Biography
Okey Odell led the Hardin County onion workers strike and presided over its newly chartered union. Jamieson reports that he was arrested and held in the sheriff’s barracks after an August 1934 bombing, then seized by a mob and driven to the county line, beaten and threatened with lynching. The source also reports a later assault-with-intent-to-kill and firearms conviction, upheld in fall 1935, carrying ninety days in jail, a $100 fine and $1,100 costs. The barracks detention is actual custody; the later ninety-day sentence is not entered as time actually served. Exact custody endpoints and total duration are unknown. Source: Stuart Jamieson, Labor Unionism in American Agriculture, Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin 836 (1946), physical pages 387–389, printed pages ten lower; SHA256 ad6e201117c1a456cf2f4ff4fe09fa567bab099a1e919a7a3150ca82ed37960e
