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• 1 2020-03-11T21:10:35+00:00 Sam Jameson, Murray Samuels, and Claudio Viabolo arrested 111 plain 2024-02-24T15:29:28+00:00 Shortly after 6:45 PM, Patrolman Timothy Shannon and other officers arrested two nineteen-year-old white men, Sam Jameson and Murray Samuels, and Claudio Viabolo, a thirty-nine-year-old Black man, who were picketing in front of Kress’ store at 256 West 125th Street. The three men had arrived a few minutes earlier, likely from 262 Lenox Avenue, the offices of the organization to which they belonged, the Young Liberators. The placards they carried read “Kress Brutally Beats and Seriously Injures Negro Child and Negro Women. Negro and White Don’t Buy Here” and “Kress Brutally Beats Negro Child.” An officer “told or asked [the men] to stop marching in front of Kress'," Patrolman Moran told a public hearing of the MCCH and when they did not leave “after about five minutes," police arrested them for unlawful assembly. Jackson Smith, the store manager, watched the arrest from inside the store. “The police took the placards and pushed the people carrying them into the vestibule,” he told a later public hearing. Around thirty minutes earlier, Patrolman Shannon had arrested another man in front of the store, twenty-year-old white man, Daniel Miller, pulling him down from a stepladder when he tried to speak to a crowd. A few minutes later, around 6:30 PM, other officers, including Patrolman Irwin Young, arrested a second white man, Harry Gordon, when tried to speak to the crowd by climbing a lamppost on 125th Street east of Kress’ store.
  
  The testimony of Moran and Smith in the public hearings provided the only details of the arrests of Jameson, Samuels, and Viabolo. The men themselves did not testify. Patrolman Shannon did testify, but was not asked about any of the arrests he made. Newspaper stories on the arrests grouped the men with Miller, and in some cases, Gordon, reflecting information from police that they had acted together to create the disorder. Two Hearst newspapers, the New York American and New York Evening Journal, published stories that described the arrest, but they included details that testimony in the public hearings indicate did not happen: Jameson and Samuels arrived with Miller and Gordon, not after them, in the newspaper narrative, picketed before Miller spoke, and with Harry Gordon came to Miller’s aid when he was arrested, battling Shannon and two other patrolmen before also being arrested. Viabolo was not on the picket line in those stories, but in the New York American was a member of the crowd who joined in efforts to prevent Miller’s arrest. Although the newspapers said their information came from police, the elements that did not happen seem to be a product of the anti-Communist stance and sensational style of the Hearst newspapers. The New York Times and, somewhat surprisingly, the Daily Worker, also published narratives in which the men picketed before Miller spoke, but without details of their arrest. The New York Times simply reported that the arrest of Jameson, Samuels, and Viabolo, and Miller, came “later,” after Miller spoke. The Daily Worker did not report specific arrests, but rather that “police broke up the picket line, arresting the leaders.”
  
  Jameson, Samuels, and Viabolo all appeared in the lists of those arrested during the disorder published by the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, the New York Evening Journal, the Daily News, the New York American, and the New York Herald Tribune, among those charged with inciting a riot. However, the white men, Jameson and Samuels, as well as Miller and Gordon, are not in the transcription of the 28th Precinct police blotter in the MCCH records. Viabolo did appear, with Margaret Mitchell, the Black woman arrested inside Kress' store. That discrepancy suggests that the white men were omitted from the transcription, perhaps overlooked because they were somehow less readily identified as participants in the disorder among others arrested for unrelated activities at that time. It may be that the charges against those men were not recorded as riot. The charge against Viabolo in the blotter is disorderly conduct, with the note that he was “Disorderly in Kress’ 5 & 10c store,” the same description recorded for Margaret Mitchell.
  
  In a line-up on the morning of March 20 that included ninety-six of those arrested disorder, police put Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo in a group with Miller and Gordon, a New York Herald Tribune story noted. Police described the men as all "arrested at a demonstration in front of the Kress store." That grouping was not mentioned in the two other newspaper stories about the line-up, in the Daily Mirror and New York Sun. An unnamed Black man, presumably Viabolo, was quoted in the New York Sun “giving his version of the start of the trouble:” "We were picketing in front of the store. I heard that a child had been killed inside. I thought it ought to be called to the attention of the public, about the child being killed.” The man then told the officer questioning him that he “and his companions took turns on a soap box “informing the public.”” That last detail was not part of any other description of the picketing. The two other newspaper stories on the line-up did not include Viabolo’s comments, but focused, as the New York Sun did, on Harry Gordon’s exchange with police, in which he refused to answer questions until he saw his lawyer.
  
