John Porter

John Porter, a young vice-president of the New Bedford Textile Workers' Union and a Young Workers League organizer, had earlier enlisted in the U.S. Army; when his strike leadership drew the authorities' attention in 1928 he was seized, court-martialed as a "deserter," and sentenced to two and a half years of hard labor — a punishment the movement understood as retaliation for the strike. Held first at Fort Adams, Rhode Island, then near-incommunicado at the Fort Leavenworth military prison, he became the subject of a national "Free John Porter" campaign led by the ILD.