Biography
Emanuel Biddings was a Black tobacco sharecropper and war veteran in Person County, North Carolina. He was jailed after shooting his landlord, T. M. Clayton, during a dispute over the division of the tobacco crop in 1933. His wife Katie and their children were present during the confrontation. The International Labor Defense argued that Biddings had acted in self-defense and challenged the exclusion of Black people from the grand jury. He was sentenced to death and held on death row at Central Prison in Raleigh. An appeal sought a new trial in May 1934. By September 1934, his sentence was life imprisonment. Supporters organized relief for his four children.
The April 26 Raleigh dispatch identifies Biddings as a Black sharecropper on death row at Central Prison and attributes the prosecution to his resistance to exploitation and violence by his landlord. It reports an appeal filed for a May 22 State Supreme Court hearing. That hearing remained prospective; the dispatch corroborates continuing custody. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n101-apr-27-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
Labor Defender, April 1934: The account says Biddings was jailed after shooting landlord T. M. Clayton during the division of the tobacco crop, after Clayton allegedly threatened him and reached for a gun. It names initial attorney Philip Escoffery and alleges failure to preserve appeal exceptions, followed by Biddings’s request that the ILD take his defense and obstruction of its attorney. These are the magazine’s defense allegations; the death sentence was then being challenged, with no release established. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1934/v10n04-apr-1934-orig-LD.pdf#page=22
Page 3's December 29 Roxboro dispatch describes the tobacco-share dispute with Clayton, Katie Biddings's warning that he was attacking their children, an alleged threat to shoot Biddings, and Biddings's claim of self-defense. Trial on January 12 remained prospective. The ILD demanded dismissal, challenged exclusion of Black grand jurors, sought a Durham venue and a jury including sharecroppers. This predates the separately documented death sentence and later life sentence; neither the threatened lynching nor possible death verdict had yet occurred in this report. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n313-dec-30-1933-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 2's May 16 Raleigh dispatch places Biddings on death row at Central Prison and says his appeal will come before the North Carolina Supreme Court May 22. The ILD solicited protests for a new trial. This corroborates continued confinement while the hearing is prospective; it does not establish an appeal result or supplant the later life-sentence evidence. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n118-may-17-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
