Biography
Luis Castro Quesada was president of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party’s local organization in Ponce. He helped arrange the March 21, 1937 parade commemorating the abolition of slavery and protesting the imprisonment of Nationalist leaders. Municipal and police officials revoked permission shortly before the march, and police fire killed civilians and wounded many others in the Ponce Massacre. Castro Quesada was among the Nationalists subsequently prosecuted for the deaths of two policemen. He was confined at La Princesa in San Juan while the murder case was pending, and remained a defendant when the case was tried in February 1938.
The September 21, 1937 New Masses editorial individually lists this defendant among ten Nationalists then facing the Ponce murder trial and reports that the group had been imprisoned for six months in La Princesa under collective bail totaling $250,000. This is a contemporary approximate custody-to-date report, not a completed six-month sentence, exact admission date, individual bail amount or final conviction. Its description of a hand-picked jury and government campaign is the editorial’s allegation. The existing prosecution is retained without a duplicate case. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1937/v24n13-sep-21-1937-NM.pdf#page=18