Biography
Joe Benson organized unemployed workers in Norfolk, Virginia. He was held in solitary confinement during the 1932 campaign against the unemployed movement, despite being seriously ill. The International Labor Defense supported his appeal against a conviction under Norfolk’s ordinance requiring people to move on when ordered by police. The jury imposed a $50 fine and thirty days in jail. On November 15, 1934, the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the ordinance and affirmed his conviction.
Benson’s October 7, 1933 Norfolk report states that he and three unnamed defendants were tried September 25 after earlier public-meeting arrests, with his fine increased from $25 to $50 and appeals proposed. It separately says an officer called to arrest him for an anti-NRA speech left after audience protests. That thwarted arrest is not an actual new detention, and delay before trial does not establish months continuously in jail or a completed jail term. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n241-oct-07-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
The November 10, 1932 Daily Worker, page 3, names Benson and Roy Rudd as jailed in Norfolk with appeal bonds of $500 each, and says Judge Sargent refused to reduce the bonds. It reports that Benson was very ill and held in solitary confinement. This establishes custody already in November 1932, separately from the existing case dated 1933; the original charge, sentence and exact dates of this earlier episode are not supplied. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n269-NY-nov-10-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
