Biography
J. I. Whidden was identified as field organizer in Ray Pierce’s account of Oklahoma City unemployment organizing. The Daily Worker names this person among six identified defendants out of seven still held for trial after the January 20, 1931 unemployed workers’ food-store action. It reports 67 arrests and a claim of $15,000 damage, but does not give an individual statutory charge, conviction, sentence, jail institution or release. The unnamed seventh defendant is not assigned an identity. Floyd Philips is preserved with the spelling printed in this issue; initials are not expanded. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n041-NY-feb-16-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The June28,1932 Daily Worker reports a separate Blackwell,Oklahoma mass-meeting attack in which an armed band surrounded Communist organizer Whidden, injured his arm and repeatedly beat his head while attempting to force a flag salute and singing. Five leaders were loaded into a car and driven toward the town edge for threatened tarring and feathering. Pursuing workers and farmers forced the captors to release them, and they returned to Blackwell. This is completed extrajudicial captivity and release distinct from his1931OklahomaCity case; the article supplies no exact incident day or measured duration. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n153-jun-28-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The Blackwell, Oklahoma abduction reported in the June 28, 1932 Daily Worker establishes a separately documented extrajudicial custody episode and actual release, distinct from the 1931 Oklahoma City action. Exact dates and duration remain unspecified. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n153-jun-28-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
A captioned portrait in the September 1, 1928 Daily Worker identifies J. I. Whidden as a Workers Communist Party candidate in Colorado, active in relief for the 1927 coal strike and serving as an International Labor Defense literature agent. The rare printed initials and organizer identity are retained without an expanded first name. Relief work is not treated as another imprisonment. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n208-NY-sep-01-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1