Biography
Dozier Will Graham was a Black Newark worker and retired Baptist minister who joined the Unemployed Council during the Depression. Police arrested him at the February 11, 1930 unemployment meeting at 93 Mercer Street and held him under $10,000 bail. He was tried before Judge Walter Van Riper, who excluded defense witnesses because they would not swear a religious oath. Graham was convicted on June 10 and subsequently received a suspended sentence. He ran as the Communist candidate for both the short and full U.S. Senate terms in New Jersey's 1930 election.
The June 10 dispatch reports conviction on sedition and assault accusations. Fifteen years is possible exposure, with sentencing still ahead; it does not replace the later suspended sentence recorded for the case. Daily Worker, June 11, 1930, page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n140-NY-jun-11-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
Grover describes Graham as a disabled, cane-using retired Baptist minister, aged 63 at the February 1930 Newark arrest. He reports an incitement-to-riot conviction with a seven-year sentence suspended two days later. That imposed-and-suspended term is not seven years actually served; the exact suspension or gate-release day is not provided. Source: https://www.newarkhistorysociety.org/images/articles/resources/PDF/NHS-Communists-061813.pdf#page=12 Source: https://www.newarkhistorysociety.org/images/articles/resources/PDF/NHS-Communists-061813.pdf#page=16
The official November 4, 1930 returns list Dozier W. Graham as New Jerseys Communist candidate for both Senate contests:1700 votes for the unexpired term ending March 3, 1931 and 1627 for the full term beginning March 4, 1931. These are separate electoral totals, not an arrest or release date. Source: https://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electionInfo/1930election.pdf#page=14
The September 10 Newark dispatch announces a September 14 joint ILD, ACLU and American Association for the Advancement of Atheism protest against exclusion of defense witnesses on religious-belief grounds. It recalls the earlier S. D. Levin and D. W. Graham trials and names Dave Rausen, John Pado, Joseph Lepshivicius, Morris Langer, Edward Childs and Albert Heder for trials planned that month. It describes the earlier proceedings as last May, while the existing Graham account records a June 10 conviction; the source wording is preserved without replacing the independently recorded conviction chronology. Neither the protest nor a scheduled trial establishes a new physical custody endpoint.
