Biography
Ned Cobb was a Black Alabama tenant farmer who joined the Share Croppers' Union in 1931. During the December 19, 1932 confrontation at Reeltown, union members resisted the seizure of a neighbor's livestock. Cobb was wounded and subsequently jailed. He was tried at Dadeville before Judge William B. Bowling in 1933 on an assault-with-intent-to-murder charge and sentenced to twelve to fifteen years in the Alabama penitentiary. He left prison in 1945 and returned to farming. His recorded recollections formed Theodore Rosengarten's oral history All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw; Nate Shaw was the pseudonym used for Cobb in the book.
A letter signed by Viola Cobb of Alabama in the January 1936 Labor Defender, page 19 (PDF page 20), describes visiting her imprisoned husband Ned, then serving fifteen years. She thanks the International Labor Defense for money sent to him and Christmas assistance to the family. This documents his wife's visit and family support, without supplying a precise visit date or a different sentence.
Daily Worker, December 18, 1936, page 5: The article describes his eight children, the family’s reliance on International Labor Defense help and the shoes and other Christmas assistance sent in 1934 and 1935 while Ned remained imprisoned. The reported three years in confinement is approximate contemporary wording, not a new exact service total. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n303-XX-dec-18-1936-DW-Q.pdf
The December 26, 1932 Daily Worker explicitly names him among Dadeville prisoners interviewed by ILD attorney Frank B. Irwin after his Thursday, December 22 arrival with Mrs. E. M. Cooper. Cooper was denied access, and sheriffs attended and took notes during the interviews. The article says ten prisoners but lists nine names; no missing identity or additional custody endpoint is invented. Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/herndon/1932/dec-26-1932-DW.pdf#page=3
Allen’s memoir describes Cobb’s attempt to dissuade the sheriff from seizing Cliff James’s work animals and says he was shot in the back as he turned toward the cabin. It reports twelve years actually spent in prison and identifies him as the Nate Shaw of Theodore Rosengarten’s oral history. The recalled twelve years is preserved as the memoir’s statement, without replacing the separately documented sentence or year of release or inventing an exact day count. Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/allen/organizing-south.pdf#page=87
The January 19, 1933 Dadeville dispatch reports a preliminary hearing the preceding day before Judge Oliver: five Reeltown defendants were held for the grand jury under $750 bail each. Cobb was accused of shooting Clifford Elder and the others of accessory involvement. The defense named Frank B. Irwin and Irving Schwab. This preliminary judge is not substituted for the later trial judge, and the collective account supplies no individual jail intake or discharge. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v010-n017-NY-jan-20-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The May 2, 1933 Daily Worker reports that the five Reeltown defendants were then confined in the Alabama state penitentiary under long sentences after the Dadeville trial. The defense account describes Cobb shot three times in the back and Simpson wounded at home, his wife struck with a pistol butt, and corroboration by niece Susie Mae Cotton. It identifies Simpson as Cliff James’s brother-in-law and disputes his presence at the cabin. No exact transfer day or complete actual duration is supplied. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v010-n105-NY-scct-one-may-02-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The June 25, 1975 MANAS review of All God’s Dangers, using his established pseudonym Nate Shaw, reports that he served the full twelve-year term and refused parole conditioned on leaving his home area for Birmingham. It places his release in 1945. This reported service is distinct from the separately recorded twelve-to-fifteen-year sentence; no exact discharge day is inferred. Source: https://www.manasjournal.org/pdf_library/VolumeXXVIII_1975/XXVIII-26.pdf#page=1
The Reeltown prisoner feature describes Cobb’s damaged eye, deteriorating health, wife Viola and eight children. It gives twelve and a half to fifteen years on four assault-with-intent-to-murder counts, a sentencing formulation differing from the existing twelve-to-fifteen-year account. Neither is entered as actual time served. Daily Worker, December 17, 1935, original PDF page 6. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n303-NY-dec-17-DW-Q.pdf#page=6
The January 18, 1933 Dadeville bulletin places this defendant among five held for the grand jury on assault-to-murder charges and sets bail at $750 each (verified on the native page; OCR misreads $150). It says Black spectators were barred while 300 sympathetic white sharecroppers attended and names defense attorneys Schwab and Irwin. Bail being set is not proof of posting or release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n02-feb-1933-lab-def.pdf#page=5
The December 26 report names these detained Tallapoosa sharecroppers while describing the ILD’s attempts to locate and visit the prisoners. It differentiates Dadeville, Montgomery and Tuskegee locations rather than assigning every individual to all three. It supplies no new arrest or complete actual duration. Daily Worker, December 26, 1932, original PDF page 3. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n308-NY-dec-26-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The original PDF’s second page, headed July 29, 1933, reports transfer of these sharecroppers to Speigner prison. The other pages are headed July 31. Its description of a previous prison shooting is institutional context and does not establish that these three were individually shot. The transfer is not a new arrest. Daily Worker, July 31, 1933 (PDF page 2: July 29), original PDF page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n182-NY-jul-31-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
Labor Defender, March 1935, PDF page 22: Viola Cobb’s Christmas letter says she received $10 for herself and five dollars each for Ned Cobb, Judson Simpson and Clinton Moss and delivered the men’s money orders. It corroborates prisoner-relief support in the existing sharecroppers case without new custody endpoints. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1935/v11n03-mar-1935-orig-LD.pdf#page=22
Benjamin Goldstein's July 1933 Labor Defender account of the Dadeville trial reports Cobb's testimony that a deputy threatened to return with reinforcements, that Cobb waited at the house for five hours, and that he was shot in the back as he turned toward the house. This is the contemporary defense account of his testimony. The accompanying photograph identifies his wife and eight of nine children; that caption differs from later accounts describing eight children and is retained as a source variation, without changing a family-size field or custody dates. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n07-jul-1933-lab-def.pdf#page=15
Rabbi Benjamin Goldstein’s firsthand Dadeville trial account says Cobb testified he remained at the home five hours after a deputy’s threat and was shot in the back while turning into the house. The account identifies wife and eight of nine children in a family photograph; it is not a photograph of Cobb himself. His straightforward testimony, Goldstein reports, gained sympathy among white farmers. Existing individual sentence and dates are retained. Page15. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n07-jul-1933-lab-def.pdf
Labor Defender, January 1936; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The ILD appeal describes Viola Cobb and seven-year-old Nancy among nine children struggling to farm while their father served a fifteen-year Alabama chain-gang sentence following the December 1932 Reeltown defense of Cliff James’s home and livestock. Viola and the Reeltown context identify the existing Ned Cobb case; the nine-child count is retained as this account’s wording, rather than silently replacing an earlier source’s eight. No new detention or release endpoint is supplied.
The Tallapoosa report names Judge William B. Bowling and gives Ned Cobb a twelve-to-fifteen-year sentence. It says nineteen were indicted and five tried, following earlier habeas corpus releases after the December 1932 arrests. This corroborates the nominal range but does not establish uninterrupted custody or a completed service total.
The January 9 Birmingham dispatch individually names him among five sharecroppers still jailed after the December 19 Reeltown confrontation. ILD attorney Frank B. Irwin refused the prosecutor’s request to waive preliminary hearings and insisted on the scheduled Wednesday hearing. Other unnamed arrestees had been freed; that collective release is explicitly not assigned to these five. No new sentence or custody endpoint is established.
