Biography
Joe Morelock was a prisoner elected to the strike committee of the August 14, 1933 convict-miners' protest at Brushy Mountain Penitentiary. Jim Mallory's article in the Daily Worker of August 31, page 4, names Joe Morelock, Earnest Tweed and Willie White as the committee and describes 188 miners barricading themselves underground to demand removal of Deputy Warden O. C. Hendricks. Officials denied them food, threatened tear gas and discussed cutting off air; the main group surrendered after 34 hours and the rest later. The article identifies Morelock as a 25-year-old from Johnson City and reports that after the strike he was sent to an insane asylum at Nashville; it calls this transfer retaliation against his leadership. It spells the surname Morelock in the main account and Morlock near the end. The initial criminal charge and sentence, exact admission and ultimate release are not established. Existing confinement is documented; no new judicial conviction or additional quantified jail term is inferred from strike discipline.
