Biography
Mary Dalton was a twenty-year-old National Textile Workers' Union organizer. Mary Dalton was held in Fulton Tower Prison from May 21 to July 8, 1930, on the Atlanta insurrection charge before being released on ILD bail. In the spring of 1930 the state of Georgia revived an 1861 anti-slave-insurrection statute to charge a group of Communist and labor organizers with "attempting to incite insurrection" — a capital offense — for organizing Black and white workers into the same unions and leading demonstrations of Atlanta's unemployed. Held without bail in the Fulton Tower Prison and threatened with the electric chair, the "Atlanta Six" became one of the ILD's signature free-speech defenses; the insurrection charges were eventually beaten.
The Daily Worker of September 10, 1930 reports that a separate trial was opening that day over Dalton’s interruption of an American Federation of Labor president William Green speech, ahead of the insurrection proceedings.
The Daily Worker of March25,1931 reports a separate Chattanooga arrest on February10 during an unemployed demonstration. Dalton,HarryGordon and ElizabethLawson faced vagrancy and incitement-to-riot charges; Gordon and Dalton also faced a lewdness accusation alleging that they lived together unmarried. Attorney GeorgeW.Chamlee obtained postponement of their trial to March31. This is separate from Dalton’s1930Atlanta case.
In James S. Allen’s Organizing in the Depression South (published 2001, preface dated January 1984), Allen recalls the February 10, 1931 Chattanooga unemployment demonstration and his observation of the arrests of Gordon, Dalton and Elizabeth (Elsa) Lawson. He says they spent two months jailed under high bail pending a four-day trial. They were acquitted except for inciting to riot, for which fines were later reversed on appeal. Blocking traffic was among the accusations; lewdness concerned Gordon and Dalton only. The memoir supplies reported pretrial service and outcome, without an exact physical-release day. In this Chattanooga account the memoir calls Gordon Hy; the earlier contemporary report names Harry Gordon. Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/allen/organizing-south.pdf#page=67
The Atlanta report describes the six labor organizers held under the insurrection prosecution. It names Brady, subsequently explicitly identified as Herbert Newton, and Storey as Black organizers, alongside Dalton, Burlak, Powers and Carr. The May 21 raid was above a grocery store during ANLC organizing. The capital penalty was threatened exposure, not a conviction. Daily Worker, May 24, 1930, page 5. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v06-n379-NY-may-24-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The May 24 Atlanta article recalls an earlier arrest of Mary Dalton for questioning AFL president William Green during a visit months before. This earlier meeting arrest is separate from the May 21 insurrection raid; precise dates, statutory charge and release are unprinted. Daily Worker, May 24, 1930, page 5. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v06-n379-NY-may-24-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The June 6 Atlanta account describes Fulton Tower confinement, with Carr on murderers’ row and the Black defendants separated and denied visitors. It explicitly links Brady with Herbert Newton. These reported jail conditions concern the existing insurrection prosecution; death or twenty-five years remained potential penalties. Daily Worker, June 7, 1930, page 5. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n137-NY-jun-07-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The Atlanta account reports searches and confiscation of books and mail around June 8–9, restricted attorney access, and delayed or taken meals for the Black defendants. A proposed soundproof cell is a threat, not evidence that such confinement had already occurred. Daily Worker, June 14, 1930, page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n143-NY-jun-14-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The June 7, 1930 New Leader Atlanta report by Walter Wilson calls her Mary Dalton, twenty, while Norman Thomas's page 1 column quotes a May 31 United Press dispatch calling her Mamie Dalton and linking her prosecution to questioning AFL president William Green. Wilson reports support for defense of the Atlanta defendants by teacher-union president Mary Barker, trades-federation secretary Karl Karston and labor editor Jerome Jones. The issue's variant name and references to a possible capital penalty do not establish a different person, a death sentence, or new custody dates. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-leader/1930/v10n18-jun-07-1930-NL.pdf#page=3
Atlanta Six: first-person custody recollection
In her first-person account published in the Daily Worker on October 10, 1935, page 5, Mary Dalton recalled detention with Ann Burlak in Fulton Tower and said that after about two months all six defendants were released on bail. This is a retrospective, approximate description, not a dated discharge record; it does not establish a sixty-day term or an exact release date for each defendant. Her account also dates the first Carr-Powers arrest April 21, 1930, whereas the existing chronology records March activity. That discrepancy remains unresolved, and the existing arrest and custody dates have not been replaced from this account. The threatened death penalty and the pending insurrection prosecution were not an imposed death sentence.
Completed July 8 bail release and pending prosecution
A July 9 Atlanta dispatch in the July 10, 1930 Daily Worker individually names M. H. Powers, Joseph Carr and Mary Dalton as released on bail Tuesday from Fulton Towers Prison. Tuesday in that dated dispatch is July 8, 1930, an already completed departure rather than a promised bail order or the publication day. It says they were the last three of the six defendants to leave and that bail was reduced to $3,000 each. The named Atlanta prosecution, co-defendants and organizing roles identify Joseph Carr as the Joe Carr in this profile, not the unrelated IWW defendant Joe Carroll. A separate paragraph identifies Fulton County assistant solicitor John Hudson as insisting the insurrection cases would be prosecuted and threatening to seek the death penalty; that is a reported prosecuting role and future demand, not an imposed death sentence. The September trial is likewise an announcement, not proof that a trial occurred then. Dalton’s July 8 release is already recorded and is not changed or counted again. This source adds the prosecutor identification and contemporaneous bail context, not another imprisonment episode.
Daily Worker, July 10, 1930, original pages 1. Contemporary allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
Page 1 reports prosecutor John A. Hudson planning to revive the Atlanta Six insurrection prosecution after the state decision against Herndon. Threats of the electric chair are threatened exposure, not a new death sentence or proof of a fresh arrest.
