Biography
One of the "Harlem Six" — Black teenagers arrested in May 1964 and charged with the murder of clothing-store owner Margit Sugar, 12 days after the April 17, 1964 "Little Fruit Stand Riot" police-beating disturbance in Harlem. The case became a landmark frame-up exposé: independent journalists documented that the confessions were coerced by NYPD detectives. James Baldwin published "A Report from Occupied Territory" defending the six in 1966.
The May 30, 1966 Militant identifies Wallace Baker as one of the youths arrested in the Harlem fruit-stand incident twelve days before the April 29, 1964 murder, resolving the date to April 17. The article explicitly describes hours of station-house detention and beatings. This is a separate earlier episode from the later murder prosecution; an actual release day and full duration are not supplied.
