Biography
James Stevens was arrested during Birmingham police raids against the Southern Worker newspaper. The Daily Worker of April 17, 1935, page 3, reports that police confiscated much of the newspaper’s material and arrested James Stevens and Blaine Owen under the Downs literature law, which prohibited possession of more than one copy of revolutionary literature. The Southern Worker nevertheless reappeared as an eight-page newspaper in the preceding week. The report supplies no exact arrest date, conviction, sentence, detention period or actual release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n092-NAT-apr-17-1935-DW-Q.pdf
The March 15 dispatch reports Stevens arrested at home Monday morning, March 11, 1935, by private detectives Paul Cole and Milton Duff accompanied by policeman Ellidge. Under the Downs literature ordinance, he was held incommunicado for 45 hours before bail release. This is a reported detention stage, not a complete day total. Trial March 20 remained prospective; the relation to the later April report is not resolved here.
