Biography
Harry Haywood was a Communist speaker at Chicago’s Hands Off Ethiopia anti-war demonstration on August 31, 1935. A contemporary report says police beat him and threw him onto a cell floor. The September 2 dispatch describes him as convalescing afterward. His individual release day is not stated. His older brother, Otto Hall, recalled that they both studied in Moscow in the 1920s. Hall also placed Haywood on the Comintern’s 1928 commission discussing the position of Black Americans.
Daily Worker, July 10, 1934: Page 3 carries his signed commentary criticizing the NAACP’s handling of the George Crawford defense and discussing racial discrimination and the all-white jury. The captioned portrait accompanying that article identifies Haywood and supplies the photograph added to his profile. The commentary’s accusations against defense lawyers remain attributed opinions. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n164-jul-10-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Daily Worker, June 23, 1936, page 5: Alice Evans’s first-person account recalls three policemen holding Haywood while two others struck his knees with blackjacks during the August 1935 Ethiopia demonstration. This adds an attributed eyewitness account of violence in the already recorded arrest; it does not create a second detention or supply an individual discharge day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n150-NAT-jun-23-1936-DW-Q.pdf
Page 3’s April 28 Chicago notice reports his assignment as Communist Party Section 7 organizer on the South Side and announces a May 3 Negro Liberation reception at Forum Hall, 322 East Forty-third Street. The assignment is reported as made; the future reception is not treated as an executed event or a custody endpoint. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n102-NAT-apr-29-1935-DW-Q.pdf
The September 1 Chicago dispatch explicitly reports that Haywood and Thomas M. McKenna had been released after the August 31 Hands Off Ethiopia demonstration. It identifies disorderly-conduct and unlawful-assemblage accusations and describes Haywood seriously injured. This establishes release by September 1, rather than proving an exact discharge day. Daily Worker, September 2, 1935, original PDF page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n210-NAT-sep-02-1935-DW-Q..pdf#page=1
Sources and evidence limits
Daily Worker, September 3, 1935, original PDF pages 1, 2
The dispatch identifies Saturday’s anti-war demonstration, resolving to August 31, and explicitly describes Haywood in a police cell. Exact jail-booking and physical-release endpoints are not supplied; a proposal to speak at a later meeting is not proof of release.
The report’s accusations are not convictions. Birth and death dates, other imprisonment, unreported release timing and total custody duration remain unverified. No demographic attributes, ideology category or organizational affiliation taxonomy is inferred.
Family and political background
In his October 15, 1967 interview with Philip S. Foner, Otto Hall identified Harry Haywood as his younger brother. Hall recalled their study at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow and Haywood’s participation in the 1928 Comintern commission. These are attributed recollections about family and political education, not new evidence of imprisonment. Hall’s May 16, 1891 birth date belongs to Otto, not Harry; no Harry birth date or custody endpoint is inferred.
Otto Hall interview with Philip S. Foner, October 15, 1967, original PDF pages 1, 3–4.
Daily Worker, July 10, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, April 29, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Herndon recalls Harry Haywood among the speakers arrested in the corridor after the May 31, 1931 All-Southern Scottsboro Defense Conference in Chattanooga, together with Robert Minor, B. D. Amis and Tom Wilson. The stated accusation was blocking traffic. They were released after paying ten-dollar fines; no measured custody length or jail transfer is supplied.
Angelo Herndon, Let Me Live (Random House, 1937), printed122–124 (PDF130–132). Full autobiography.
