Biography
LeRoy Nathaniel Bundy was a dentist and the principal Black political organizer in East St. Louis, Illinois at the time of the July 2, 1917 race massacre. The state authorities, declining to prosecute most white attackers, charged Bundy with conspiring to lead a Black "mob" that allegedly sparked the riot. Convicted March 28, 1919 in Waterloo, Illinois on testimony from Edward Wilson who himself admitted Bundy had not participated; sentenced to life imprisonment. Served one year, working as a dentist inside the prison, before the Illinois Supreme Court reversed his conviction (one juror declared insane; coercion of witnesses; insufficient evidence). Moved to Cleveland, earned law degree at Western Reserve, became prominent UNIA leader.
W. E. B. Du Bois's retrospective account in the November 1922 Crisis describes the NAACP defense arrangements, naming Charles Nagel, Edward O. Brown, Webb & Zerwick, Thomas N. Webb and Homer G. Phillips. It reports that the defense obtained a change of venue and release on bail, and reproduces an April 5, 1918 branch letter describing Bundy as already at liberty on bond. This documents an interruption in pretrial custody before the later conviction; it gives no exact bail-release day. The article is also an adversarial account of a dispute over defense finances and political conduct, so its accusations are attributed to Du Bois rather than treated as new judicial findings. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/civil-rights/crisis/1100-crisis-v25n01-w145.pdf#page=19