  The Daily News, New York American, and New York Evening Journal published photographs taken a few seconds apart that are captioned as showing the four white men arrested outside Kress’ store in the West 123rd Street police station on their way to the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Surrounded on three sides by both uniformed police and detectives in plainclothes, three white men are visible, with another white man party visible behind them, all but the first, identified as Harry Gordon, looking at the ground. On the right of the image is a Black man, almost certainly Viabolo, as police had grouped him with these men in the line-up earlier that day, and would again in the courthouse. He is unmentioned in the captions, and, perhaps as a result, cropped out of versions of the photograph published by several regional newspapers. Reflecting its anti-communist focus, the New York Evening Journal placed the photograph on page one, across the whole width of the page, with a caption labeling the men “young college-bred Communists.” The next page featured photographs of two placards used in the picket, and the leaflets circulated by both the Young Liberators and the Communist Party. The Daily News photograph, taken at almost the same moment, appeared in the center of a two page spread of photographs of the disorder in the center of the newspaper. The caption did not identify the men as Communists but as inciting the riot, focusing on drawing a contrast between their uninjured appearances and the damage done during the disorder. (Gordon later testified he had been beaten and had injuries to his face; he may be the man whose face was not visible in that photograph, notwithstanding the caption.)
  
  Police continued to group Jameson, Samuels, and Viabolo with Miller and Gordon when they appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court. In stories on the court appearances, the New York American, Home News, New York Herald Tribune, and New York Times all described the men as the "ringleaders" of the disorder, which was likely the term police used. However, while the Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, New York World-Telegram, and Daily Mirror included all five men in that group, the New York American, Home News, and New York Times omitted Gordon. That difference appears to have resulted from Gordon being arraigned separately from the three Young Liberators and Miller. That separation would have resulted from the different arresting officer listed in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book for Gordon, Patrolman Irwin Young, not Patrolman Shannon, the arresting officer recorded for the four other men. The charge recorded for Gordon was also different, assaulting Young, not inciting riot. The Daily News claimed Gordon "was heard separately when he indicated that he would produce his own lawyers."
  
  When the court clerk called the names of Jameson, Samuels, Viabolo, and Miller, two lawyers from the International Labor Defense Fund rose to represent them. The appearance of those attorneys was reported by the New York American, Daily Mirror, Home News, Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, New York Times, New York World-Telegram, and Daily Worker, but for some reason they were not recorded in the column for the name and address of a defendant's lawyer in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. The ILD's affiliation with the Communist Party would have been well known to readers of those newspapers, but the Daily Mirror explicitly made the connection in its story, stating that the men's "Communistic affiliations were declared" by the identity of their attorneys. The Daily Mirror and Daily Worker named the lawyers as Miss Yetta M. Aronsky and I[sidore] Englander, while the Daily News named only Aronsky, and the New York American, New York Herald Tribune, and New York Times reported only "a woman lawyer" who would not give her name to their reporters. (Englander later testified about being present in the court in a public hearing of the MCCH.)
  
  Assistant District Attorney Richard E. Carey, the Black attorney Magistrate Renaud had requested prosecute those arrested in the disorder, according to the Daily News, asked that the men be held for a hearing on Friday on the maximum bail of $2,500. The men's lawyers protested that sum. Others arrested during the disorder charged with felonies had their bail set at $1,000, including Harry Gordon. Magistrate Renaud dismissed those protests, and complaints by Aronsky, reported by the Daily News and Daily Worker, that the men "had not been fed by police following their arrest."
  
