Ben Fletcher

Released
Full name:Benjamin Harrison Fletcher
Date of birth:13. 04. 1890
Date of death:10. 07. 1949
Age:59† Deceased
Gender:Male
Race:Black
Era:1910s
State:Pennsylvania
Support
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
Ben Fletcher

Biography

Benjamin Harrison Fletcher was the most prominent African American organizer in the Industrial Workers of the World and a leader of Marine Transport Workers Local 8, the interracial union that controlled the Philadelphia waterfront. One of more than 100 Wobblies convicted in the 1918 Chicago mass trial under the Espionage Act for opposing World War I, he was imprisoned at Leavenworth; his sentence was commuted in 1922 and he received a full pardon from President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933.

Case

United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth
Charges: Conspiracy under the Espionage Act — opposing World War I (1918 Chicago IWW mass trial)
Sentence: Ten years at Leavenworth; sentence commuted in 1922 and pardoned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 Verdict as recorded: Yes — convicted August 1918 ADMITTED TO BAIL, APRIL 2, 1919. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ordered thirty-eight of the men convicted in the Chicago mass trial released on bail pending its review of the case; the bonds ran from $5,000 to $10,000, with Haywood alone required to provide $15,000. Fifty-five others convicted in the same case did not seek bail. The order is not the release: each man left Leavenworth when his bond was actually furnished, which for those whose dates are recorded here fell between April 28 and September 28, 1919. Reported in the New York Times and across the wire services, April 3, 1919.
Convicted: Yes
Institution State: Kansas

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