Biography
Russell Gordon was a thirteen-year-old Black boy jailed at Norfolk, Virginia. A June 8 dispatch published in the June 15, 1933 Daily Worker alleges that officers browbeat him into signing a confession to a rape accusation, describing him as bewildered and tearful in jail. The International Labor Defense obtained attorney Ernest Merrill. These are the contemporary defense account’s allegations; exact arrest, admission, adjudication and physical discharge are not supplied, and no complete custody total is inferred. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v010-n143-NY-jun-15-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
Page 6’s September 26 Norfolk brief says the thirteen-year-old boy previously accused of rape had been saved from a death sentence by mass action organized by the ILD and now faced a new rape charge. The retrospective claim is attributed to the newspaper; it does not prove a prior death sentence was actually imposed or supply a new physical arrest date. The new accusation is retained as a separate prosecution without inferred custody. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n233-sep-28-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
The January 1934 Labor Defender includes Gordon, printed Russel, among defendants whose lives the defense campaign said it had saved, identifying a rape accusation at Norfolk. Saving his life is the defense report’s description and is not treated as a physical discharge or a measured jail interval. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1934/v10n01-jan-1934-lab-def.pdf#page=3
Labor Defender, August 1933, PDF page 20: Margaret Cowl’s defense-organizing article reports that Gordon’s Norfolk trial had been postponed and describes this as a defense victory. Postponement is a procedural development in the existing 1933 prosecution, not an acquittal or physical discharge. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n08-aug-1933-lab-def.pdf#page=20
The August 8 Norfolk dispatch printed August 9, 1933 reports dismissal that day of the rape accusation against the thirteen-year-old Gordon after the ILD defense challenged exclusion of Black jurors. It alleges that a judge urged a confession with death threats and that police fabricated footprint evidence. The headline describes him freed; the dismissal day is explicit, but a precise physical jail discharge and complete duration are not independently stated. This resolves the outcome of the existing 1933 prosecution and does not resolve the separate 1934 accusation. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n190-NY-aug-09-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The October 1933 Labor Defender explicitly reports that the thirteen-year-old Gordon, printed Russel, was freed on August 8 after the rape accusation was dismissed. It credits attorney Ernest Merrill's challenge to exclusion of Black jurors and the International Labor Defense campaign. This contemporary retrospective report establishes physical release in the 1933 prosecution; the separate 1934 accusation remains unresolved. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n09-oct-1933-lab-def.pdf#page=20
Sources
The annual review reports the thirteen-year-old Virginia defendant acquitted in the rape-accusation case after defense action. It gives no exact physical discharge day or complete service; no release is dated to publication.
Daily Worker, September 28, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