  When Jameson, Samuels, and Viabolo returned to the Harlem Magistrates Court with Miller, Magistrate Ford dismissed the charges against the group because their cases had already been decided by Dodge's grand jury. The Magistrates Court docket book recorded the deposition of the men's cases as "Dism[issed], def[endant] indicted." Stories in the Home News, Daily Mirror, and New York Amsterdam News also reported that they had been indicted by the grand jury. However, while the grand jury did send the men for trial, it was for a misdemeanor, not a felony, so an information, not an indictment, and to the Court of Special Sessions, not the Court of General Sessions. Other newspaper stories included elements of that distinction. The New York American reported that after being discharged, the men were "turned over to detectives with bench warrants based on the grand jury informations voted last week charging inciting to riot." The New York Herald Tribune also reported "two informations charging five persons with inciting riot" without naming them; so too did the Daily News, which alone specified that an information charged a misdemeanor and that the men were sent for trial in the Court of Special Sessions. The grand jury also sent all the other individuals charged with inciting a riot that appeared before it to the Court of Special Sessions to face trial for misdemeanors. If the men were being prosecuted for the form of the crime defined as a misdemeanor, unlawful assembly, their crime was being treated as involving disturbing the peace, not efforts to prevent the enforcement of the law or incite force or violence.
  
  As other prosecutions resulting from the riot made their way through the courts there were no reports mentioning Jamison, Samuels, and Viabolo, or Miller. Finally, on June 20, the four men appeared in the Court of Special Sessions. The New York Amsterdam News reported an additional defendant, a "young sympathizer," Dave Mencher, not mentioned in any other sources, or in the Daily Worker story, the only other report of this trial located. Only one prosecution witness testified before the court's three judges, Sergeant Bauer of the West 123rd Street station (likely the sergeant who testified at the public hearings that he was involved in the arrest, although his name was recorded as Bowe in the transcript). It is not clear why Patrolman Timothy Shannon, the arresting officer, did not appear as a witness. International Labor Defense lawyers again represented the men, but not the same attorneys as the day after the disorder. Instead, Joseph Tauber and Edward Kuntz, who played prominent roles in the MCCH public hearings, represented the men. After cross-examining Bauer to establish that a crowd had collected in front of Kress' prior to the men arriving, they moved to have the charges dismissed. The judges agreed, and freed Jameson, Samuels, and Viabolo, as well as Miller.
  
  Claudio Viabolo lived in Harlem, at 202 West 132nd Street; the two white men did not. Sam Jameson lived at 967 East 178th Street in Washington Heights, north of the Black neighborhood, although when a reporter from the New York Evening Journal went to the address, the tenants denied knowing him. Murray Samuels lived at 8621 Twentieth Avenue, Brooklyn. However, he was not a student at City College, as the New York Evening Journal reported on March 21. A week later the New York Evening Journal acknowledged that the Murray Samuels a reporter had identified as attending evening classes was not the man arrested during the disorder, in a story headlined, "Far From Red, and Riot! Says C. C. N. Y. Man."
  
  
  
  Claudio Viabolo’s name was spelled in a variety of ways in these sources. Viabolo is used here as it was recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, and in stories about his appearances in the Harlem Magistrates Court published in the Afro-American, Daily News, New York Post, New York Herald Tribune, Home News, New York Sun, New York Times, New York American, and New York Age. The name was spelled Diabolo in the list of those arrested in the disorder published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and stories in New York World-Telegram and New York Evening Journal. In the edition the New York Age rushed to print on March 23, the name was Bilo. In the Daily Worker on March 21, the name was Viano. Sam Jameson's name was also misspelled, but was not corrected over time as Viabolo's name was. Jameson is used here as it was recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, and in stories published in New York Evening Journal, New York Times, New York Post, New York Herald Tribune, and stories about court appearances published in the Home News and New York Sun. The name was spelled Jamieson in the Daily News, Atlanta World, Norfolk Journal and Guide, and New York American.
• 1 2021-03-31T23:51:12+00:00 Picketing in front of Kress' store 89 plain 2024-01-29T01:01:55+00:00 Around 6:45 PM, three men arrived at the sidewalk of West 125th Street in front of Kress’ store carrying placards and began walking back and forth, picketing the store. A photograph published in the Daily News of the front of the store taken on March 21 shows the area the men would have walked, a wide sidewalk which would have allowed other people to still move past the store or gather in front of it.
  
  
  
  About thirty minutes earlier, a window in the store had been broken as Daniel Miller had tried to speak from a ladder on the same stretch of sidewalk, after which he been arrested by Patrolman Timothy Shannon. The three men who walked the picket line were nineteen-year-old Sam Jameson and nineteen-year-old Murray Samuels, both unemployed white men, and Claudio Viabolo, a thirty-nine-year-old Black man. "We were picketing in front of the store. I heard that a child had been killed inside. I thought it ought to be called to the attention of the public, about the child being killed," an unnamed Black man, presumably Viabolo, explained when questioned the next day during a police line-up of those arrested reported in the New York Sun. However the signs the men carried referred to a beating not a killing, reading “Kress Brutally Beats and Seriously Injures Negro Child and Negro Women. Negro and White Don’t Buy Here” and “Kress Brutally Beats Negro Child."
  
