Sidney Lipshires

Released
Gender:Male
Race:White
Era:1950s
State:Massachusetts
Support
Communism Communist Party USA
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Biography

Sidney Lipshires joined the Communist Party in 1939 and in 1947 ran for city alderman in Springfield, Massachusetts on the Communist ticket. On May 29, 1956 — the day his daughter was born — he was arrested under the Smith Act for his Communist Party activities, and he went on to serve as executive secretary of the Massachusetts Smith Act Defendants Committee, publishing a pamphlet exposing the law and the tactics used against the accused. The case never reached trial: the Smith Act prosecution collapsed after the Supreme Court's 1957 Yates decision. Lipshires later left the Party, remained active in organized labor, earned a Ph.D., and taught history at Manchester Community College in Connecticut for some thirty years.

Case

Charges: Conspiracy to advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government, under the Smith Act.
Sentence: No conviction — arrested and prosecuted, but the Smith Act case was dismissed in 1957 without a trial verdict. Verdict as recorded: No — the charges were dismissed in 1957 after the U.S. Supreme Court's Yates v. United States decision; the defendants "won their case." Charges as recorded: Conspiracy to advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government, under the Smith Act — a McCarthy-era prosecution of Massachusetts Communist Party leaders (the "Bay State Reds") for their political beliefs and association, brought in 1956.
Convicted: No — charges dismissed

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