Davis, Benjamin J. (Benjamin Jefferson), 1903-1964

A prominent black attorney, Davis graduated from Amherst College in 1925, graduated from Harvard Law School in 1929, and returned to Georgia to practice law. He gained notoriety for his defense of Angelo Herndon in 1933 who had been accused of insurrection. Davis became actively involved with the Communist Party and moved to New York City in 1935 to edit the Daily Worker. In 1948, he was arrested under the Smith Act and received a five-year sentence. He was arrested again in 1962 for his participation in the Communist Party but died before his case reached trial.

Communist Party organizer in Georgia and renowned African-American political prisoner in the 1930s. Angelo Herndon, who helped organized a protest march of Black and white unemployed workers in Atlanta in 1932, was found guilty of "inciting to insurrection" in a Fulton County court, under an 1861 slave stature, and condemned to 18 to 20 years on a Georgia chain gang. A petition drive for his release organized by the International Labor Defense collected two million signatures. Freed on bail in December 1934, he toured the United States, speaking to thousands of supporters. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the lower court's decision, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor in April 1937. Earlier that year, his autobiography "Let Me Live" was published by Random House. Herndon continued with his literary and political activities into the next decade, co-editing with Ralph Ellison the short-lived "Negro Quarterly: a Review of Negro Life and Culture," but retired to private life before the onset of the Cold War. He died in 1997.

Born in Dawson, Ga. in 1903, Benjamin Jefferson Davis, Jr. was a civil rights lawyer, a former New York City councilman, an author and editor, a Marxist theoretician and a leader of the Communist Party of the United States of America.

Davis joined the Communist Party in 1933 during his court defense of Angelo Herndon, a young African-American communist organizer who faced the death penalty in Georgia for leading a protest march of white and black unemployed workers. He later served as an editor and publisher to the "Daily Worker" and its weekly successor, "The Worker", and as a member of the editorial board of "Political Affairs," the theoretical journal of the Communist Party. He is also the author of an extensive autobiography and of several pamphlets on Communism and blacks.

Davis was elected to the New York City Council in 1943 as a Communist Party candidate. He was reelected in 1945, but was defeated in 1949 by a coalition candidate of the Republican, Democratic and Liberal parties. As an elected official, Davis organized several mass campaigns against police brutality and against segregation in education, housing and sports.

In 1949, Davis was one of eleven Communist leaders convicted of conspiring to overthrow the United States government. He went to jail in 1951 and spent three years and four months at the federal prison at Terre-Haute, Indiana. He continued to fight against racial discrimination during his incarceration, and filed two suits in the U.S. District Court to stop the segregation of African-American inmates in federal penitentiaries. At the end of his sentence, he served an additional two months at the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh, Pa. for having refused, in 1953, to reveal the names of people belonging to the Communist Party's Commission on Negro Work. At the time of his death, Davis was again under indictment, under the McCarran Act, for his refusal to register as an agent of the Soviet Union.

Born in Dawson, Ga. in 1903, Benjamin Jefferson Davis, Jr. was a civil rights lawyer, a former New York City councilman, an author and editor, a Marxist theoretician and a leader of the Communist Party U.S.A. His father was a National Republican Committeeman and a prominent newspaper publisher in the South. Davis graduated from Amherst College in 1929 and the Harvard Law School in 1932. He joined the Communist Party in 1933 during his court defense of Angelo Herndon, a young African American Communist organizer who faced the death penalty in Georgia for leading a protest march of white and black unemployed workers.

Davis moved to New York in 1935, and became the editor of The Negro Liberator as well as a regular contributor to various Communist Party publications. He later served as the editor and publisher of the Daily Worker and its successor, the weekly The Worker, and as a member of the editorial board of Political Affairs, the theoretical journal of the Communist Party. He is also the author of an extensive autobiography and of several pamphlets on Communism and blacks.

Elected to the New York City Council as a Harlem representative in 1943, Davis was one of two Communist Party candidates to have ever been elected to office in the United States. He was reelected in 1945 but was defeated in 1949 by a coalition candidate of the Democratic, Republican and Liberal parties. He was expelled from his seat in the City Council, however, before the end of his second term, after his indictment and arrest under the Smith Act for alleged subversive activities. As an elected official, Davis organized several mass campaigns against police brutality and against segregation in education, housing and sports.

In 1949, Davis was one of eleven communist leaders convicted of conspiring to overthrow the United States government. He went to jail in 1951 and spent three years and four months at the Federal Prison at Terre-Haute, Indiana. He continued to fight against racial discrimination during his incarceration, and filed two suits in the U.S. District Court to stop the segregation of African American inmates in federal penitentiaries. At the end of his sentence, he served an additional two months at the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh, Pa. for having refused, in 1953, to reveal the names of people belonging to the Communist Party's Commission on Negro Work. Two weeks after his release, Davis married Nina Stamler, his fiancee before he went to jail and the daughter of a Bronx dentist. A daughter, Emily, was born of this union. At the time of his death, Davis was again under indictment, under the McCarran Act, for his refusal to register as an agent of the Soviet Union.

Davis was a prominent Communist Party leader and an internationally known theoretician on the status and struggles of blacks in the United Status. He led the Party's New York State district and was the chairman of its Commission on Negro Work.

Elected to the National Committee in 1959, he also served as the Party's National Secretary. Following Stalin's death in 1953, he sided with William Z. Foster, then National Chairman of the Communist Party, in defeating a revisionist tendency within the party, on the so-called “American road to socialism.” Benjamin Davis was a well-known and honored figure in the Harlem community at the time of his death.