  Jackson Smith, the manager of Kress’ store, summoned to the front door earlier when James Parton had set up the stepladder that Miller climbed to speak, told a public hearing of the MCCH that he was still there when the three men began to picket. Louise Thompson testified in an earlier public hearing that she encountered the picketers on her return to the front of the store after being pushed east by police after the arrest of Miller, and witnessing the arrest of Harry Gordon about 300 feet from the store. Patrolman Timothy Moran, who had been stationed across West 125th Street from the store when the window was broken and Miller arrested, told a public hearing that “three other men with placards draped over their shoulders” arrived a few minutes after those events and began walking up and down in front of the store.
  
  The police officers stationed at the store had been instructed to “keep the crowd moving in from of the store, Moran testified. They were likely standing in a similar location to those in the above photograph of Kress' store on March 21. An officer “told or asked [the men] to stop marching in front of Kress’” and when they did not leave “after about five minutes," police arrested them for unlawful assembly. Sgt. Bauer testified he was involved in the arrest, as again was Patrolman Shannon, who had arrested Miller and was recorded as the arresting officer. “The police took the placards and pushed the people carrying them into the vestibule,” Jackson Smith told a public hearing. By 7:00 PM, crowds around Kress’ store had been pushed to 8th and 7th avenues.
  
  A second version of the placard that read “Kress Brutally Beats Negro Child,” photographed for the Daily News in an image available at Getty Images, had “Young Liberators” added at the bottom. That organization, which had ties to the Communist Party, had led a successful boycott campaign in 1934 to force the Empire Cafeteria to employ Black workers. The appeal not to shop at Kress’ store on one sign evoked that campaign and the more extensive boycott campaign undertaken by a coalition of Black organizations that had made pickets in front of stores on West 125th Street a familiar sight in 1934. More broadly, the Young Liberators were “a group of young people who are struggling for Negro rights,” Joe Taylor, the organization's president, told a public hearing of the MCCH, with about 140 Black and white members. A Black man came to their nearby office, at 262 Lenox Ave near 126th Street, about 5 PM, and said “Did you know that a Negro boy had been beaten nearly to death in the Kress store?” Taylor did not, and went to investigate, arriving after Kress’ store was closed. He then went to the police station on West 123rd Street before returning to West 124th Street. Later Taylor went to an address he heard was the home of Lino Rivera, but could find out nothing. Back at the office, other members of the Young Liberators produced a leaflet that was distributed on West 125th starting around 7:30 PM. Headed “Child Brutally Beaten. Woman Attacked By Boss and Cops = Child near Death,” the final line urged people to “Join the Picket Line.” That reference to a picket line provided further evidence that the men arrested for picketing came from the Young Liberators. The first public hearing of the MCCH devoted time to establishing who had produced that leaflet and when it was distributed. Since the leaflets did not appear on the streets before 7:30 PM, the MCCH Final Report concluded that the actions of the Young Liberators “were not responsible for the disorders and attacks on property which were already in full swing.”
  
  The place of the picketing in the sequence of events outside Kress’ was described most clearly in testimony given in the public hearings of the MCCH. However, those details did not become well known as neither the MCCH subcommittee nor final reports mentioned the picketing. Those narratives included only the two men arrested for trying to speak in front of the store, Miller and Gordon, who were not named. Newspaper stories truncated and confused the events established in the public hearings, as police told reporters that Jameson, Samuels, and Viabolo had arrived and acted together with Miller and Gordon to cause the disorder.
  
