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New York

Political repression plays out state by state — shaped by local institutions, prosecutors, and movements for defense. These are the documented political prisoners and cases the census holds for New York.

859Documented
24In custody
787Released
2Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in New York

Where New York’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1950s 137 1910s 137 1970s 87 1960s 87 1980s 81 1930s 65

Documented cases

859 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

Eddie Ellis
Released
Edwin "Eddie" Ellis was a former Black Panther who was targeted as part of the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Prog...
Julius Emspak
Released
Founding General Secretary-Treasurer of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) 1936-...
Lonnie Epps
Released
Lonnie Epps was a teenage Black Panther Party member at the time of the April 2, 1969 Panther 21 raids. He was...
Bill Epton
Released
Bill Epton was a Harlem-born radical organizer associated with Maoist politics and leadership in the Progressi...
Linda Evans
Released
Linda Sue Evans became politicized through 1960s antiwar organizing, including activity linked to Michigan Sta...
Juan Farinas
Released
Juan Pedro Farinas was a Cuban-born member of the Trotskyist Workers League who became a Vietnam-era anti-war...
Howard Fast
Released
Howard Fast, the best-selling novelist (author of “Citizen Tom Paine” and “Freedom Road”) and a member of the...
Herman Ferguson
Released
Herman Ferguson was a New York City public-school principal, a co-founder of the Organization of Afro-American...
Frederick Vanderbilt Field
Released
Frederick Vanderbilt Field, a wealthy heir who broke with his class to become a radical, was a trustee of the...
Abraham Flaxer
Released
Abraham Flaxer was the president of the United Public Workers union, convicted of contempt of Congress for ref...
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Released
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was one of the most consequential American radicals of the twentieth century. As a teen...
James W. Ford
Released
African-American Communist Party USA organizer and the first Black candidate for U.S. Vice President (CPUSA ti...
Joudon M. Ford
Released
Joudon M. Ford was a New York Black Panther leader and later a City College student newspaper editor, banker a...
Jim Forest
Released
Conscientious objector discharged from US Navy 1961. FOR Vietnam Program Coordinator who, in 1968, joined the...
William Z. Foster
Released
William Z. Foster was the national chairman of the Communist Party USA and the lead-named defendant in the 194...
Louis Fraina
Released
Louis C. Fraina was an Italian-born American Marxist theorist, journalist, and editor who emigrated to the Uni...
Marquis Frasier
Released
Marquis Frasier, 27, said he was at the Public Safety Building "when the riots occurred" on May 30, 2020 in Ro...
Emanuel Fried
Released
Emanuel Fried was a Buffalo union leader who challenged a House Un-American Activities Committee subcommittee...
Betty Gannett
Released
Betty Gannett was a Communist Party USA organizer and a member of the partys National Education Department. Sh...
Deskaheh
In Exile
Levi General, known by his hereditary title Deskaheh, was a Cayuga chief and Speaker of the Six Nations Heredi...
Simon W. Gerson
Released
Simon W. "Si" Gerson was a journalist, electoral organizer, and longtime political-action director of the Comm...
Brianna Gibson
Released
Brianna Gibson was one of 22 Greenpeace activists federally charged after the September 12, 2019 blockade of t...
David Gilbert
Released
David Gilbert is an American radical Marxist, author, and a member of The Weather Underground Organization. In...
Benjamin Gitlow
Released
Benjamin Gitlow Son of Russian-Jewish immigrants and a former New York State assemblyman; founding member of t...

Institutions in New York

Prisons, jails, and detention centers in New York that appear in the census’s case files.

Ellis Island Immigration StationNew York, New York
184 cases
Manhattan House of Detention (the Tombs)New York, New York
17 cases
Sing Sing Correctional FacilityOssining, New York
14 cases
Attica Correctional FacilityAttica, New York
13 cases
Metropolitan Correctional CenterNew York, New York
11 cases
MDC BrooklynBrooklyn, New York
9 cases
Metropolitan Correctional Center, New YorkNew York, New York
9 cases
Blackwell's Island PenitentiaryNew York, New York
8 cases