Biography
Elaine Black, later Elaine Black Yoneda, was an International Labor Defense organizer in San Francisco. During the July 1934 general strike, she arranged bail and legal defense for arrested workers. Police arrested her for vagrancy on July 19 at the home of maritime organizer Harry Jackson. After being bailed out, she was arrested again at an organizing meeting in Jefferson Square Park on charges of vagrancy, disturbing the peace and rioting. She joined a jail hunger strike and was released on bail before trial. Convicted of vagrancy and sentenced to six months, she successfully appealed the conviction.
Daily Worker, August 23, 1934, page 1–2: The San Francisco report describes her vagrancy conviction and six-month sentence and states that she, ILD organizer Joseph Wilson and maritime organizer Harry Jackson were all out on $1,000 bonds pending appeal. This does not establish a new arrest or six months actually served.
Howard Kimeldorf interview with Sam Darcy, May 10, 1986, transcript page 25: Darcy recalls assigning Elaine Black Yoneda and Ida Rothstein to legal work for workers arrested during the 1934 waterfront strike. This is an attributed 1986 recollection of organizing responsibility; it does not establish an additional arrest or exact custody day for either woman. Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/darcy-sam/darcy-interview.pdf
Page 1’s June 30 Eureka report identifies her as ILD district secretary and main speaker at the protest and memorial meeting held in the Labor Temple the preceding Friday after a hall cancellation. She collected $130 toward the defense of arrested lumber workers and the two killed strikers’ funerals. This is defense organizing, not a report that she herself was arrested in Eureka; no extra custody episode is invented. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n156-NAT-jul-01-1935-DW-Q.pdf
Page 1’s August 15 San Francisco dispatch reports her jury vagrancy conviction and says she conducted her own defense. This adds representation detail to the existing strike-era prosecution; it supplies no exact sentencing or jail-discharge day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n196-aug-16-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
The raid account describes Black taken to City Jail with four men after an apartment search, held in the women’s tank while the men were placed in the felony tank. Its printed Tuesday, July 27 chronology conflicts with the 1934 calendar and the separately established July 19 arrest; the source wording is preserved without silently correcting a date or inventing another arrest. Labor Defender, September 1934, original PDF page 15. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1934/v10n08-sep-1934-orig-LD.pdf#page=15
Labor Defender, July 1934: Bruce Minton reports a Hall of Justice vagrancy arrest while Black was asking why two workers were detained. Bail was $1,000 and she spent almost twenty-four hours in jail. This reported courthouse detention differs in location and circumstances from the existing July19 home arrest and subsequent JeffersonSquare arrest. It is preserved as a separate episode proposal, without inventing its precise day or rounding almost twenty-four hours to a completed full day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1934/v10n07-jul-1934-orig-LD.pdf#page=19
The Hall of Justice vagrancy detention described in July 1934 is recorded as a separate case from the later home and Jefferson Square arrests. Nearly twenty-four hours is not rounded to a full day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1934/v10n07-jul-1934-orig-LD.pdf#page=19
PDF page 5's 1934 review recalls repeated vagrancy arrests and attempts to portray the ILD as illegal. It reports a judge saying to set bail at $1,000 after she called him a fascist during a waterfront worker's trial. This adds attributed judicial-retaliation evidence without treating repeated/general wording as another separately dated arrest or completed sentence. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1935/v11n01-jan-1935-orig-LD.pdf
The January 31 San Francisco report announces appellate reversal of the vagrancy convictions of Elaine Black, Joseph Wilson and Harry Jackson from the 1934 strike crackdown. It says the appellate decision found that the convictions rested solely on Communist Party membership rather than proof of vagrancy. A reversal does not establish their individual physical release dates. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n028-Nat-feb-01-1935-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
July 1934 raid: bail and technical hold
The Capital Journal of July 20, 1934, page 9, named Elaine Black among those arrested at Harry Jackson's San Francisco residence. It reported vagrancy charges, $1,000 bail, and an “en route to Los Angeles” entry which it said delayed local release on bail. The report does not give an actual discharge day or establish the duration of either this confinement or her later rearrest. Existing custody dates remain unchanged.
The Week’s Papers entry for Wednesday, August 15, 1934 reports a jury conviction of Elaine Black for vagrancy in connection with the San Francisco general strike. It establishes a conviction report, not the sentencing day, physical admission, discharge or completed service of a six-month term.
The eyewitness report describes Black’s self-defense in the San Francisco vagrancy trial: her challenge to the supposed illegality of the ILD, the prosecutor’s political and religious attacks, a guilty verdict after fifteen minutes and a six-month sentence being appealed. The imposed six months are not actual completed service. The page’s photograph is Ann Burlak and is not assigned to Black.
Daily Worker, July 1, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The November 6 account schedules her vagrancy appeal with Joe Wilson for November 16. The calendar announcement does not establish a disposition or actual service.
Labor Defender, January 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Leon Doray’s courtroom account identifies Elaine Black, the ILD secretary, as already out on bail after four days in a Hall of Justice cell. The article does not give the exact admission or discharge or specify how this phase aligns with her several strike-era arrests. Four days therefore remains a documented phase, not a replacement for the nominal six-month sentence or an invented complete aggregate.
