Biography
Cliff James was a sharecropper and a leader of the Share Croppers' Union whose farm was the site of the 19 December 1932 Reeltown, Alabama shootout. Wounded in the shoulder, he crawled to Tuskegee Institute, was turned over to the police, and died in the Montgomery County jail on 27 December 1932 while held in dying condition. On 19 December 1932 a sheriff's posse attacked members of the Communist-led Share Croppers' Union near Reeltown in Tallapoosa County, Alabama, when they resisted the seizure of a member's livestock for debt. Several croppers were shot; the survivors were charged with "assault with intent to murder" and held for the grand jury at the Dadeville jail under $750 bail. The case, following the 1931 Camp Hill affair, became a major ILD Southern defense. (Recorded as Clifford "Cliff" James)
The Daily Worker of December 24, 1932, page 1, carries a December 23 dispatch saying Clifford James surrendered that day after armed deputies surrounded him, following his wounding in the December 19 confrontation. That conflicts with the December 19 arrest date in the existing case chronology; the exact custody sequence is therefore uncertain. The December 28 paper, page 1, reports his death in Montgomery County Jail on December 27 after denial of treatment for infected wounds. Its December 29 follow-up, pages 1 and 3, reports that his body showed two gunshot wounds in the back and that his wounds had not been properly dressed. It also documents attorney efforts to secure habeas corpus relief for five surviving croppers, returnable January 5 before Judge Leon McCord.
The December 26, 1932 Daily Worker names him among five sharecroppers transferred by Sheriff Riley to Montgomery County Jail on Friday, December 23. James, Bentley and Thomas Moss were seriously wounded and put in the hospital ward; Jiggy and Ivy Moss were the other two prisoners. The report describes incommunicado detention. James denied the hospital official’s account of his statements. This transfer is distinguished from the disputed initial arrest sequence; later death in custody is not a release to freedom. Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/herndon/1932/dec-26-1932-DW.pdf#page=3
Allen’s memoir describes the December 1932 Reeltown confrontation over confiscation of work animals, wounds suffered by James and Bentley, the surrender of James to police by Tuskegee officials, and both men’s later deaths from untreated wounds while confined. This is retrospective corroboration, without an additional exact arrest, transfer or death day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/allen/organizing-south.pdf#page=87
The December 31, 1932 Daily Worker book-committee and defense reporting supplies this contemporary context: The editorial discusses Cliff James’s death in custody after infected wounds and alleged denial of care. Its relative wording supplies no new exact surrender, arrest or death day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n313-NY-dec-31-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
Page 3 captions a photograph of the orphaned family of Cliff James in its discussion of Alabama Sharecroppers Union organizing and landlord repression. The family photograph is not a portrait of James himself, and the issue supplies no revised custody or death chronology. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n161-jul-06-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
The chronology says Tuskegee officials surrendered him to authorities December 24, 1932, followed by transfer from Macon to Montgomery jail and death December 27. It alleges untreated wounds, dirty bandages and confinement naked on a dark cell floor. These dates conflict with other already preserved surrender/death accounts and are retained as source claims without overwriting endpoints. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n02-feb-1933-lab-def.pdf#page=5
The December 25 report says Tuskegee hospital officials turned the wounded Tallapoosa sharecropper leader over to police Friday, December 23, 1932 and that he was confined in Montgomery County jail. It attributes the surrender to hospital officials; no final charge, discharge or completed total is established. Daily Worker, December 26, 1932, original PDF page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n308-NY-dec-26-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
Daily Worker, July 6, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Page 1 attributes exposure of the deaths of Cliff James and Milo Bentley in custody to the ILD and says the resulting campaign forced release of three other unnamed sharecroppers from the same jail. This is contemporary death-in-custody and defense context; no additional exact death date or identity for the released three is inferred. Page 2 reports a Finnish Workers Club resolution denouncing James’s killing.
