Tom Wilson (Communist district organizer)

Full name:Tom Wilson
Era:1930s
State:Alabama
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Biography

Tom Wilson was a Communist Party district organizer in Birmingham. Herndon saw police handcuff and take him away during the Labor Day meeting repression on September 1, 1930. A letter dated September 2, reproduced in the autobiography, says officers drove him about twenty-one miles out of town, burned him with lighted cigarettes, prodded him with pistols, threatened lynching or drowning and robbed him before abandoning him. He returned by freight and was back in Birmingham the following morning. Herndon also names Wilson among four speakers arrested and released after ten-dollar fines at the May 31, 1931 Chattanooga Scottsboro conference. The memoir does not identify a statutory charge for the Birmingham seizure or provide measured custody durations. Source: Angelo Herndon, Let Me Live (Random House, 1937), printed107–110 and122–124, https://www.marxists.org/archive/herndon/1937/let-me-live.pdf#page=115

Cases

Charges: Police seizure and extrajudicial removal during Birmingham Labor Day organizing; no statutory charge stated.
Arrested: Sep 1, 1930
Sentence: Handcuffed, driven out of town, tortured and abandoned according to the reproduced September 2 letter; back in Birmingham the following morning. Exact end of police custody and complete duration unknown.
Charges: Blocking traffic after the All-Southern Scottsboro Defense Conference in Chattanooga.
Arrested: May 31, 1931
Sentence: Herndon recalls police seizing the four speakers in the corridor after the May 31, 1931 conference; they were released after paying ten-dollar fines. The memoir gives no measured custody duration or jail transfer. Source: Angelo Herndon, Let Me Live (1937), printed122–124, PDF130–132.

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