Biography
Leonard Brown was a Black seaman and member of the Marine Workers League in New Orleans. Police arrested him and branch secretary John S. Morgan at the league's headquarters on November 26, 1929, confiscating union newspapers and leaflets. Brown was sentenced to twenty days in jail and a $25 fine and had begun serving the term by December 2. The International Labor Defense and attorney R. A. Darling secured the release of the four league defendants, including Brown, and dismissal of the charges by December 25.
The December 2 report describes twenty-day terms and $25 fines imposed in the New Orleans Marine Workers League crackdown after the November 26, 1929 arrests. A later report records the sedition case dropped and release by December 25. The twenty-day penalty is not substituted for complete actual custody. Daily Worker, December 2, 1929, original PDF page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n230-NY-dec-02-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The December 25 New Orleans dispatch reports ILD secretary Stephen H. Allison’s announcement that all four recently arrested defendants had been released from jail, their charges dropped and their bondsmen freed of obligations through the work of attorney R. A. Darling and the ILD. It names Victor Aaronson, William Davids, Leonard Brown and John S. Morgan. This is a release-by-December-25 bound, not proof of a December 25 discharge day. Aaronson and Davids are the spellings in this report; no duplicate profile is created.
The seamen-defense article individually names Victor Aronson, William J. Davids, John Morgan and Leonard Brown in the New Orleans arrests and rearrests, and says all four faced a sedition accusation based on the November Labor Defender and union leaflets. The account supplies no individual new booking or discharge day; generic rearrest wording is not split into invented additional episodes. Independently documented December release evidence is preserved. The accompanying photograph shows seamen in a German port, not these defendants.
