Biography
Alexander Racolin was a New York attorney and International Labor Defense organizer active in the South. Birmingham police arrested him with Laura Stark during a warrantless raid on the ILD office on May 9, 1934, and released him about an hour later without charges. DeKalb County officers arrested him on October 14 during a private meeting at Mrs. R. W. Alling’s home, where Clarence Weaver reported on an anti-war congress. Held under Georgia’s insurrection law, Racolin remained in custody until November 3, when the grand jury refused to indict him and he was released unconditionally.
Daily Worker, October 25, 1934, page 2: The Atlanta report states that Judge James H. Davis denied bail to the four DeKalb County defendants on October 23, 1934, holding them for the grand jury under the insurrection law. It prints the co-defendants as Nathan Yogel, Alex Racolin, Clarence Weaver and Mrs. R. W. Alling. The shared university, union and defense context identifies the existing records; this intermediate bail refusal does not replace their independently documented November dispositions.
The Birmingham report identifies the ILD lawyer arrested with Laura Stark on May 9 and says he was later released. It corroborates his already recorded office-raid case without replacing the more precise release evidence. Daily Worker, May 11, 1934, page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n113-may-11-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The May 17, 1934 first-person account by John Howard Lawson reports a distinct Birmingham courtroom arrest of lawyer Alexander Racolin, after his earlier office-raid detention. He was fingerprinted and photographed as number 26,587, ordered to leave town and seized again with Lawson at the courtroom exit. The May 9 office raid and October 14 Georgia case remain separate. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n119-may-18-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2 ; https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1934/v11n09-may-29-1934-NM.pdf#page=15
