Earl Browder

Earl Browder was a trade union activist from Kansas City, Missouri. In 1917, Browder was convicted of failure to register for the draft and conspiracy to interfere with the draft. He served two years in prison at the Bates County Jail in Butler, Missouri, and at Leavenworth Penitentiary. Soon after his release from prison in December 1920, Browder joined the Communist Party. He became a full member of the party's Executive Committee in 1922 and rose to its leadership in the 1930s during the party's most influential period in U.S. history. He served as general secretary from 1934 to 1945, but was stripped of his office in 1945. In 1946, Browder was expelled from the party and labelled a "renegade and revisionist."