor Defense.

External links

American Left Ephemera Images (Angelo Herndon Photographs and Clippings)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Herndon, Angelo 1913 births 1997 deaths African-American trade unionists African-American communists American prisoners and detainees People from Wyoming, Ohio Trade unionists from Ohio Prisoners and detainees of Georgia (U.S. state)

Early life and education

Political activism

Notes

Writings

Further reading

External links