Biography
Solomon Harper was a labor organizer, and famed inventor who created the electric hair roller along with over two dozen other inventions. He organized with the American Negro Labor Congress and International Labor Defense and belonged to the Workers Ex-Servicemen's League. In 1930, police arrested and beat him after he called for prosecution against the people responsible for lynching Georgia Pullman porter J. H. Wilkins at a Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters meeting in New York. He was charged with inciting-to-riot and disorderly-conduct and received a three-month jail sentence. After his release he continued campaigning against lynching and for unemployment relief and veterans' benefits.
The July 4 report says Harper was released yesterday from Harts Island after actually serving the three-month sentence for anti-lynching activity. July 3 is derived from that explicit relative day. The earlier April 11 arrest precedes his April 18 sentence; the stated three-month service is preserved as contemporary wording rather than inferring uninterrupted custody from arrest. Daily Worker, July 4, 1930, page 3. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n160-NY-jul-04-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 2 lists Sol Harper among the sponsors of the Harlem united-front Scottsboro emergency conference at St. Luke’s Hall. This documents continued defense organizing after his earlier imprisonment, not a new arrest or detention. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n251-not-252-NAT-oct-19-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
The September 29,1930 Daily Worker, page 1, identifies Sol Harper as a Crusader News Agency representative investigating the September 20 police killing of Mitchell Gray at 2943 Indiana Avenue, Chicago. Harper reported no pipe-cutting tools found on Gray and no pipes cut, challenging the police theft account. Page 4 also recalls Harper’s arrest and imprisonment in New York in anti-lynching agitation connected with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. These reports add journalism and defense context; they supply no exact new custody endpoints. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n234-NY-sep-29-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The August 14 account individually identifies him among seven people actually arrested at the previous night’s Harlem street meeting. This is a separate August 1929 arrest; the report does not measure the complete detention or give a physical discharge day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n136-NY-aug-14-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The April 15 report identifies Sol Harper and Rose Kelley as defendants after Harper tried to speak against the John H. Wilkins lynching at a Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters meeting and Kelley tried to protect him from police. It reports inciting-to-riot and disorderly-conduct complaints, with trial postponed to April 17. Later April 17 and 18 reports continue the same proceeding; no new arrest is inferred. Daily Worker, April 15, 1930, original PDF page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v06-n345-NY-apr-15-1930-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The April 24 report says Sol Harper received a three-month sentence in the anti-lynching meeting prosecution. This supplements the earlier postponed-trial reports; the imposed term is not counted as three months actually completed. Daily Worker, April 24, 1930, original PDF page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v06-n353-NY-apr-24-1930-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
Daily Worker, October 19, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Two reports in the November 3, 1934 Daily Worker describe Sol Harper addressing the protest outside Governor Lehman’s Thursday-night meeting at St. Mark’s Church in Harlem. The shorter account says Harper was arrested; the parallel longer account says police gave him a summons for using a loudspeaker without a permit. Thursday is November 1 in this issue’s chronology, but the conflicting arrest-versus-summons wording does not establish a new period of jail confinement, a physical admission or discharge, or its duration. The earlier, separately documented 1929 and 1930 imprisonments are not conflated with this report.
