Biography
Anna Burlak was a leader of the National Textile Workers Union and the Young Pioneers when she was arrested in the 1929 red raid on a May-Day meeting of the Ukrainian Workingmen's Association at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and held under $5,000 bail on a sedition charge. She went on to a long career as a communist labor organizer in the New England textile mills.
Anna Burlak was an eighteen-year-old silk weaver known as "the Red Flame."
Allen’s memoir names Ann Burlak among the Atlanta Six and recalls her ILD work and subsequent return north to lead textile strikers. Its collective nearly-two-month description does not supply her individual physical-release date or replace independently documented custody chronology. Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/allen/organizing-south.pdf#page=74
The Bethlehem sedition trial was scheduled for February 10. This January report refers retrospectively to a May 16, 1929 arrest, inconsistent with the earlier May raid reports; it is preserved as a source discrepancy rather than overwriting the earlier documented raid date. The announced trial is prospective. Daily Worker, January 30, 1930, page 3. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v06-n281-NY-jan-30-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The Atlanta report describes the six labor organizers held under the insurrection prosecution. It names Brady, subsequently explicitly identified as Herbert Newton, and Storey as Black organizers, alongside Dalton, Burlak, Powers and Carr. The May 21 raid was above a grocery store during ANLC organizing. The capital penalty was threatened exposure, not a conviction. Daily Worker, May 24, 1930, page 5. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v06-n379-NY-may-24-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The June 6 Atlanta account describes Fulton Tower confinement, with Carr on murderers’ row and the Black defendants separated and denied visitors. It explicitly links Brady with Herbert Newton. These reported jail conditions concern the existing insurrection prosecution; death or twenty-five years remained potential penalties. Daily Worker, June 7, 1930, page 5. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n137-NY-jun-07-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The Atlanta account reports searches and confiscation of books and mail around June 8–9, restricted attorney access, and delayed or taken meals for the Black defendants. A proposed soundproof cell is a threat, not evidence that such confinement had already occurred. Daily Worker, June 14, 1930, page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n143-NY-jun-14-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The June 29, 1931 issue reports that Anna Burlak, printed Ann Burlak, was convicted June 26 in the Eleventh District Court at Central Falls, Rhode Island, after an arrest the previous week involving an alleged pepper assault on Louise King during textile-strike activity. Sentencing was scheduled for July 10; $500 or a year unless she left town was threatened, not an actual imposed sentence. She represented herself with ILD assistance. Daily Worker, June 29, 1931, page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n155-NY-jun-29-1930-DW-LOC.pdf (The local filename incorrectly says 1930; the printed masthead is June 29, 1931.)
Daily Worker, June 14, 1929, page 4: Printed Anna Burlack, she was arrested Friday June 7 for distributing leaflets advertising the next day’s Bethlehem meeting. Alderman Greenstein set $45 bail and reportedly tricked her into forfeiting it at 4 p.m. the following day. This leaflet arrest is distinct from the May Day sedition case; forfeiture does not prove an imposed prison term or independently establish release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n084-NY-jun-14-1929-DW-LOC.pdf
The March 21, 1932 Daily Worker, printing Ann Burlak, says the American-born assistant NTWU secretary had been arrested and held for deportation during the summer 1931 Central Falls and Pawtucket strike. This documents immigration custody distinct from the already recorded June pepper-assault prosecution. No precise intake, discharge or completed removal is supplied; American birth and threatened deportation are reported as part of the defense account. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n068-NY-mar-21-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
Page 3’s December 5 Allentown report names Bill Murdock, Anna Burlak and William Brown as the Bethlehem May Day sedition defendants due for trial in Northampton County Court Monday, December 9. A conference representing 3,000 workers pledged their defense, and the defendants were expected to speak at December 8 meetings. These are scheduled proceedings, not proof of conviction, continued uninterrupted detention or final release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-nat/v06-n234-NAT-dec-06-1929-DW-Q.pdf
Walter Wilson's Atlanta report in the June 7, 1930 New Leader identifies an Atlanta insurrection defendant as Anna Burlack, aged nineteen. Norman Thomas's column on page 1 instead reproduces a May 31 United Press report spelling her name Ann Burlock. The age and spellings are preserved as contemporary source claims. Wilson describes the prosecution's basis as organizing meetings attended by Black and white workers and circulating Communist literature, and reports that Atlanta teacher-union president Mary Barker, trades-federation secretary Karl Karston and labor editor Jerome Jones supported a defense inquiry. The possible death penalty was threatened exposure, not an imposed sentence. This corroborates her existing Atlanta case without changing its custody endpoints. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-leader/1930/v10n18-jun-07-1930-NL.pdf#page=3
Page 1, printing Ann Burlack, reports her Central Falls assault trial and conviction in a June 26 Pawtucket dispatch. She conducted her defense with ILD assistance; sentencing was continued to July 10, with a threat of a 500-dollar fine or one year if she continued strike organizing. Those penalties and July 10 were prospective, not a completed sentence or actual year served. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n155-NY-jun-29-1931-DW-LOC.pdf
The July 4 Camden dispatch explicitly reports Anna Burlak arrested that day with Arthur Brown and Charles Miller at Benson Hall during an ILD protest meeting against RCA-Victor police attacks and the Atlanta Six case. It expressly says all three had been released on $1,000 bail each; trial was announced for the next day. This is a distinct New Jersey custody episode after her Atlanta bail release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n161-NY-jul-05-1930-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
Page 1's report on the adverse Herndon decision warns that it could revive attempts to prosecute Ann Burlak, Herbert Newton and four other labor organizers under Georgia insurrection legislation. This is a contemporary warning about their existing political prosecution, not proof that a new death sentence was imposed or that they were rearrested. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n155-jun-29-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 3's Pennsylvania sedition roundup names the Bethlehem trio with a December trial forecast, alongside the Wilkes-Barre Gorman and Woodlawn cases. This is prospective scheduling in the existing antiwar prosecution, not a new arrest, December conviction or completed term. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n213-NY-nov-12-1929-DW-LOC.pdf
The May1930 Labor Defender reports the kidnapping of National Textile Workers Union organizers Anna Burlak and Jack Doran at Seneca, South Carolina. It gives no exact seizure or release day; this is distinct from later Atlanta proceedings. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1930/v05n05-may-1930-LD.pdf#page=3
Atlanta Six: first-person custody recollection
In her first-person account published in the Daily Worker on October 10, 1935, page 5, Mary Dalton recalled detention with Ann Burlak in Fulton Tower and said that after about two months all six defendants were released on bail. This is a retrospective, approximate description, not a dated discharge record; it does not establish a sixty-day term or an exact release date for each defendant. Her account also dates the first Carr-Powers arrest April 21, 1930, whereas the existing chronology records March activity. That discrepancy remains unresolved, and the existing arrest and custody dates have not been replaced from this account. The threatened death penalty and the pending insurrection prosecution were not an imposed death sentence.
