Eugene Williams

Eugene Williams was one of the nine Black youths arrested at Paint Rock, Alabama, on March 25, 1931, in the Scottsboro case. He had boarded the freight train with friends from Chattanooga, hoping to find work in Memphis. Tried on April 8 and sentenced to death, Williams remained confined while his case went through the courts. On March 24, 1932, the Alabama Supreme Court reversed his conviction because the trial court had failed to determine whether he was under sixteen and belonged in juvenile court. He was not released then. Alabama dropped the charges and freed him on July 24, 1937. Williams later toured with the other freed defendants and went to St. Louis, where he had relatives.

Daily Worker, October 25, 1934, page 6: The editorial directs supporters’ correspondence to him at Jefferson County Jail in Birmingham, alongside the other defendants held there. Its collective allegations about coercion remain the newspaper’s claims; the location report supplies no new admission, transfer or release day.

The March 25, 1932 issue reports that Alabama’s Supreme Court reversed Williams’s judgment on March 24 because he was a juvenile and the trial court lacked jurisdiction, and remanded for a new trial. Speculation about juvenile-court treatment is not an accomplished disposition or physical release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n072-NY-mar-25-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1

Daily Worker, May 24, 1935: Page 3 reports the National Scottsboro Defense Committee’s release of letters by 105 prominent supporters urging Alabama Governor Bibb Graves to release the nine Scottsboro defendants and protesting plans to reindict them after the jury-exclusion ruling. This documents collective defense activity concerning the established nine defendants; a proposed reindictment is not a new completed prosecution, conviction or release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n124-NAT-may-24-1935-DW-Q.pdf

Frances Levkoff’s jail-visit account in the July 7, 1936 Daily Worker describes Powell still ill, with an impaired arm and difficulty walking; Norris sharing a cell with a mentally ill prisoner; Eugene Williams undernourished; Roy and Andy Wright asking that greetings reach their mother Ada; and Montgomery requesting drawing materials. It dates Powell’s shooting to January 24, distinct from the January 25 operation reported earlier. The visit supplies no new individual custody endpoints. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n162-NY-jul-07-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=3

The December 26, 1932 Daily Worker reports defense efforts to obtain habeas relief for Williams and to move the Scottsboro defendants from death cells. Lawyers A. W. Chamlee and Irving Schwab were denied private interviews as guards listened. Those applications and the attorney general’s transfer threats are not evidence of an actual release or transfer. Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/herndon/1932/dec-26-1932-DW.pdf#page=1

In Allen’s first-person account of the 1933 Decatur proceedings, he and artist Jacob Burck visited the Scottsboro prisoners in a filthy, insect-infested cell block with an old gallows in direct view. The youths described beatings during earlier confinement and transfers, while defense efforts had secured exercise, mail and family visits. Roy Wright and Eugene Williams were practicing reading and writing, and the prisoners sang together. This eyewitness account adds prison conditions without inventing new custody episodes or counting ongoing imprisonment as completed service. Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/allen/organizing-south.pdf#page=114

The February 13, 1933 Daily Worker distinguishes Roy Wright’s confinement in Birmingham County jail from the other eight Scottsboro defendants’ confinement in Kilby death cells despite the new-trial ruling. It reports defense use of Ruby Bates’s January 5, 1932 letter to Earl Streetman recanting her accusation and alleging police threats of jail. Judge J. P. McCoy impounded the letter January 23, 1933 and ordered a photostat January 31 during Roy’s unsuccessful bail proceedings. These are attributed defense evidence and reported jail locations; no release is inferred. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v010-n037-X-feb-13-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1

The May 7, 1931 Daily Worker reports defense new-trial motions and family organizing in the Scottsboro case. It describes Janie Patterson disputing a purported letter from Haywood and Ada Wright preparing a New York visit. The source uses Robertson, Ollie Montgomery and Charley Weems as period variants and reports ages that are not substituted for verified birth data. Eight death sentences and proposed July 10 executions are distinguished from actual deaths; no new physical custody endpoint is inferred. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n110-NY-may-07-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1

The December 28, 1931 prison-visit report published December 29 describes the Scottsboro defendants in Kilby Prison death cells and family representatives meeting them with ILD counsel. It names Haywood’s older brother Julius Patterson, Eugene’s sister Opelika Williams and Charlie Weems’s aunt Gussie McLeror. The prisoners and relatives reaffirmed ILD defense representation. Reported ages and family spellings remain attributed, and the planned January appeal is not a release or final disposition. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n312-NY-dec-29-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1

The April 19, 1932 Montgomery report published April 20 says the Alabama Supreme Court granted a stay the preceding day for seven defendants, postponing execution until June 24 pending a U.S. Supreme Court appeal. It distinguishes Eugene Williams’s new trial and Roy Wright’s continued jail after a mistrial. The older page-four statement incorrectly groups nine under a May13execution forecast; the specific updated report governs this note. The stay and future execution dates are not release or death events. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n094-NY-apr-20-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1

