Biography
Jack Barton, also known as Bart Logan, was a Communist organizer in Bessemer, Alabama. Detectives searching his home on a liquor warrant arrested him on July 19, 1936, after finding Communist publications. Recorder Clyde Morris convicted him the following morning of possessing seditious literature and imposed 180 days at hard labor and a $100 fine, with further labor required for nonpayment. Barton was confined in the Bessemer city jail and assigned to city work gangs. He was released in November 1936 after an initial appellate ruling against the ordinance. The Alabama Supreme Court subsequently overturned that ruling, and the denial of his habeas petition was affirmed on April 6, 1937.
Beth McHenry’s contemporary account in the Daily Worker of August4,1936 identifies Barton as Georgia-born and describes him confined with four other men in a six-foot-square Bessemer jail cell, with bug-ridden bunks and no bathing facilities. It reports that he was tried the morning after arrest without an opportunity to obtain a lawyer.
The Daily Worker of November26,1936 reports that Barton went to New York for medical attention immediately after release. It states that the Bessemer ordinance was declared unconstitutional on November10 and that his appeal was scheduled for December1. The November10 ruling is not assumed to be his physical release date.
The Daily Worker of November13,1936,page5 published a telegram that Earl Browder received the previous day from Barton upon his release. Barton thanked Browder for visiting him in jail and credited Alabama labor supporters with helping win his freedom. A Birmingham dispatch dated November12 reported the appellate court ordering immediate release; the telegram confirms that release had occurred by November12. This does not independently settle the exact physical release day, particularly because the later November26 report dates the underlying ordinance ruling to November10. The same article reports that Barton, ill with tuberculosis, had recently been moved to a sanitarium.
Daily Worker, May 12, 1936, page 5: The Birmingham dispatch reports Barton and Jack Perilla released on bond the preceding week after Red Squad arrests. Barton was charged with vagrancy; the article identifies him as Communist section organizer. It attributes Klan and ride threats to detectives Lewis and Moser. This episode precedes the separate July Bessemer prosecution. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n114-NY-May-12-1936-DW-Q.pdf
The Daily Worker of August 18, 1936, page 6 describes Barton as a union electrician and Bessemer Communist section secretary punished for possessing the July Communist. It reports that, following a trial without counsel, he was put in heavy chains and forced to walk five miles to a prison camp. It also reports refusal of bond to obstruct an appeal and an International Labor Defense appeal underway. The six-month labor term and $100 fine were imposed punishment, not proof of a completed six-month term. The camp is unnamed; no institution or additional arrest date is invented. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n198-NY-aug-18-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=6
Louis Colman’s February 1937 account of the January Senate civil-liberties hearings describes Barton personally testifying about his Bessemer imprisonment. Barton recalled heavy shackles while walking fourteen miles daily and a cell containing fourteen men with only four narrow bunks; he also described denial of counsel and obstacles to appeal bond. The article repeats the combined punishment as 380 days and reports his subsequent tuberculosis treatment and release. These are attributed testimony and conditions details, not an actual 380-day service total or a new release day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1937/v13-%5B11%5Dn01-feb-1937-orig-LD.pdf#page=16
The article describes the 380-day labor penalty in the Bessemer literature prosecution and says the appellate court invalidated the ordinance and ordered release on November 11. The order is not an independently verified exact prison-discharge day, and the penalty is not 380 days actually served. Labor Defender, December 1936, original PDF page 14. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1936/v12-%5B10%5Dn11-dec-1936-orig-LD.pdf#page=14
In a first-person letter printed in the October 1936 Labor Defender, Barton described a Bessemer city-jail cell with four bunks and six to twelve occupants each night, with no running water except at the toilet. The accompanying editorial alleged tuberculosis. The issue described 380 days of punishment; this is not evidence that he had already completed 380 days in custody following his July 1936 arrest. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1936/v12-%5B10%5Dn10-oct-1936-orig-LD.pdf#page=4
The October 1936 editorial quotes Barton describing a four-bunk Bessemer cell occupied by six to twelve prisoners nightly, with no running water except a toilet. It says the jail had been condemned fifteen years earlier and identifies him as tubercular. The editorial’s phrase jailed for 380 days is not treated as 380 days already served: it conflicts with that interpretation of the established July 1936 arrest and October reporting date. No custody endpoint or medical diagnosis beyond the source’s attributed account is inferred. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1936/v12-%5B10%5Dn10-oct-1936-orig-LD.pdf#page=4
