Biography
Harold Ralston was an Alabama Communist Party organizer jailed during Birmingham’s May 1934 campaign against radical labor and unemployed organizers. He was one of six defendants tried on vagrancy charges before Judge Abernathy in the Jefferson County court on May 17. Ralston defended the party’s organizing among Black and white workers. He was out on bail when he left the courthouse that morning, facing threats from members of the White Legion. Workers gathered along his route to protect him.
John Howard Lawson’s report, “In Dixieland We Take Our Stand,” says the six Communists tried for vagrancy were released May 21 and identifies Ralston’s courtroom defense in its continuation. It describes threats from White Legion members before and after the proceedings. Because the independently documented May 19 Daily Worker already places Ralston out on bail after the May 17 hearing, the collective May 21 statement is preserved as a reported later result without replacing that earlier physical-release bound or calculating custody through May 21. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1934/v11n09-may-29-1934-NM.pdf#page=13
Page 5 advertises him as an Alabama Communist organizer just acquitted in Birmingham courts. Page 6’s Birmingham correspondence reports collective release of six jailed workers. The advertisement supports acquittal by publication without supplying a precise physical release day or replacing the earlier bail evidence.
