Biography
Norma Martin directed Workers International Relief efforts during the Kentucky coal strike of 1932. Officers arrested her in the January 4 raid on the National Miners Union headquarters in Pineville. At the preliminary hearing, she testified about the miners’ hunger and the repression of their organizing. She was held on criminal-syndicalism charges while the International Labor Defense organized the defense and miners demonstrated for the prisoners’ release. On March 28, she was released on bond with five other prisoners, after 84 days in custody.
The January 5, 1932 Daily Worker names the nine organizers arrested when deputies raided National Miners Union headquarters in Pineville at 10 a.m. January 4. They were actually jailed under $5,000 bond each on criminal-syndicalism accusations. The announced hearing was prospective. Printed variants include Kamenovich, Michaelson, Norman Martins, Marguerite Fontaine and Julio Parker; these are matched to the established cohort without duplicate profiles or changes to later individually documented releases. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n004-NY-jan-05-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The January 7, 1932 issue reports Vern Smith telephoning from Pineville county jail on January 6, with the nine still held. Miners guarded the jail against a threatened kidnapping after a January 5 protest march. The hearing was postponed to January 7; neither a kidnapping nor the eventual hearing outcome is established here. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n006-NY-jan-07-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The March 2, 1932 issue reports a March 1 grand-jury indictment of the January 4 cohort, Doris Parks, Frank Mason and Gilbert Green. Its collective claim that all nine were still jailed is unreliable for individual custody endpoints: Clarina Michelson has a separately documented February 14 physical release to a Knoxville hospital. That release is retained, with no inferred March rearrest; the report also explicitly describes Parks as arrested later than January 4. Threatened maximum penalties are not imposed sentences or time served. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n053-NY-mar-02-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The March 14, 1932 Kentucky defense report describes continuing jail conditions, restricted mail and counsel, and Dorothy Weber’s serious influenza. It explicitly places Vern Smith, Ann Barton and Doris Parks in Harlan County jail after transfer from Pineville; transfer is not release. The January 4 list and later-arriving prisoners are distinguished, and a May 26 trial date and proposed bond financing remain prospective. Existing individually verified discharge dates are retained, without assigning every later detainee the January 4 arrest or a particular facility. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n062-NY-mar-14-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5
A separate earlier episode appears in the August 17, 1931 Daily Worker: Pittsburgh WIR secretary Norma Martin was arrested while joining children collecting miners’ relief and was explicitly released after appearing in court Sunday morning. Her role and organization identify the existing relief organizer. This is distinct from her longer 1932 Pineville imprisonment; the 1931 report does not quantify her hours in jail. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n197-NY-aug-17-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The March chronology lists these people as actually arrested in the National Miners Union office raid and held under $5,000 bond on criminal-syndicalism charges. Its January 4 heading conflicts with the January 7 date in other reports; the discrepancy is retained without assigning a new exact arrest field. Warrants for other organizers are not treated as executed arrests; no precise physical discharge or complete duration is established. Daily Worker, March 12, 1932, original PDF page 3. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n061-NY-mar-12-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The March 28 Pineville dispatch individually named these six Kentucky-Tennessee coal-strike activists as released on bond that day. It separately reported Vern Smith and Doris Parks still held in Harlan County jail. Daily Worker, March 29, 1932, original PDF page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n075-NY-mar-29-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
Douglas McDonald's eyewitness account in the February 20, 1932 Daily Worker describes the six women defendants sharing two tiny rooms with other prisoners in Pineville, sleeping four to a bed, drying stockings over a small stove and supplementing poor jail food with vegetables supplied by supporters. They sent letters, telegrams and protests to newspapers, officials and defense organizations. The account describes the January 12 hearing, delays beyond the prescribed seventy-two hours, exclusion and searching of miners seeking to observe, and a missing original warrant replaced during the proceedings. These conditions concern the existing January headquarters-raid prosecution; no additional admission, release date or measured custody total is inferred. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n044-NY-feb-20-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
Vern Smith’s account, written from Bell County Jail, says deputies raided the National Miners Union headquarters at 105 Virginia Avenue, Pineville, on January 4, 1932 and seized union and ILD cards, dues books and defense literature. It individually names Norma Martin among those arrested inside. Smith says the seized literature was the prosecution’s evidence and describes the defendants being held for a grand jury after an examining hearing, with aggregate bail of $93,000. These are his attributed defense account and preliminary proceedings, not a final conviction or a newly established release date.
Labor Defender, February 1932, printed 28–29, 35 (PDF 8, 9, 14).
The Kentucky-Tennessee Strike narrative individually places this defendant in Pineville jail after the January 4 headquarters arrests. It describes crowded quarters, women sleeping four to a bed, delayed hearings, missing/replaced warrants and prosecutors using union and relief literature as criminal-syndicalism evidence. The January 12 hearing narrative and January 13 grand-jury referral are retained without turning the threatened twenty-one-year maximum into an imposed or served term. Later independently established releases are not overwritten.
