Biography
Levon Carlock was a young Black Memphis worker whose killing by police became the focus of an International Labor Defense campaign. A March 1, 1933 Memphis dispatch reports that six patrolmen beat and tortured him on the preceding Saturday morning after a rape accusation, then shot him repeatedly and claimed he had attempted escape. That relative chronology dates the killing February 25. His sixteen-year-old widow Eula May Carlock appealed for action; the report describes organizing committees and an effort to investigate and prosecute the officers, who remained on duty. These are attributed contemporary allegations, not a later adjudicated finding. No formal jail booking, criminal trial or measured duration of police restraint is documented. Source: Daily Worker, March 2, 1933, page 1, https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v010-n052-NY-mar-02-1933-DW-LOC.pdf
The March 1933 Labor Defender account explicitly describes Carlock handcuffed under police control before the February 25 Memphis killing. It names witness Fannie Henderson, whose affidavit alleged officers beat his neck, took him into an alley and fired four times while he lay on the ground. The article reports a ten-minute coroner inquiry ruling the killing justified on an asserted resistance/escape rationale, while his widow Eula May was excluded. These remain attributed witness and newspaper accounts, not a later judicial finding. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n03-mar-1933-lab-def.pdf#page=13
Printed Leven Carlock in the 1933 lynching list, he is described beaten, tortured and shot while handcuffed in Memphis under a rape accusation. This corroborates police restraint in the existing case; the list supplies only February, not an exact additional date.
