Biography
Walter Hardin was a Black Communist Party section organizer and member of the Unemployed Council in Pontiac, Michigan. George Morris’s contemporary account identifies him with Leo Fortin and Clarence Sherman as victims of a vigilante kidnapping in November 1931. The men were taken to Cass Lake State Park, beaten and forced to drink castor oil. The 1936 article reports the dismissal of eleven accused vigilante leaders despite guilty pleas. These are attributed contemporary reports of extrajudicial anti-organizing violence, not a conviction or measured prison term of Hardin. Exact individual seizure and freedom dates are not supplied. Daily Worker, August 8, 1936, page 8. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n190-NY-aug-08-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=8
The July 23 Pontiac report identifies Hardin as one of three Communists kidnapped from their homes on the eve of the 1931 election, driven out of town and beaten. It reports evasive testimony about these attacks resulted in contempt sentences for former police chief Robert Alspaugh and detective Sherry Mapley. The officials are accused perpetrators, not additional political-prisoner entries.
