Biography
Clarence Sherman was a jobless father of six and a leader of an Unemployed Council. A Detroit November 16 dispatch reports that he was one of four council leaders kidnapped, flogged and forced to drink castor oil the preceding Friday. Sherman went to police headquarters and accused police of involvement; the police chief denied the accusation. These allegations are attributed to the contemporary report. The three other victims are unnamed. The account establishes an extrajudicial abduction in retaliation for organizing, not a judicial conviction, prison sentence or measured custody period. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n276-NY-nov-17-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
George Morris’s August 7, 1936 Pontiac account identifies Walter Hardin and Leo Fortin alongside Sherman as Unemployed Council members kidnapped in November 1931, taken to Cass Lake State Park, beaten and forced to drink castor oil. It reports dismissal of eleven accused vigilante leaders despite guilty pleas. The three-person retrospective list differs from the earlier four-person account; no fourth identity or new custody episode is invented. Daily Worker, August 8, 1936, page 8. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n190-NY-aug-08-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=8
