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California

Political repression plays out state by state — shaped by local institutions, prosecutors, and movements for defense. These are the documented political prisoners and cases the census holds for California.

799Documented
19In custody
706Released
9Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in California

Where California’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1910s 164 1970s 123 1930s 97 1960s 85 2000s 72 1950s 66

Documented cases

799 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

E
Ed Dawe
Released
Ed Dawe, an IWW member from Maryville, received a four-year prison sentence, which he served in San Quentin fr...
M
Manuel Delgado
Released
Mexican-American youth and one of the twelve defendants convicted of murder or assault in the January 1943 Sle...
E
Ethel Dell
Released
Ethel Dell was one of six young workers, who drew an extra fifty days for "contempt of court", who leapt the r...
K
Kamile Dincsoy
Released
Kamile Dincsoy, 48, Riverside Historic Courthouse green-handprint defendant, July 30 2022. Failed to appear fo...
R
Ricky Dodd
Released
Ricky Dodd was a U.S. Army soldier and one of the "Presidio 27" — the stockade prisoners at the Presidio of Sa...
M
Molly Dougherty
Black Panther Party supporter jailed for contempt (the maximum penalty) after refusing to testify in what she...
B
Bernadette Doyle
Released
Bernadette Doyle was a California Communist Party leader — a perennial candidate who had once polled 600,000 v...
J
James Doyle
Released
James Doyle was jailed around December 1910 in the Fresno free-speech fight in California. He was released on...
R
Richard Drake
Released
Richard Drake was listed on the Labor Defender's class-war prisoner honor roll as serving 6 months in the Los...
C
C. A. Drew
Released
C. A. Drew, an IWW member from Susanville, received a four-year prison sentence, which he served in San Quenti...
R
Richard Duncan
Released
Richard Duncan was a U.S. Army soldier and one of the "Presidio 27" — the stockade prisoners at the Presidio o...
M
Mickey J. Dunn
Released
Mickey J. Dunn was an Oakland member of the Industrial Workers of the World convicted under California's Crimi...
M
Myra Dunton
Released
Myra Dunton appears in the National Civil Liberties Bureau's March 1919 compilation "War-Time Prosecutions and...
B
Bob Duren
Coordinator of the Southern California Black Panther Party chapter, subjected through 1977 to LAPD surveillanc...
M
Modesto Díaz
Released
Modesto Díaz was jailed in a criminal-libel prosecution connected to the Partido Liberal Mexicano press. Conte...
O
Omar J. Eaton
Released
Omar J. Eaton, an IWW member from Eureka, received a five-year prison sentence, which he served in San Quentin...
G
George E. Elstun
Released
George E. Elstun was a conscientious objector from California imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed f...
M
Mitsuye Endo
Released
Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi was a Japanese-American clerk for the California Department of Motor Vehicles when she w...
E
Ernest Erickson
Released
Ernest Erickson, an IWW member from Los Angeles, received a four-year prison sentence, which he served in San...
E
Elias Espinoza
Released
Elias Espinoza of Orange, California was a foreign-born radical arrested for deportation in a November 1953 Mc...
A
Andre Evans
Los Angeles man, brother of a 17-year-old fatally shot by LAPD officers, arrested and charged with conspiring...
H
Henry C. Evans
Henry C. Evans, recorded in contemporary sources as H. C. Evans and Henry Evans, was among the Industrial Work...
A
A. Feinberg
Released
A. Feinberg was listed among the class-war prisoners on the International Labor Defense's 1930 Winter Relief r...
G
Gregory Felix
Arrested by Oakland Police vice-squad officers in the NAACP office in connection with the Melvin Black police-...

Institutions in California

Prisons, jails, and detention centers in California that appear in the census’s case files.

San Quentin State PrisonSan Quentin, California
150 cases
Federal Bureau of Prisons
59 cases
San Quentin Rehabilitation CenterSan Quentin, California
23 cases
Presidio StockadeSan Francisco, California
22 cases
Los Angeles County JailLos Angeles, California
21 cases
Metropolitan Detention Center, Los AngelesLos Angeles, California
14 cases
San Francisco County JailSan Francisco, California
13 cases
Alameda County JailOakland, California
10 cases