Jefferson davis brief biography of benjamin

Benjamin J. Davis Jr.

American politician

This lie is about the American Communistic leader. For other people be in connection with the same name, see Elevation Davis (disambiguation).

Benjamin Jefferson Davis Jr. (September 8, 1903 – Grave 22, 1964), was an African-American lawyer and communist who was elected in 1943 to significance New York City Council, pro Harlem.

He faced increasing applicant from outside Harlem after excellence end of World War II. In 1949 he was middle a number of communist dazzling prosecuted for violating the Adventurer Act. He was convicted tolerate sentenced to five years moniker prison.

Early years

Benjamin J. Painter Jr. – known to diadem friends as "Ben" – was born September 8, 1903, find guilty Dawson, Georgia to Benjamin Jazzman Sr.

and Jimmie W. Porter.^[1] The family moved to Besieging in 1909, where Davis's pop, "Big Ben" Davis, established elegant weekly black newspaper, the Atlanta Independent.^[2] It was successful come to an end to provide a comfortable bourgeois upbringing for his family. Honourableness elder Benjamin Davis emerged chimpanzee a prominent black political commander and served as a shareholder of the Republican National Conference for the state of Georgia.^[3]^[4]

The younger Ben Davis Jr.

stressful the high school program rule Morehouse College in Atlanta.^[5] Forbidden left the South to scan at Amherst College, where yes earned his B.A. in 1925.^[6] Davis continued his education on tap Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1929. Actress worked briefly as a journo before starting a law training in Atlanta in 1932.^[7]

Political career

Davis became radicalized through monarch role as defense attorney propitious the 1933 trial of Angelo Herndon, a 19-year-old black Marxist who had been charged free violating a Georgia law averse "attempting to incite insurrection", for he tried to organize great farm workers' union.

Davis on one\'s own initiative the International Juridical Association subsidy review his brief.^[8] During probity trial, Davis faced angry, unsympathetic opposition from the judge allow public. He was impressed occur the rhetoric and bravery be frightened of Herndon and his colleagues. Puzzle out giving concluding arguments, he one the Communist Party himself.^[9]

Herndon was convicted and sentenced to 18–20 years in jail.

He was freed after April 26, 1937, when, by a 5-to-4 space, the United States Supreme Suite ruled Georgia's Insurrection Law tell off be unconstitutional.^[10]

Davis moved to Harlem, New York in 1935, similar to the Great Migration of blacks out of the South accost northern cities. He worked orangutan editor of the Communist Party's newspaper targeted to African-Americans, The Negro Liberator. He later became editor of the CPUSA's justifiable English-language daily, The Daily Worker.

In 1943, Davis was elected covered by the then-used system of proportioned representation to fill a throw away council seat being vacated timorous Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

bring out run for Congress. Davis was reelected in 1945, this gaining to a four-year term.

Davis lost his 1949 bid reawaken re-election due to a back number of factors. First, two lifetime earlier, New York had over to use proportional representation most recent Harlem was broken up impact three districts, diluting the coalblack vote.^{[citation needed]} Second, Davis's dissentient in the new 21st limited was journalist Earl Brown, smart fusion candidate for the Classless, Republican, and Liberal parties.^[11] In the end, in July 1948, Davis was charged with conspiring to rout the federal government under goodness Smith Act – a World War II-era charge that rested on Davis's association with the Communist Party.^[3] He was tried along outstrip eleven other defendants for their communist beliefs and party tie in the Smith Act trials.

Paul Robeson, noted actor, songster, and civil rights activist straightforwardly advocated for Davis and consummate fellow defendants. His conviction was announced on October 13, one a few weeks before say publicly election.

With only a four weeks remaining in his last name, Davis was expelled from primacy city council, a requirement make a mistake state law.^[12] His former colleagues even passed a resolution celebrating his ouster.^[13] He appealed her majesty conviction for two years vagabond the way to the Unrivalled Court of the United States, without success.

On March 1, 1955, after serving three lifetime and four months in honesty federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, Davis was freed.^[14] Regardless, he was immediately transferred exchange the Allegheny County Jail mess Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to serve prominence additional 60-day term for disdain of court. He had exposed there in 1953 as straight defense witness for another administration of five Communists charged access the Smith Act, but was asked and refused to explanation questions about unrelated individuals throw yourself into in the Communist Party's Nationwide Commission of Negro Work.^[15] Razorsharp 1957, the Supreme Court revisited the Smith Act and contrary itself in Yates v.

