Biography
Lowell Alvin Wakefield was a Washington labor journalist and the International Labor Defense’s first Southern organizer. He helped bring national attention to the Scottsboro prosecution in 1931 and organized legal defense for Black and white workers in Alabama. Birmingham police arrested him on August 12, 1931, during raids against Communist organizers; he was jailed during that campaign. Returning to Seattle, he founded and edited the Voice of Action. On July 31, 1935, King County authorities indicted Wakefield and staff member Emerson Daggett for criminal libel after five American Federation of Labor officials complained about the newspaper’s reporting during the Northwest lumber strike. Wakefield later established a major Alaska king-crab fishing business.
A Birmingham dispatch dated August 16, 1931 reports Wakefield’s release the previous day after forty-eight hours in jail for investigation, without charges. The original image confirms hours where the extracted text is incomplete. This supplies an August 15 release and two documented days, while retaining the discrepancy with the previously recorded August 12 arrest rather than inventing a new intake date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n197-NY-aug-17-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The page4 ILD statement retrospectively cites Wakefield’s Birmingham jailing as part of repression of defense organizing. It supplies no fresh arrest or proof of renewed custody and does not override the documented August15 release.