Otto Hall’s interview describes Williams’s mother as Atlanta-born, brought to Chattanooga in infancy, a wage worker from eleven and later widowed with children. She recalled Eugene leaving to seek work near an uncle in Pittsburgh and promising to send money home. The article reports him as thirteen at arrest; this contemporary family account does not replace verified birth data. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n109-sect-one-may-07-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3

Page 3 reports plans to demand juvenile handling for the two Scottsboro defendants, whose early-July circuit-court hearing was contrasted with a sought July 15 juvenile hearing. The article describes juvenile treatment as a partial gain, not the ultimate demand of unconditional freedom. The proposal was not yet a completed transfer, acquittal or release, and no new personal custody period is calculated. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n153-NAT-jun-27-DW-Q.pdf

The Powell v. Alabama transcript, Part 2, printed pages 109-137 and 145-146, records the five-defendant trial verdict on April 8, 1931, formal death sentences on April 9, and denial of the amended new-trial motion on June 22. The defense alleged inadequate preparation, racial exclusion from juries and coercive public pressure; the Alabama majority rejected those arguments, while Chief Justice Anderson dissented. His dissent (pages 171-174) traces military-escorted removal to Gadsden, return to Scottsboro for arraignment, removal to Gadsden while awaiting trial, return for trial, and removal after sentence; it does not provide exact transfer days. The March 24, 1932 judgment (pages 144-145, 168-169) reversed his conviction for a proper age determination and explicitly ordered continued custody pending lawful discharge. The family affidavit of Henry and Susie Cokley and grandmother Georgia Haley, sworn May 4, 1931 (pages 106-107), gives his birth as December 6, 1917 and names his mother Mamie Williams; the majority opinion paraphrases that affidavit as December 6, 1916 (page 168). The record therefore contains a one-year internal discrepancy. Roddy's June 12 affidavit (pages 117-118) reports Williams saying his change from fifteen to nineteen had been induced by threats and abuse in Scottsboro or Gadsden jail. These are attributed sworn statements; the existing birth date is retained. Source: https://briefs1.lonedissent.org/1932/powell-v-alabama/Transcript%20of%20Record,%20Part%202.pdf

The September15 Birmingham dispatch published September16,1932 reports that Williams remained in the death house despite the March reversal of his conviction and the Alabama solicitor general withdrawing his objection to removal from the death chamber. This is a contemporary custody-conditions observation, not a new death sentence, transfer or release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n222-NY-sep-16-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3

Daily Worker, April 25, 1935, pages 1 and 6: The ILD Scottsboro-Herndon fund appeal says $2,000 was urgently needed for juvenile-court hearings being prepared for the two youngest Scottsboro defendants, Roy Wright and Eugene Williams. It reports campaign receipts of about $3,026 toward a $20,000 goal. Hearings and the appeal for freedom remained prospective; this item supplies no individualized new arrest, discharge or completed sentence. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n099-NAT-apr-25-1935-DW-Q.pdf

Page 1's April 16 Birmingham report describes seven Scottsboro defendants confined on the top floor of Jefferson County Jail and subjected for several weeks to solitary confinement and alleged abuse. A planned May Day rally would demand improved treatment and freedom. The item supplies collective context for the Birmingham group, without individually listing its seven members, establishing separate beatings for each, or giving a new individual admission or discharge date. The forthcoming rally is prospective. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n092-apr-17-1934-DW-LOC.pdf

Printed page 162 (PDF 3) seeks $300 in legal fees for steps to procure bail for Roy Wright and Eugene Williams. This is an effort to secure release, not evidence bail was granted or physically posted; no new custody endpoint follows. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1932/v08n09-sep-1932-LD.pdf

Page 5's prisoner-family appeal describes his mother Mamie's heart illness, sister Ophelia's care for six younger children, his father's earlier death and severe household poverty after Eugene's Scottsboro imprisonment. It names Haywood Patterson as his companion seeking work in March 1931 and recalls the death sentence. The age and family details are reported descriptions, not invented birthdays or an additional prosecution; the later established release remains preserved. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n302-Nat-dec-19-DW-LOC.pdf

The report announced International Labor Defense efforts to obtain bail for the two youngest Scottsboro defendants, Roy Wright and Eugene Williams, and immediate trials with a change of venue. Roy Wright was reported to have had a mistrial; Williams was the only one of the eight sentenced to death whose case was reversed by the Alabama Supreme Court on March 24. Planned bail proceedings do not establish release. Daily Worker, March 29, 1932, original PDF page 3. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n075-NY-mar-29-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3