Ollie Dawson

AKA: Ollie Dorson
Released
Date of death:03. 02. 1931
Gender:Male
Race:Black
Era:1930s
State:Virginia
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Biography

Ollie Dawson, also recorded as Ollie Dorson, was a Black laborer prosecuted in Princess Anne County, Virginia, for the murder of James T. Howe. He was arrested in December 1930 and held in the Norfolk jail, where labor organizer Archie Gibbs was confined nearby. Gibbs’s account in the Labor Defender condemned the prosecution and the speed of the trial. Dawson was sentenced to death and electrocuted at the state penitentiary in Richmond on February 3, 1931.

Case

Charges: Murder (conviction denounced by the ILD as a frame-up)
Arrested: December 1930
Sentence: Death sentence; electrocuted at the state penitentiary in Richmond on February 3, 1931.
Judge: B. D. White
Convicted: Yes

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