Biography
Jim Nino was a twenty-year-old leader of the Tampa tobacco workers, sentenced to ten years for strike activity in the Tampa tobacco-strike case of 1931–32. On 7 November 1931 police and vigilantes broke up a Tampa, Florida meeting marking the Russian Revolution; some two dozen cigar- and tobacco-workers were arrested and prosecuted on a framed charge of shooting a policeman. Fourteen were sent to the state penitentiary at Raiford — a total of fifty-seven years — many to the sweat-boxes and Everglades road gangs, in a case the ILD fought as a Southern labor frame-up.
Luis Ortiz’s December 16, 1932 Tampa account gives a January 19 sentencing list and describes the tobacco-workers prosecution on assault-with-intent-to-murder, unlawful-assembly and rioting accusations. It prints Jim Nine, J. E. McDonald, E. Bonilla, F. Marrero, Carolina Vazques, Francis Romero, Mario Lopes, Ysmal Cruz and Jose Campos among fourteen printed names, while claiming fifteen sentenced. These are retained as source variants in the established cohort, without inventing the missing person. E. Bonilla’s initial versus Henry remains unresolved; Marrero’s ten-year figure differs from the later three-year Morrero report, and the magazine’s one-year Romero wording differs from the recorded year-and-day term. Neither conflicting nominal terms nor the article’s eight unnamed deportees are assigned as completed individual service or removal. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n300-NY-dec-16-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
The December 31, 1932 Daily Worker book-committee and defense reporting supplies this contemporary context: The committee prints Jim Nine’s Tampa County Jail letter about organizing a cell lecture group and requesting Marx and Engels. The existing Jim Nino record already preserves this period spelling in the same Tampa context. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n313-NY-dec-31-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
Page 4’s Tampa letter lists Jim Nino, Marie Lopez and Felix Marrero as then at Raiford state penitentiary. The established Tampa tobacco-worker cohort supports the Nino, Lopez and Morrero/Marrero cross-references; Marie is the printed given-name variant, not a basis to create another person or infer gender. The account differs from other reports of Marrero’s asylum transfer; the undated letter is preserved as a custody-location report without forcing a new dated transfer or overwriting the conflicting sequence. No physical discharge or duration is supplied. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v010-n049-NY-feb-26-1933-DW-LOC.pdf
Labor Defender, August 1932, printed page 155 (PDF page 17): The youth-prisoner roster prints Jim Nine, twenty, in Tampa County Jail, sentenced to ten years for activity in the Tampa tobacco strike. The same cohort and existing Nine/Nino variants support the match. The ten-year imposed term is not time served; the roster location is not a newly dated transfer. The collage on PDF page 11 includes a Jim Nine caption, but the placement does not securely isolate an individual portrait, so no image was assigned. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1932/v08n08-aug-1932-LD.pdf
The pamphlet's pages 4-7 describe the November 7, 1931 Labor Temple arrests and January prosecution on assault-with-intent-to-murder Officer Byrd and simple assault on Officer Wilson. It alleges guilt was presumed from presence and anti-Communist and anti-integration questioning replaced individual proof. The page 7 sentence groups are ten years for Jim Nine, Lezama, Bonilla and McDonald, three for Alvarez and Marrero, and one for the other defendants. These are imposed-term assertions; the fifteen-person/fifty-three-year account and prior fourteen-person/fifty-seven-year reports remain source discrepancies. Page 3 identifies Jim Nine as Juan Hidalgo, a Mexican organizer aged twenty-three, a different age from the twenty-year-old rosters. Page 9 explicitly reports accomplished deportation to Mexico without notice to friends or counsel. No exact departure date or measured prison total is supplied; the age discrepancy is retained. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/pamphlets/tampa-terror.pdf
Page 7 prints Jim Nine and says he was deported to Mexico after the Tampa trial. This is an attributed accomplished-deportation claim, not merely an order, but supplies no departure day. Its chronology and destination must be read alongside existing later custody/release accounts and other reported destinations; no exact date, nationality change, judicial exile length or inferred continuous custody is imposed from this conflicting retrospective narrative. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n114-may-12-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Daily Worker, February 27, 1933; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Labor Defender, August 1932; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The visitor’s letter prints Jim Nine, describes a young northern organizer given ten years for speaking from the same platform as a Black comrade and organizing Tampa tobacco workers, and places him at Raiford. This is an attributed prison-visit and nominal-sentence account in the established Jim Nino case, not ten years proven served.
Daily Worker, May 12, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
