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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.

Carl Marzani
Released
Carl Aldo Marzani was an Italian-American immigrant radical, OSS veteran, and former State Department employee...
Connie Matthews
In Exile
Connie Matthews was a Danish-Jamaican activist who served as the Black Panther Party's International Coordinat...
Colinford Mattis
Released
Colinford Mattis, 32, attorney, with Urooj Rahman attempted to use Molotov cocktails to damage NYPD vehicles d...
Edward McGowan
Released
Jesuit (13 years), age 36 at indictment, resident of Woodstock College and a Bronx native considered an expert...
Olive McKeon
Released
Olive McKeon was an Irish-American activist jailed for refusing a federal grand jury demand during an investig...
Cecily McMillan
Released
Cecily McMillan emerged as a prominent figure associated with Occupy Wall Street after her 2012 arrest during...
David McReynolds
Released
David McReynolds, editor of the pacifist magazine Liberation and later a leading figure in the War Resisters L...
Gabriel Megahey
Released
Irish republican activist convicted in federal court in the 1982 "Brooklyn Five" case for conspiring to ship s...
Sam Melville
Sam Melville, born Samuel Joseph Grossman in 1934, was a New York City anti-war activist who, with the small a...
Murry Melvin
Released
Murry Melvin was one of the Buffalo, New York workers jailed in 1930 for demanding "work or wages" in the unem...
Samuel Mencher
Released
Samuel Mencher (also printed Moncher) was one of the New York fur workers convicted with Ben Gold in the 1927...
Jorge Rodríguez Mendieta
Released
Note to editors: From what I could find, this doesn't seem to be political. I'm not sure if my Ivan Vargas (hi...
Solomon Metz
Released
Solomon Metz was an International Ladies Garment Workers Union union officer detained in the prosecution arisi...
Oscar Mileaf
Released
Oscar Mileaf was one of the New York fur workers convicted with Ben Gold in the 1927 Mineola trial — the Long...
Arthur Miller
Released
Arthur Miller, the playwright, was cited for contempt of Congress in 1956 (the House voted 373–9) after he ref...
Louis Miller
Released
Dr. Louis Miller was a New York physician and an executive-board member of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm...
Shelley Miller
Released
Shelley Miller was an anti-imperialist organizer and Puerto Rican independence activist who led the New Moveme...
Jacob Mindel
Released
Jacob Mindel was the senior member of the Foley Square Second String, the Communist Party USAs internal educat...
Robert Minor
Released
Robert Minor, the celebrated cartoonist turned communist organizer, was arrested in the July 3, 1928 Wall Stre...
Hector Xavier Monsegur
Released
Hector Xavier Monsegur, known online as Sabu, was a central organizer of Anonymous and its offshoot LulzSec be...
Henry Monsky
Released
Henry Monsky was a conscientious objector from New York imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for ref...
Ricarte Montes García
Released
Member of the Liga Socialista Puertorriqueña (LSP) jailed for civil contempt after refusing to testify before...
Howard Wilbur Moore
Released
Howard Wilbur Moore New York farm laborer drafted in 1918 and sent to Camp Upton on April 29; refusing the uni...
Howard Moore
Released
Howard Wilbur Moore of Cherry Valley, New York, was an atheist and socialist absolutist who grounded his refus...

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