The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-05-06

Ca, where he has been con-
fined since last July.
THE THIRD DEGREE
The "electric-chair" was rugged
up in q small, darkened room on
the third floor of the Atlanta po-
lice station, Herndon told me. On
the floor old skulls were Strewn
about--the police were specializing
on the mythical "superstitions" of
Negroes in order to frighten him.
Working on the favorite police
theory that the 1s-year-old Negro
organizer Of the Atlanta Unem-
ployed Council was pawn" In the
hands OF a master mind" and the
cops, convinced that the latter must
be a white man, sought to force
Herndon to tell just who was "hir-
ing him to do all this"
Herndon's explanation that the
Unemployed Council was an organ
iSation Of Negro and white workers
struggling for relief was unsatis-
factory to the polices They warned
him that many niggers in this
place never get back" Seeing, how
ever, that they could not brighten
Herndon even by showing him onto
the third degree electric chair"
the detectives yanked him back into
his cell.
A WORKER SINCE Is
Herndon, who has worked in the
D coal mines and steel mills since he
was 10 years old, was arrested in
Atlanta last July after he had
taken a leading part in the fight of
the local Unemployed Council for
relief for Negro and white jobless
workers. His father, an Ohio coal
miner, died when Herndon was still
a child
The struggle of the Unemployed
Council reached a high point when
the city government closed down
relief stations which previously had
been giving few crumbs to 10000
unemployed of the city. The I'M
c-,---'o--cd we're especially outraged
81 It's cciCn in view CT ire fact
tac5 CRY shcrt time previously
10 Cc--auI5y Chest had collected
$500 SOC, . lar-c portion Of the sum
keis- :, G, 1898 60 al v.arl5e-7'
pay-rc 8
rad ia jail for s5yeal months
E-t.out charge being lodged
against Ian, State Solicitor John
Bog 9.ill, who cau1ed Herndon's ar
4 rest, finally had him indicted by the
y grand jury on a charge Of "at-
Il tempting TO incitc Instruction. He
U ordered him to trial after defense
attorneys had Issued oft writ CT
hapeas CORPUS.
FOLLOWING a dramatic three-day
l trial which began January 16,
Herndon was convicted by an all
white, hand-picked jury and sem
fenced to 1920 years on the Geor-
gia chain gang, on an old Civil War
slave code enacted in 1851.
That Herndon's crime consisted
In organizing the hungry unem-
ployed was admitted openly by the
Atlanta press which, in shriekins
streamer headlines announced:
DEATH PENALTY ASKED FOR
RED IN ATLANTA SEDITION
TRIAI--MAN ACCUSED OF AGI-
TATING JOBLESs.
A similar admission was made by
Assistant Prosecutor Walter LIE
Craw who, incidentally, is brother
OF the president of the Atlanta
Chamber of Commerce.
A FIGHTING
DEFENSE
Cutting out the pash followed in
the defense fight for Haywood Pat
tersor in Decatur, Ala, the two Ne
gro attorneys for the International
Labor Defense-Joseph H. Geer
and Benjamin Davis, Jr.-boldly,
and for the first time in the South,
put forward the demands for Ne
groes on the jury, bringing to the
fore at the same time, the whole
question Of Negro oppression and
the violation of the guaranteed
rights of the Negro masses. A d.
rect result Of this fight was seen
shortly afterward when two Ne
groes were placed on an Atlanta
jury venire, although they were
promptly struck off by the prosecu-
ton. Facing hostile judge and an
all-white, handpicked jury Hern-
don boldly spoke-knowing that his
voice would reach thousands of op-
pressed Negro and white workers.
In 40-minute speech bristling
with defiance, he scored the indict-
naent against him and declared:
You may do what you will to
Angelo Herndon. You may indict
him. You may put him In Jail.
But there will come other thou
sands Of Angelo Herndons. II you
really want to do something about
( the case, you must 60 out and in
| dict the whole social system. But
this you will not do, for your role
h to defend the system under
which the toiling masses are rob-
bed and oppressed"
With the courtroom packed to
suffocation with Negro and white
workers, Herndon gave q moving
description Of the pitiful conditions
under which the Negro masses live
in the South. He called attention to
the growing organization OF the
sharecroppers in Alabama and
other sections Of the Black Belt and
Of the growing unity OF Negro and
white throughout the South, and
warned that his imprisonment
would fail to halt this rising move
ment.
He drew picture Of hunger, mis-