Biography
Oral James was a young conscientious objector from St. Louis — one of two youths the future ACLU founder Roger Baldwin had looked after there — who refused military service of any kind during World War I. Court-martialed, he was imprisoned at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, where he led a strike protesting the treatment of objectors.
Maurice Becker's 1925 lithograph is captioned Oral James States the Case for 2,000 Striking Prisoners—Leavenworth, Jan. 1919. This dates the represented prison-strike role to January 1919 without establishing a specific admission or release day. The separate William Oral James database entry is an unresolved possible namesake/duplicate and is not automatically merged. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/culture/pubs/wm/highres/v4n08-jun-1925-6-gra-WM.pdf#page=15