  The most common version of that narrative had the group picketing the store before Daniel Miller attempted to speak. The New York Times, New York Sun, New York Evening Journal, New York American, and Daily Worker all published stories with that chronology, with different descriptions of who was involved. The New York Times reported "Two white and two Negro pickets paraded back and forth in front of the store, bearing placards of the Young Liberators League with the inscription: 'Kress Brutality Beats Negro Child' and 'Kress Brutality Beats and Seriously Injures Negro Child.'" The New York Sun used similar phrasing: “a group of agitators, two white and two Negroes, arrived in front of the establishment and took up picket posts carrying placards of the Young Liberators League, which shouted in type that 'Kress brutally beats and seriously injures Negro child.'” The Hearst newspapers, the New York Evening Journal and New York American, identified Samuels, Jameson, and Harry Gordon as picketing, and omitted Viabolo or any mention of Black men among those carrying placards. The Daily Worker more vaguely referred to an unspecified number of Young Liberators forming a picket line. The New York Age substituted Gordon for Miller but otherwise followed the same narrative in which “several Communist leaders gathered and began a picket movement before the store,” before Gordon was arrested for “addressing a group” and Samuels and Viabolo arrested for “acting in concert with Gordon.” The arrests of Jameson, and Miller, were reported separately without any details of the circumstances.
  
  The consistent reporting of what was written on the placards likely resulted from police displaying them to reporters as well as photographers, with images published in the New York Evening Journal (and taken by the Daily News). The Daily Mirror did describe a placard that read, "Avenge the death of this little colored boy!" Given that the photographed placards, and the leaflet distributed by the Young Liberators soon after the picket, refer to a beaten boy, that placard is likely an invention that fit the sensationalized tone of the tabloid's reporting. However, stories in the Home News and New York Age about the men’s appearance in the Harlem Magistrates Court the next day, had them distributing placards, not picketing, placards which read "Kress store is resorting to lynching.” Jackson Smith, the manager of Kress’ store, told a public hearing of the MCCH that he saw a placard that read “Kess brutally beats Negro child.” Patrolman Moran’s testimony was less certain: “As I can recall, they referred to a child being beaten in Kress in the earlier part of the afternoon.”
  
  Several of the narratives that mistakenly had the three Young Liberators picketing before Miller spoke also included inaccurate accounts of the circumstances of the men’s arrests. The New York American and the New York Evening Journal had Jameson and Samuels, together with Gordon, going to Miller’s aid when Patrolman Shannon arrested him. Viabolo was missing from the New York Evening Journal story and appeared in the New York American’s narrative as a bystander who also obstructed Miller's arrest. The New York Times simply reported that the arrest of Jameson, Samuels, and Viabolo came “later,” after Miller spoke. The Daily Worker did not report specific arrests, but rather that “police broke up the picket line, arresting the leaders.”
  
  Mentions of the picketing were vaguer and more fragmentary in the Afro-American, New York Herald Tribune, Daily News, and New York Post. The Afro-American reporter who arrived in front of Kress store around 7:14 PM noted that before he “got on the spot, the screaming of the girl and the flying rumors had brought forth four youngsters, three white, with sandwich signs telling of ''Boy Brutally Beaten.'” “[F]rom somewhere pickets had appeared," the New York Herald Tribune reported, "bearing placards reading: 'Kress Brutality Beats Negro Child.' Neither story mentioned the arrest of those picketing, although the New York Herald Tribune story later noted that “Police seized members of the mob who appeared to be its leaders as they drove it back.” Neither of the other two stories described picketing. The Daily News came closest, reporting “the Young Liberators marched through various streets with red and black smeared placards on which in tremendous letters was the legend: 'CHILD BRUTALLY BEATEN: WOMAN ATTACKED BY BOSS AND COPS: CHILD NEAR DEATH.' The New York Post, while naming the three men among those arrested, described them only as speaking to the crowd.
  
  Unlike those initial stories, newspaper stories about proceedings in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 consistently grouped Viabolo with the four white men arrested in front of Kress’ store. Police presented the five men as a group first in a line-up before they were taken to court, the New York Herald Tribune reported, and then at the courthouse, describing the men as the "ringleaders" of the disorder. When Jameson, Samuels, and Viabolo were arraigned with Miller in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, the charge recorded in the docket book for all of them was riot. Assistant District Attorney Carey requested each man be held for a hearing on March 23, on the maximum bail of $2,500. When the four men returned to court, the charges against them were dismissed as they had already been indicted as a result of District Attorney Dodge's investigation. While the Magistrates Court docket book recorded the deposition of each of the men's cases as "Dism[issed], def[endant] indicted," Dodge announced the day after their indictment that he was instead sending them for trial on misdemeanor charges in the Court of Special Sessions, not felony charges in the Court of General Sessions. The men's trial did not take place until June 20. After hearing evidence that that a crowd had collected in front of Kress' prior to the men arriving, the men's ILD lawyers moved to have the charges dismissed, the New York Amsterdam News and Daily Worker reported. The judges granted that motion and freed the four men.
  
