Biography
William L. Patterson was the Black executive secretary of the Civil Rights Congress and author of the petition 'We Charge Genocide,' jailed for contempt for refusing to produce CRC membership records demanded by the government in its drive to destroy the organization. He served three months at West Street before the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed his conviction in January 1955, holding he could not be jailed for invoking his privilege against self-incrimination.
Hastings-trained lawyer who defended Sacco and Vanzetti, led the International Labor Defense's Scottsboro Boys campaign, and as executive secretary of the Civil Rights Congress co-authored and presented the petition "We Charge Genocide" to the United Nations in Paris on December 17, 1951. The State Department forced him to surrender his passport. Subpoenaed by HUAC and SISS multiple times in 1950; held in contempt of Congress and served two consecutive 90-day federal sentences in 1954-55 for refusing to disclose CRC donor lists.
In a first-person recollection Patterson describes being arrested at a Boston Common protest for Sacco and Vanzetti. Officers made him walk to the station because he was Black and a white woman was in the patrol wagon. This Boston protest detention is distinct from his later federal contempt cases. The article’s early-ILD chronology is inconsistent, so no exact year or day, formal statutory charge, physical discharge or complete duration is inferred from it. Other named members of the delegation are not automatically classified as arrested. Labor Defender, September 1934, original PDF page 6. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1934/v10n08-sep-1934-orig-LD.pdf#page=6
The paper’s biographical account reports an actual 1917 arrest for openly opposing military recruitment, three arrests during the Sacco–Vanzetti defense campaign, and a later ninety-day jail term in the Civil Rights Congress contempt-of-Congress prosecution. The exact days for the earlier episodes are not supplied. The Black Panther, May4,1969 vol2 no2, original PDF page 6. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/black-panther/03n02-may%204%201969.pdf#page=6
