Biography
Doris Parks was a Communist and National Miners’ Union activist who supported striking coal miners in Kentucky and Tennessee. She helped bring relief supplies to the coalfields and accompanied the writers’ delegation led by Waldo Frank to Pineville in February 1932. Officers arrested her on February 10 after she spoke to miners despite a ban on public meetings. Held on criminal-syndicalism charges, she was confined in Pineville and then Harlan. The International Labor Defense obtained her release on bond from Harlan on April 15, after 65 days in custody.
The March 14, 1932 Kentucky defense report describes continuing jail conditions, restricted mail and counsel, and Dorothy Weber’s serious influenza. It explicitly places Vern Smith, Ann Barton and Doris Parks in Harlan County jail after transfer from Pineville; transfer is not release. The January 4 list and later-arriving prisoners are distinguished, and a May 26 trial date and proposed bond financing remain prospective. Existing individually verified discharge dates are retained, without assigning every later detainee the January 4 arrest or a particular facility. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n062-NY-mar-14-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5
The chronology reports their kidnapping February 11, 1932 and criminal-syndicalism charges in the Harlan mine-strike repression. The assault on Taub and Waldo Frank is not assumed to prove identical jail admission for those men. Exact physical discharge and complete duration remain unreported. Daily Worker, March 12, 1932, original PDF page 3. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n061-NY-mar-12-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The April 15 Knoxville dispatch reported release on bond from Harlan jail. The article also discussed releases from Pineville and Middlesboro. Its dateline, rather than the April 18 publication date, supplies the reported release day. Daily Worker, April 18, 1932, original PDF page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n092-NY-sect-one-apr-18-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The February 17 Pineville dispatch says Parks remained in Bell County custody after a hearing where she acknowledged Communist Party membership. Bail was reduced from $15,000 to $10,000. Transfer to Harlan was threatened but expressly had not happened; it is not encoded as a completed move.
The report describes Parks affirming rather than swearing at the Pineville hearing, answering questions about her political program and racial equality. The judge ordered a Harlan transfer with $15,000 bail, then after consultation kept her in Pineville and reduced bail to $10,000. The order was rescinded; no completed transfer is established.