  Claudio Viabolo’s name was spelled in a variety of ways in these sources. Viabolo is used here as it was recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, and in stories about his appearances in the Harlem Magistrates Court published in the Afro-American, Daily News, New York Post, New York Herald Tribune, Home News, New York Sun, New York Times, New York American, and New York Age. The name was spelled Diabolo in the list of those arrested in the disorder published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and stories in New York World-Telegram and New York Evening Journal. In the edition the New York Age rushed to print on March 23, the name was Bilo. In the Daily Worker on March 21, the name was Viano. Sam Jameson's name was also misspelled, but was not corrected over time as Viabolo's name was. Jameson is used here as it was recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, and in stories published in New York Evening Journal, New York Times, New York Post, New York Herald Tribune, and stories about court appearances published in the Home News and New York Sun. The name was spelled Jamieson in the Daily News, Atlanta World, Norfolk Journal and Guide, and New York American.
  
  Historians’ descriptions of the protests outside Kress’ store follow the narrative provided by police, treating all those arrested as part of a single group. That framing implicitly introduces the idea that the disorder was orchestrated by those men, while offering no details of how the crowds of women and men around them acted to weigh against that evidence. Weight is added to that implication by the failure to fully identify the men involved in the protests. While Cheryl Greenberg and Lorrin Thomas do not identify the men, Mark Naison, Thomas Kessner, Marilynn Johnson, and Nicole Watson describe them as members of the Young Liberators. None of those historians mentions that four of the five, and both the speakers arrested, were white men. Naison did describe the Young Liberators as an interracial group; so too did Nicole Watson, however she did not identify the men in front of the store as members of the Young Liberators. Neglecting their race makes those men appear more representative of the crowd than they were, particularly in Greenberg and Watson’s narratives, which do not identify them as Young Liberators. Naison, Kessner, Greenberg, Thomas, Johnson, and Watson all follow the chronology that has the picketing begin before the speakers were arrested. Grouping the men places an organized Communist protest at the center of the outbreak of disorder and makes the window being broken and the men’s arrest a response to the feeling they built in the crowd. Recognizing that the protests occurred in a less coordinated way highlights that police responded immediately to any sign of protest, not just to a window being broken. They may also have acted so quickly because they recognized the men as Communists; the men’s language and appeals would have given them away. Communist protest in Harlem, and across the city, drew violent responses from police throughout the early 1930s. Recognition of the fragmented nature of the protests and the identity of those involved directs attention away from those events to the crowds of Black men and women around them. Crowd members gathered in groups, talked among themselves, sought answers from police about what had happened to the boy, and responded to police efforts to clear the street. Rather than organized or orchestrated by the Young Liberators, those behaviors appear more spontaneous, in line with the interpretation offered in the MCCH’s final report.
   
• 1 2022-02-04T19:41:26+00:00 Daniel Miller arrested 86 plain 2024-02-12T22:14:20+00:00 Daniel Miller stepped up on a ladder in front of Kress' store about 6:15 PM and began to speak to a crowd he estimated at 100-200 people. The twenty-four-year-old white man who identified himself as a member of the Nurses and Hospital League had said only "Fellow workers" when someone in the crowd threw an object at the windows of the store, breaking one. Patrolman Timothy Shannon of the 28th Precinct, one of about five officers stationed in front of Kress' store, immediately pulled Miller from the ladder and arrested him. Sergeant Bowe testified in a public hearing of the MCCH that he was a "witness" to that arrest. James Parton, the Black man who had carried the ladder, and an American flag banner, to the front of the store and spoke briefly before Miller, was not arrested. Nor was Parton arrested when he climbed a lamppost on the opposite side of 125th Street and spoke to the crowd. However, Harry Gordon, a white man who followed Parton in climbing up the lamppost to speak, was, like Miller, immediately arrested.
  
