Biography
The July 23 Talladega dispatch individually identifies him among four Samoset Cotton Mill union men already held in the local county jail on murder warrants following Deputy John J. Bryant’s death during the July 22 picket-line confrontation. The paper says deputies fired on strikers and alleges self-defense. Organizer Homer Welch was separately wanted and not yet apprehended. No individual verdict or release is supplied. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n177-NY-jul-24-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=1
The January 1937 Southern Worker identifies Eugene (Red) Thornton as convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to twenty years in the Samoset Mill prosecution. It reports an appeal filed for him and Homer Welch, while nine other strikers were free pending trial on $5,000 bail. The twenty years is imposed punishment, not proven service. PDF8–9. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/southernworker/v5n11-jan-00-1937-sw.pdf
