Biography
K. Y. Hendricks, known as Red Hendricks, was a National Textile Workers Union defendant in the Gastonia strike prosecution. On October 21, 1929, he was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of police chief Orville F. Aderholt and sentenced to five to seven years. Released on bail during the appeal, he fled to the Soviet Union with other defendants. Hendricks returned to the United States in 1932, was arrested in New York, and was imprisoned in Raleigh under the Gastonia conviction. After his release, he resumed organizing in North Carolina and represented its workers at the Communist Party’s 1938 national convention.
Daily Worker, June 14, 1929, page 1: The June 13 bulletin prints K. Y. Handricks among thirteen Gastonia defendants charged with murder in amended complaints; fifty-eight others faced assault with intent to kill. Twenty-four unnamed prisoners had been released, but no strike leader or organizer was among them. These are initial changing accusations, not the October verdict or a release of this named person. Attorney Jimison had first interviewed the prisoners; Major Bulwinkle, the mill company attorney, directed the prosecution. He is identified as relief-store manager. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n084-NY-jun-14-1929-DW-LOC.pdf
The August 26, 1929 report names this defendant among the sixteen assembled for the Charlotte Gastonia trial before Judge M. V. Barnhill. It distinguishes nine Southern Loray workers from seven organizers and discusses the defense’s planned police-violence evidence. The allegations are attributed defense accounts. Trial appearance is not a new arrest or proof that a previously bailed defendant had been returned to jail; later convictions and individually established bail releases remain separate. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n146-NY-aug-26-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5
Daily Worker, December 28, 1929, pages 1–2: The seven convicted Gastonia defendants are individually named among the textile delegation attending the International Labor Defense convention in Pittsburgh. The report describes sentences up to twenty years while placing them in the traveling delegation. These are imposed terms, not actual continuous imprisonment through the convention; no new arrest or exact bail-release day is established. The paper prints the last name Hendricks on page 1 and Hendryx on page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-nat/v06-n253-NAT-dec-28-1929-DW-Q.pdf
In his signed prison autobiography, printed as K. Y. Hendryx, he describes two earlier formal arrests: a Shelby relief-collection arrest followed by physical release, and a separate sidewalk-speech arrest near the Manville-Jenckes office. He also recounts an assault by Tom Gilbert, who said he did not intend an arrest; that assault is not counted as a third formal jail case. His reported birth is July 4, 1900 at Piney Creek, North Carolina. The printed claim of arriving in Gastonia in 1929 followed by an eight-month job interval before the April strike is internally inconsistent and is not silently corrected into a dated event. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n122-NY-jul-29-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
The June 7, 1938 New Masses anniversary column reports that Red Hendricks was again organizing North Carolina workers after five years in prison and had spoken as their representative at the recent Communist Party national convention. The five years is the magazine's retrospective account, not an exact measured interval or a newly established release day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1938/v27n11-jun-07-1938-NM.pdf#page=3
A June 7, 1935 letter by Joe Harrison, reproduced in the March 21, 1947 hearing and authenticated by Fred Beal, explicitly places K. Y. Hendricks in State Prison at Raleigh at that time after his return from the Soviet Union and arrest in New York. The letter’s approximate recollection of that arrest as three years earlier does not establish a new exact arrest day or the total continuous time served. HUAC, Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities (regarding Leon Josephson and Samuel Liptzen), March 5 and 21, 1947; physical PDF pages 69. Source SHA256 5ba99a9dcf44209a81a6206303a54a4df94dcf6fc0fd9787293073c82665b8f7.
1920s custody review: The Daily Worker, November 1, 1929, page 1, reports under a Charlotte October 31 dateline that K. Y. Hendryx was released that day on $2,000 bond, the first Gastonia defendant bailed out. This dates the initial custody episode only; his separate 1932 return-to-custody case is unchanged.
The Raleigh dispatch dated August 20 reports that the North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the Gastonia convictions. It individually names Fred Beal, Clarence Miller, Louis McLaughlin, George Carter, William McGinnis, Joseph Harrison and K. Y. Hendricks, and gives 117 years as a collective sentence figure. Its continuation describes the ILD’s criticism of Judge Barnhill’s instructions and a proposed further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The collective term is not allocated to individual defendants or treated as actual service, and affirmance is not a new physical admission, discharge or exile endpoint. The source’s William McGinnis is matched by the same seven-defendant Gastonia case to the existing W. M. McGinnis record.
The Southern conference account identifies K. Y. (Red) Hendryx as a speaker facing a seven-year term and labels him in the right photographic inset. This is matched to the Gastonia defendant, rather than creating another Hendryx profile or assigning the event to the incomplete K. Y. Hendrix record. The sentence description is not actual time served.
Daily Worker, June 14, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
A Loray worker's account from Gaston County Jail
Under the heading A Striker's Ambition, the July 17, 1929 Daily Worker introduces a letter by K. Y. Hendryx, a Gastonia textile striker held in Gaston County Jail. He describes working in textile mills since age nine, joining the Loray strike on April 2, and being taken from bed to city hall before his confinement in the county jail on a murder charge. He denies committing a crime and says that, after release, he intends to devote his life to improving conditions for Southern textile workers. These are attributed statements in the newspaper, not independently established findings about the arrest. The letter gives no precise admission or release date or measured custody duration.
Daily Worker, July 17, 1929, original page 2. The complete article's editorial attribution is used; the surviving signature is only partially legible at the foot of its column.
Daily Worker, December 28, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