  Miller's testimony in a public hearing of the MCCH provided the most detailed description of his arrest. Patrolman Shannon also testified in an earlier public hearing, but he was not questioned about the arrest. Louise Thompson testified that she saw Miller begin to speak and the window broken. She did not see his arrest. Patrolman Moran did. Officers stationed with him in front of the store moved to arrest Miller and disperse the crowd listening to him as soon as the window was broken, he told a hearing of the MCCH. Two Hearst newspapers, the New York American and New York Evening Journal, published stories that described the arrest, but they included details that other sources indicate did not happen: Shannon arresting Miller after he refused an order to move on, with no mention of the widely reported broken window; and two white Young Liberators and Harry Gordon coming to Miller’s aid when he was arrested, and battling Shannon and two other patrolmen before also being arrested. Although the newspapers said their information came from police, these elements that did not happen seem to be a product of the anti-Communist stance and sensational style of the Hearst newspapers.
  
  The lists of those arrested during the disorder published by the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, the New York Evening Journal, the Daily News, the New York American, and the New York Herald Tribune all included Miller among those charged with inciting a riot. However, Miller, and the three other white men arrested in front of Kress' store, are not in the transcript of the 28th Precinct police blotter in the MCCH records. Margaret Mitchell, the Black woman arrested inside Kress' store before Miller's arrest, and Claudio Viabolo, the Black Young Liberator arrested with two white companions soon after Miller, do appear in the transcription. That discrepancy suggests that the white men were omitted from the transcription, perhaps overlooked because they were somehow less readily identified as participants in the disorder among others arrested for unrelated activities at that time.
  
  Miller was among around eighty-nine men and women arrested put in a line-up and questioned by detectives in front of reporters at Police Headquarters downtown on the morning of March 20, before being loaded into patrol wagons and taken back uptown to the Harlem and Washington Heights Magistrates Courts. Police put him on the platform in a group with Gordon and the three Young Liberators, Samuels, Jamison and Viabolo, a New York Herald Tribune story noted; it reported that police described them as all "arrested at a demonstration in front of the Kress store." That grouping was not mentioned in the two other newspaper stories about the line-up, with the Daily Mirror and New York Sun, as well as the New York Herald Tribune focusing on Harry Gordon refusing to answer questions until he saw his lawyer.
  
  The Daily News and New York Evening Journal published photographs taken a few seconds apart that are captioned as showing the four white men arrested outside Kress’ store in the West 123rd Street police station on their way to the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Surrounded on three sides by both uniformed police and detectives in plainclothes, three white men are visible, with another white man party visible behind them, all but the first, identified in the caption as Harry Gordon, looking at the ground. Miller was the man on the right of the group, according to the captions. To his right is a Black man, almost certainly Viabolo, as police had grouped him with these men in the line-up earlier that day, and would again in the courthouse. He was not identified in the captions, and, perhaps as a result, cropped out of versions of the photograph published by several regional newspapers. Reflecting its anti-Communist focus, the New York Evening Journal placed the photograph on page one, across the whole width of the page, with a caption labeling the men “young college-bred Communists.” The next page featured photographs of two placards used in the picket, and the leaflets circulated by both the Young Liberators and the Communist Party. The Daily News photograph, taken at almost the same moment, appeared in the center of a two-page spread of photographs of the disorder in the center of the newspaper. The caption did not identify the men as Communists but as inciting the riot, focusing on drawing a contrast between their uninjured appearances and the damage done during the disorder. (Gordon later testified he had been beaten and had injuries to his face; he may be the man whose face was not visible in that photograph notwithstanding the caption.)
  
  Police continued to group Miller with the other four men when they were appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court. In stories on the court appearances, the New York American, Home News, New York Herald Tribune, and New York Times all described the men as the "ringleaders" of the disorder, which was likely the term police used. However, while the Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, New York World-Telegram and Daily Mirror included all five men in that group, the New York American, Home News, and New York Times omitted Gordon. That difference appears to have resulted from Gordon being charged separately from Miller and the other three men. That separation would have resulted from the different arresting officer listed in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book for Gordon, Patrolman Irwin Young, not Patrolman Shannon, the arresting officer recorded for the four other men. The charge recorded for Gordon was also different, assaulting Young, not inciting riot. The Daily News claimed Gordon "was heard separately when he indicated that he would produce his own lawyers."
  
