Found 3 collections related to Herndon,%20Angelo,%201913-1997

Established by the Communist Party of the United States of America as its legal defense arm in 1925 to aid labor, political prisoners, and victims of reactionary violence. Using mass demonstrations and publicity, the International Labor Defense (ILD) conducted national and worldwide campaigns to gather support for its cases. In 1946 the ILD merged with the Civil Rights Congress. Minutes, reports, and financial records of the national offfice of ILD. Case files for the Scottsboro case, the widely reported case of nine boys convicted of rape in Scottsboro, Ala., 1931-1936; the case of Angelo Herndon, a black communist convicted and sentenced to death for his activities as an Unemployed Council (a Communist front organization) organizer in Atlanta, 1932-1937; Tom Mooney, an Irish American labor organizer on the West Coast, 1931-1939; Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian American anarchists accused of armed robbery and murder, 1926-1930; Lucy Parsons, the mulatto wife of Albert Parsons, one of the Chicago Haymarket Square martyrs of 1886; and the case of the Gallup, N. Mex., coal mine workers, 1933-1938. Case files include correspondence, news clippings, leaflets, petitions, press releases, manuscripts for books and articles, legal documents and reports, and speeches. less

Angelo Herndon was a labor and Communist Party organizer who was convicted and sentenced to twenty years hard labor on charges of attempting to incite insurrection in Georgia in 1932. He had led a demonstration of unemployed African Americans and whites to protest cuts in relief rations, and was later arrested for possessing Communist literature and charged with insurrection. The latter charge was based on an 1861 anti-slavery insurrection law. Herndon's case was a cause celebre among leftist and civil rights circles. He was released from prison before serving the full term, through the efforts of these organizations, particularly the International Labor Defense. The Angelo Herndon collection consist of correspondence, several legal briefs from the Supreme Court of Georgia, a printed article concerning the legal case, and miscellaneous papers. less

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. less