Biography
Rafael Gomez was a coal miner and labor activist in Gallup, New Mexico. He began working at nine and later worked in a Texas restaurant, for a Los Angeles gas company and in metal and coal mines. He joined the National Miners Union during the 1933 Gallup strike and served on its picket line. He also belonged to the International Labor Defense and Unemployed Councils. In 1934 he was a strike-committee member and picket captain during a Federal Emergency Relief Administration workers' strike. Authorities arrested him after the April 4, 1935, Gallup confrontation in which Sheriff M. R. Carmichael and two miners were killed. Charged with murder and aiding a prisoner's escape, he was held under $7,500 bond. The jury acquitted him of murder in October, but he remained jailed on the aiding-escape charge under $2,500 bond. He also faced deportation to Spain.
Page 1’s May 10 Santa Fe dispatch individually identifies this Gallup defendant as $7,500 murder bail; Liga Obrera and Spanish Workers Dramatic Club member. It describes fourteen workers held in the state penitentiary death-house area awaiting trial, ten on first-degree murder accusations and four on escape accusations. Pretrial placement in that area does not mean a death sentence was imposed. Bail set does not establish bail posting; later dispositions in the existing record remain distinct. Page 8 calls for trade-union defense. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n113-NAT-may-11-1935-DW-Q.pdf
Page 8 individually names this defendant among seven acquitted of murdering Sheriff M. R. Carmichael in the Gallup case. The same report explicitly says all seven were immediately remanded to jail for inability to furnish $2,000 bond on the separate accusation of aiding and abetting a prisoner’s escape. Acquittal of murder therefore is not entered as physical release. Printed Augustine Cavillo, Gregory Correa and Rafael Gomez are retained as contemporary roster variants of the matched existing defendants; the report supplies no individual actual discharge or completed service. Source: https://newspapers.swco.ttu.edu/bitstreams/34268242-ac0d-472e-8d03-7eb5b704a2c0/download
The October 20 Santa Fe dispatch identifies this acquitted Gallup defendant among the three for whom habeas corpus proceedings were being started to prevent deportation. Printed Correo/Gregario variants refer to the existing Correa defendants. The planned legal step is not an order granting freedom or proof of actual discharge. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n253-NAT-oct-21-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=1
Page 4 reports the Denver conference's resolution to Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins protesting attempts to deport Gregorio and Victorio Correa and Rafael Gomez to Mexico after their Gallup trial acquittals. It records threatened immigration removal, not an executed deportation, and does not equate acquittal with discharge from the separately reported escape proceedings. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n263-NAT-oct-31-1935-DW-Q.pdf
Philip Stevenson’s biographical installment explicitly distinguishes Rafael from Altagracia Gomez and identifies his escape-charge and threatened Spain-deportation proceedings after murder acquittal. He quit the Allison mine after receiving only five dollars for five days clearing a cave-in, joined the 1933 National Miners Union pickets, declined nomination as unemployed-local chairman and served as a 1934 FERA strike-committee member and picket captain. This updates the existing Gallup identity and employment history; deportation and foreign punishment remained prospective. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n250-NAT-oct-18-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=5
Daily Worker, April 25, 1935, pages 1–2: The April 24 Santa Fe report individually lists this Gallup defendant among ten bound over after the preliminary murder hearing, among six held under an aggregate $45,000 bail; no individual allocation is supplied here. It reports murder accusations dismissed against thirty-eight of the original forty-eight and four other defendants retained under $500 bail on prisoner-escape accusations. Its overlapping reference to the ten as held for assisting escape is preserved as the report's wording, without replacing the later individualized charging and trial history. The paper alleges deputy gunfire killed the sheriff and miners; that account is attributed. Continued detention, not a final imposed sentence or exact discharge, is established. Three unnamed released defendants reportedly were immediately seized for deportation; those unnamed transfers are not assigned to this person. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n099-NAT-apr-25-1935-DW-Q.pdf
Gallup jail-start date
An appeal dated September 24, 1935 at New Mexico State Prison, Santa Fe, and printed on October 1, individually lists Rafael Gomez among its ten signatories. The prisoners state that they have been jailed since April 4, 1935. This first-person custody statement supports recording April 4 as the beginning of confinement in the Gallup case. It does not establish a physical release date, a completed sentence or present-day custody. The scheduled October trial is not used as release.
Daily Worker, October 1, 1935, original PDF pages 1–2, especially the complete signed appeal on page 2. Some page 1 text is damaged in the surviving scan; the date and signatures on page 2 are legible and were checked visually.
Contemporary Gallup defense account
Described as single and member of the ILD and Unemployment Council. The group containing this name is described as held on $7,500 murder bond. The pamphlet says all ten also faced aiding-escape allegations with an additional $1,000 bond. The printed roster actually contains nine names despite referring to ten defendants and “these four” before listing only three in the first group. No missing individual is supplied by inference. These early bail conditions are distinct from later post-trial bonds; neither the bail amount nor the advocacy account establishes a release or time served.
Louis Colman, Night Riders in Gallup (1935), pages 3, 11–12.
Daily Worker, May 11, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, October 31, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, April 25, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
