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Tennessee

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 Tennessee.

55Documented
2In custody
46Released
1Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in Tennessee

Where Tennessee’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

2020s 13 1800s 10 1950s 6 1910s 6 1990s 4 1970s 4

Documented cases

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

D
Dominic D. Brown
Released
Dominic D. Brown, 18, of Knoxville, TN was charged with riots and civil disorder after posting profane Snapcha...
A
Arthur Clark
Released
Arthur Clark was a conscientious objector from Tennessee imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for re...
F
Fyke Farmer
Released
Fyke Farmer was a war-tax resister who refused to pay federal income tax on the ground that the Korean War was...
T
Tondrique J. Fitzgerald
Released
Tondrique Fitzgerald, 23, was arrested on June 1, 2020 and charged with aggravated rioting and vandalism for e...
T
Timothy Justen French
Released
Timothy Justen French participated in NullCrew and Anonymous. He was imprisoned following a federal computer-d...
D
David Fry
Released
Captain David Fry, an East Tennessee Unionist, led the party that burned the Lick Creek railroad bridge in the...
H
Henry Fry
Henry Fry was an East Tennessee Unionist who took part in the coordinated bridge-burning uprising of November...
C
Chester Gallagher
Released
Chester Gallagher, 73, lead defendant in the March 5, 2021 Mt. Juliet TN reproductive-health clinic blockade b...
R
R.G. Givin
Released
R.G. Givin was a conscientious objector from Tennessee imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for refu...
V
Vincent Hamer
Released
On June 3, 2020 Vincent Hamer, 18, was arrested in connection with vandalism at the Nashville Historic Courtho...
H
Henry Harmon
Henry Harmon, a son of Jacob M. Harmon, joined his father and other East Tennessee Unionists in the November 1...
J
Jacob Harmon
Jacob M. Harmon was an East Tennessee Unionist who, with his sons, joined the November 1861 bridge-burning upr...
J
Jacob Hinshaw
Jacob Hinshaw was an East Tennessee Unionist who took part in the November 1861 uprising that burned Confedera...
L
LaSaunders Hudson
Released
LaSaunders Hudson was a Black dry-cleaning business owner (B.H.K. Cleaners) in Memphis, Tennessee. On June 7,...
H
Hardy Woodward Hunter
Released
Hardy Woodward Hunter was a student at Tennessee A&I in Nashville and part of the 1960 lunch-counter sit-in mo...
B
Ben F. Jackson
Released
Ben F. Jackson was a conscientious objector from Tennessee imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for...
G
Gilbert Lewis
Released
Gilbert Lewis, a Black Trade Union Unity League organizer, was sentenced to a chain-gang sentence at Chattanoo...
S
Shelby Ligons
Released
Shelby Ligons, 22, of Nashville, charged August 3, 2020 with malicious destruction of property by fire after s...
M
Milton Eugene Lindsey
Released
Milton Eugene Lindsey was a 23-year-old Black worker, husband and father of two in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Ear...
M
Marcus Merriweather
Released
Marcus Merriweather, 15, passenger in the January 14, 1995 Westerman shooting car. Found not guilty on all cha...
R
Ralph Moore
Ralph Moore led Black Panther organizing in Chattanooga. A supermarket boycott seeking support for community p...
A
Arthur Park
Released
Arthur Park was a conscientious objector from Tennessee imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for ref...
J
James Pierce
Released
James Pierce was a coal miner of the Washburn, Tennessee area arrested in December 1933 and sentenced to a yea...
N
Nelson Pierce
Released
Nelson Pierce was a coal miner of the Washburn, Tennessee area arrested in December 1933 and sentenced to a ye...

Institutions in Tennessee

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

Knox County JailKnoxville, Tennessee
4 cases
Robertson County Circuit Court
2 cases
Tennessee state prison (Davidson County)Nashville, Tennessee
2 cases
Perry County JailLinden, Tennessee
1 case
Knox County Detention FacilityKnoxville, Tennessee
1 case
FCI Memphis Satellite CampMillington, Tennessee
1 case
Shelby County Circuit Court
1 case
Nashville / Memphis city jailsNashville, Tennessee
1 case