Biography
Silas Coleman, a Black World War veteran, was lured into a car on a pretext of collecting money and taken into the countryside by Black Legion members on May 26, 1935, according to the account attributed to Dayton Dean. Harvey Davis shot him; the men chased him firing into a swamp and left his body, found forty-eight hours later. The report documents fatal racist abduction, not a judicial prosecution of Coleman. The later confession and accusations are attributed, and body-discovery delay is not counted as time in custody. New Masses, August 11, 1936, original PDF page 22. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1936/v20n07-aug-11-1936-NM.pdf#page=22
Howard Boldt’s review of George Morris’s Black Legion pamphlet quotes Dayton Dean describing Coleman lured on a promised trip to collect thirteen dollars in back wages, taken to a cottage and then a swamp near Pinckney, and shot by Black Legion men. This is attributed testimony reproduced through a pamphlet review, not a second custody case or a newly established exact death day. The article gives only his surname and does not supply a new portrait.
