Biography
Robert Washington was a Black organizer and local International Labor Defense leader in Alabama. Police jailed him after raiding an ILD picnic outside Birmingham on September 6, 1934. In May 1935, Selma police detained him on vagrancy charges during repression of sharecroppers' organizing. When he left the jail, eight armed men seized him, drove him into the country and flogged him unconscious. In 1936, Birmingham police arrested him for driving a car with defective brakes. The traffic court imposed 180 days on a chain gang and a $100 fine, but he spent eight days in the city jail before the ILD obtained his release on $300 bail pending appeal.
Daily Worker, September 8, 1934: Page 1 reports from Birmingham on September 7 that county police threatened an ILD picnic outside the city with machine guns the previous day and jailed him with another Black worker identified only as Henderson. Both were held without filed charges. These details support the existing September 6, 1934 case; no new arrest or eventual release is inferred. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n216-sep-08-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Daily Worker, May 24, 1935: Page 3’s Selma May 23 dispatch identifies him and John Foster as two Black militants sent from Birmingham to investigate repression. Washington was arrested on Friday after going to the sheriff’s office to recover a car seized in the preceding Sunday raid. He was still held in Selma City jail on vagrancy and aggravated disorderly-conduct charges. This account does not give his release or establish the four-day detention stated in an existing retrospective record; those accounts are retained without calculating a continuous custody span. The enlarged original confirms Robert, not an OCR reading of John. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n124-NAT-may-24-1935-DW-Q.pdf
Page 5’s May 7 Birmingham dispatch confirms release on $300 bail supplied by the ILD after eight days of city-jail abuse, pending appeal of 180 chain-gang days and a $100 fine for defective brakes. Officer Mosher allegedly produced no seized red literature, so the additional Downs-law literature allegation collapsed. After sentencing Washington was put in the jail garage and examined daily by the red squad. The enlarged original names traffic judge T. Skinner and describes a usual $5 fine. Eight days are actual reported custody; 180 days are the imposed sentence, and no exact physical release day is inferred from the dispatch date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n111-NY-May-08-1936-DW-Q.pdf