Contemporary Bethlehem bail status, not an exact release date
A Bethlehem dispatch dated November 27 in the November 28, 1929 Daily Worker individually names William Murdock, Anna Burlack and William Brown as defendants arrested when a May Day demonstration was attacked. It says they had been out on $2,000 bail and schedules their sedition trial for December 1. This is a reported past release on bail before the dispatch, not proof that December 1 was an actual trial, sentence, physical admission or discharge day.
The $2,000 amount differs from the inherited $5,000 bail description in Burlak’s existing Bethlehem record. The contemporary amount is preserved as attributed reporting, without silently replacing the older amount, dating her release, calculating custody time, or conflating this prosecution with the separate 1930 Atlanta case.
Daily Worker, November 28, 1929, original page 3, Bethlehem dispatch.
A distinct Camden sedition hearing was still pending
A Camden dispatch dated July 10 reports a sedition case against Anna Burlak in Camden, New Jersey, separate from the Atlanta insurrection prosecution. Its first hearing, originally scheduled for Tuesday, had been postponed until Saturday; Burlak was continuing her speaking tour. This is a reported pending prosecution and hearing schedule, not proof that the Saturday hearing occurred, a conviction, imprisonment, or a completed custody span. No new jail episode or endpoint is inferred from the charge or itinerary; the existing Bethlehem and Atlanta cases remain separate.
Daily Worker, July 11, 1930, original pages 2. Accounts and allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
The Daily Worker of February 26, 1930, page 2 (the archive URL is dated February 25), reports that the Bethlehem sedition trial of William Murdock, Anna Burlak and William Brown had been dismissed because the prosecution failed to make a case. It says sixteen people had been held four days after the May meeting raid, and that the three later defendants were out on bail. Dismissal is distinct from their earlier bail release. Conflicting May 1/May 4 chronology and bail amounts already in the records are not silently resolved, and no extra day counter or release endpoint is inferred.
Daily Worker, June 14, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, December 6, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The photograph is explicitly captioned Ann Burlak, the textile organizer calling on strikers to remain out; the caption says her Georgia indictment remained pending under the same law as Herndon. The picture belongs to Burlak, not Elaine Black whose trial is the main article. A pending indictment does not establish another completed arrest.
Daily Worker, June 29, 1931; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Page 1 reports prosecutor John A. Hudson planning to revive the Atlanta Six insurrection prosecution after the state decision against Herndon. Threats of the electric chair are threatened exposure, not a new death sentence or proof of a fresh arrest.
Daily Worker, June 29, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The miniature biography headed Ann Burlak is introduced as an account written by Ann and states that she was born in Pennsylvania in 1911. It identifies the same National Textile Workers Union organizer and Atlanta Six defendant described in this profile. Only the year is established: the stored January 1 date represents year precision, not a known birthday. Her retrospective account also describes six weeks without bail in Fulton Towers and places the Atlanta journey in April. Those statements are retained as her account alongside the existing May 21 arrest chronology and other approximately two-month recollections; they do not replace case dates or establish a forty-two-day total.
Daily Worker, June 13, 1934, original PDF page 4, Miniatures of Our Militant Women: Ann Burlak.
Daily Worker, November 12, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The Providence dispatch dated July 17 in the July 18, 1931 Daily Worker reports that Anna Burlak was arrested on Wednesday, July 15, by immigration inspectors during the Rhode Island textile strike. It says they initially refused to show a warrant and later showed an alleged coded telegraphic warrant to International Labor Defense representative Israel Praeger. The newspaper describes Burlak as American-born and reports a plan to hold her at the East Boston immigration station pending proof of citizenship. That plan does not establish actual admission or transfer there. This is the existing summer immigration detention, distinct from her June pepper-assault prosecution; no physical release date, completed deportation or custody duration is supplied.
Daily Worker, July 18, 1931, pages 1 and 5, Thousand Textile Strikers Meet to Carry On Struggle.
Grace Hutchins's November 10, 1930 Daily Worker article names Anna Burlak among the Atlanta Six defendants and identifies Assistant Solicitor General John H. Hudson as a prosecutor, quoting his demand at the time of the indictment for the death penalty. The initial H. is retained as printed in this 1930 account; the existing note attributing John A. Hudson to the May 26, 1934 report remains intact. A threatened penalty and proposed trial arrangement do not establish a conviction, death sentence or new custody episode.
The August 3, 1931 Young Worker reports her already released from deportation confinement.