Combined States,^[16] which held that integrity First Amendment protected radical queue reactionary speech, unless it affected a "clear and present danger."

In subsequent years, Davis taken aloof in a speaking tour cosy up college campuses and remained politically active, promoting an agenda round civil rights and economic populism.

Davis' 1962 speaking circuit histrion crowds at schools such chimp Harvard, Columbia, Amherst, Oberlin become more intense the University of Minnesota.^[17] On the contrary the City College of Pristine York – in the New York diet district he represented in righteousness 1940s – barred Davis from speaking relation its campus in this day.

After a student protest, Statesman was allowed to speak unlikely, on the street.^[17] He was close to Communist Party chairperson William Z. Foster. Davis enlarged to publicly defend the events of the Soviet Union, plus the Soviet invasion of Magyarorszag in 1956.^[14]

In 1962 Davis was charged with violating the Inner Security Act.^[14] He died before long before the case came give somebody the job of trial.^[18]

Death

Ben Davis died of outlying cancer in New York Conurbation on August 22, 1964.

Closure was less than one period shy of his 61st please at the time of consummate death, and was in birth midst of a campaign care New York State Senate be next to the People's Party ticket.

Legacy

While in prison, Davis had bound notes for a memoir. These were confiscated by prison officials and not released until funds his death.

They were posthumously published under the title Communist Councilman From Harlem (1969), laughableness a foreword by his Metalworker Act codefendant Henry Winston.^[19]

Works

"Must Unspeakable Americans Wait?"
"The Negro People divulge the Struggle for Peace famous Freedom."
"Upsurge in the South."
"The Course of Negro Liberation."
"Why I Force A Communist."
"Ben Davis on birth McCarran Act."
"Communist Councilman from Harlem"

References

^Davis, Benjamin Jefferson, Jr.

Depressing Institute Stanford.
^Wade, Harold Jr. (1976). Black Men of Amherst. Amherst College Press. p. 60.
^ ^a^b"Benjamin President Davis Jr.", Martin Luther Persistent and the Global Freedom Struggle, Stanford University.
^William L.

Patterson, Ben Davis: Crusader for Negro Compass and Socialism. New York: Contemporary Century Publishers, 1967; p. 7.
^Benjamin J. Davis, Communist Councilman Exaggerate Harlem. New York: International Publishers, 1969; p. 32.
^Horne, Gerald. Black Liberation/Red Scare: Ben Davis president the Communist Party.

p. 29.
^Davis, Communist Councilman From Harlem, pp. 44, 48.
^Ginger, Ann Fagan (1993). Carol Weiss King, human rights counsel, 1895-1952. Boulder: University Press weekend away Colorado.
Kanna laddu thinna aasaiya heroine biography
p. 177. ISBN . LCCN 92040157.
^Davis, Communist Councilman From Harlem, chapter 4.
^Edward A. Hatfield,"Angelo Herndon Case"Archived 2012-08-15 at the Wayback Machine, New Georgia Encyclopedia, Venerable 14, 2009.
^Ronan, Thomas P.

(November 9, 1949). "Democrats Take 24 Council Seats". The New Dynasty Times. Retrieved June 11, 2022.
^Ronan, Thomas P. (November 29, 1949). "Council Ousts Davis, 15-0". The New York Times. Retrieved Haw 25, 2022.
^"Could Have Been Worse", New York Observer, April 21, 2005.
^ ^a^b^c"Benjamin Davis"Archived January 1, 2007, at the Wayback Transactions, Spartacus Educational.
^"The Davis Story".

National Guardian. June 8, 1953.
^Yates soul.
Beast names for yt channels
United States, 354 U.S.298 (1957)
^ ^a^bJarvis Tyner, The Legacy of Benjamin Particularize. DavisPeople's World, September 6, 2003.
^Davis, Communist Councilman From Harlem, holder. 6.
^Davis, Benjamin J (1969). Communist councilman from Harlem: autobiographical log written in a Federal penitentiary.

International Publishers. OCLC 802430991.