  In the Harlem Magistrates Court Miller was charged with inciting a riot, as were Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo. When their names were called, two lawyers from the International Labor Defense Fund rose to represent them. The appearance of those attorneys was reported by the New York American, Daily Mirror, Home News, Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, New York Times, New York World-Telegram and Daily Worker but for some reason they were not recorded in the column for the name and address of a defendant's lawyer in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book (a section completed for Harry Gordon). The ILD's affiliation with the Communist Party would have been well-known to readers of those newspapers, but the Daily Mirror explicitly made the connection in its story, stating that the men's "Communistic affiliations were declared" by the identity of their attorneys. The Daily Mirror and Daily Worker named the lawyers as "Miss Yetta M. Aronsky and I[sidore] Englander," while Daily News named only Aronsky, and the New York American, New York Herald Tribune and New York Times reported only "a woman lawyer" who would not give her name to their reporters. (Englander later testified about being present in the court in a public hearing of the MCCH).
  
  Assistant District Attorney Richard E. Carey, the Black attorney Magistrate Renaud had requested prosecute those arrested in the disorder, according to the Daily News, requested the men be held for a hearing on Friday on the maximum bail of $2500. The men's ILD lawyers protested that sum. Other arrested during the disorder charged with felonies had their bail set at $1000, including Harry Gordon. Magistrate Renaud dismissed those protests, and complaints by Aronsky, reported by the Daily News and Daily Worker that the men "had not been fed by police following their arrest."
  
  When Miller returned to the Harlem Magistrates Court with the three Young Liberators, Magistrate Ford dismissed the charges against the group because the grand jury had indicted them in response to evidence presented by District Attorney Dodge as part of his investigation of the disorder. The Magistrates Court docket book records the deposition of the men's cases as "Dism[issed], def[endant] indicted." Stories in the Daily Mirror and New York Amsterdam News also reported they had been indicted by the grand jury. However, while the grand jury did send the men for trial, it was for a misdemeanor, not a felony, so an information that sent them to the Court of Special Sessions, not an indictment that would have sent them to the Court of General Sessions. Other stories included elements of that distinction. The New York American reported that after being discharged the men were "turned over to detectives with bench warrants based on the Grand Jury informations voted last week charging inciting to riot." The New York Herald Tribune also reported "two informations charging five persons with inciting riot" without naming them; so too did the Daily News, which alone specified that an information charged a misdemeanor and that the men were sent for trial in the Court of Special Sessions. The grand jury also sent all the other individuals charged with inciting a riot that appeared before it to the Court of Special Sessions to face trial for misdemeanors. Testifying in a public hearing of the MCCH, Miller said he was charged with unlawful assembly. That crime involving disturbing the peace, not efforts to prevent the enforcement of the law or incite force or violence.
  
  As other prosecutions resulting from the riot made their way through the courts there were no reports mentioning Miller, or Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo. Finally, on June 20, the four men appeared in the Court of Special Sessions — the New York Amsterdam News reported an additional defendant, a "young sympathizer," Dave Mencher, not mentioned in any other sources or in the Daily Worker story, the only other report of this trial located. Only one prosecution witness testified before the court's three judges, Sergeant Bauer of the West 123rd Street station (likely the sergeant who testified at the public hearings that he was involved in the arrest, although his name was recorded as Bowe in the transcript). It is not clear why Patrolman Timothy Shannon, the arresting officer, did not appear as a witness. International Labor Defence lawyers again represented the men, but not the same attorneys as on the day after the disorder. Instead, Joseph Tauber and Edward Kuntz, who played prominent roles in the MCCH public hearings, represented the men. After cross-examining Bauer to establish that a crowd had collected in front of Kress' store prior to the men arriving, the attorneys moved to have the charges of inciting a riot dismissed. The judges agreed, and freed Miller and the three other men.
  
  Miller's home address is recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book as 1280 South Boulevard in the Bronx. That address is also published by the Daily Mirror, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, New York American, New York Times, and New York Age. However, the New York Evening Journal reported that address did not exist. A different address was published in the New York Herald Tribune, Home News, New York American, and New York Amsterdam News: 35 Morningside Avenue, between West 117th and 118th Streets, two blocks west of 8th Avenue. That address fits the information he gave in the MCCH public hearing. All those newspaper stories are reports of Miller's appearance in court, suggesting that the Morningside Avenue address was mentioned at that time even if it was not recorded in the docket book. Miller's organization, the Nurses and Hospital League, had an office downtown at 799 Broadway, identified in the New York Post, New York American, and Daily Worker as raided by police investigating the disorder that was outside Harlem.