Biography
George Washington Henson was a 65-year-old union textile worker at Pelzer, South Carolina. During the 1935 textile strike he was first arrested for the murder of striker Gertrude Kelley — a charge dropped when the fatal bullet proved not to be from his shotgun — then indicted with eighteen others for rioting and jailed a week before making bond. Only strikers were jailed; none of those who fired on the strikers were arrested.