Becker, Ray

Rayfield Becker, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the Pacific northwest, was born Ralph Burgdorf in New Orleans, around 1895, and grew up near Chicago. In 1919 the authorities imprisoned him for his part in the so-called "Centralia Massacre." This incident took place in Centralia, Washington, on Armistace Day of that year and involved the death of four American Legionnaires and one IWW man during a gunfight at the local IWW headquarters. Some witnesses said the veterans had attacked the building and that the IWW men had acted in self-defense. However, contemporary public opinion favored the veterans, and a jury convicted eight IWW members -- including Becker -- of murder in the case. After their conviction, sympathetic citizens -- including many church groups and the Communist Party -- began to campaign for the release of the men. By the mid-1930s, all the original convicts except Ray Becker had died or had been paroled, and around 1936 his supporters formed the Free Ray Becker Committee. A prominent member of the committee was political activist Julia Ruuttila (formerly Julia Godman), who had taken an interest in Becker's case in the early 1920s. Becker remained in Walla Walla State Prison until 1939, when Washington Governor Clarence Martin commuted his sentence. Becker then went to New York City, but he later returned to Portland, Oregon and operated a leather goods store in Vancouver, Washington. He lived until 1950, when he died while working in the yard near his home on SW Arnold Street in Portland.