John Foster (Selma investigator, 1935)

John Foster was a Black labor activist from Birmingham jailed in Selma, Alabama, while helping investigate repression of Black and white workers’ organizing. The Daily Worker’s May 23, 1935 dispatch on page 3 reports that he accompanied an International Labor Defense lawyer to Selma on Sunday to investigate Robert Washington’s jailing. Police seized Foster on the main street as he went to meet the lawyer, only a couple of hours after reaching town, and held him in the city jail for vagrancy. The report does not establish a conviction, release, or confinement length. This is a different person from the John Foster imprisoned after the 1919 Elaine massacre. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n124-NAT-may-24-1935-DW-Q.pdf

Page 3’s May 24 Birmingham report says Foster had been missing since the previous Sunday, May 19, when Sheriff Reynolds forced him from Selma jail at gunpoint into a waiting police-landlord group. Friends feared murder or injuries preventing his return, but the article does not confirm a death. The transition from jail to private abductors is not treated as safe physical release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n125-NAT-may-25-1935-DW-Q.pdf

The English supplement reports that a search of Selma had found no trace of Foster after his May 19 arrest and disappearance. His friends feared murder and a hidden body, but the report does not confirm death. It identifies his purpose as investigating the kidnapping and beating of Robert Washington. The police chief’s reported release claim is not treated as safe release from restraint or used to erase the existing account of transfer to armed abductors. Source: https://www.spauda2.org/laisve/archive/1935/1935-06-14-LAISVE.pdf#page=3