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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.

104Documented
0In custody
75Released
1Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in Tennessee

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

1930s 31 2020s 16 1800s 16 2000s 10 1960s 7 2010s 6

Documented cases

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

H
Henry Harmon
Released
Henry Harmon was a son of Jacob M. Harmon. Henry Harmon joined his father and other East Tennessee Unionists i...
J
Jacob Harmon
Released
Jacob Harmon was an East Tennessee Unionist who, with his sons, joined the November 1861 bridge-burning uprisi...
H
Herbert Harris
Herbert Harris, the Socialist state organizer in Tennessee, was arrested in Memphis during preparations to sho...
W
Will Henegar
Will was held in Tazewell jail after arrest at a relief and National Miners Union meeting. The Knoxville disp...
B
Billie Hickey
Released
Billie Hickey was imprisoned after the July 2010 protest at the Y-12 nuclear-weapons complex in Oak Ridge, Ten...
J
Jim Hinds
Jim Hinds was a union leader jailed amid the Rockwood Hosiery Mill strike in Tennessee. A May 17, 1936 dispatc...
J
Jacob Hinshaw
Released
Jacob Hinshaw was an East Tennessee Unionist who took part in the November 1861 uprising that burned Confedera...
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...
E
Erik Johnson
Released
Erik Johnson of Maryville, Tennessee crossed the line at Fort Benning, Georgia during the November 2001 SOA Wa...
G
George Lambert
George Lambert, the Socialist state secretary in Tennessee, was arrested in Memphis during preparations to sho...
E
Elizabeth Lawson
Released
Elizabeth Lawson was an unemployed-workers’ organizer arrested in Chattanooga,Tennessee on February10,1931 whe...
M
Matt Lynch
Matt Lynch, a young hosiery-workers’ organizer, was recently kidnapped from Rockwood, Tennessee, according to...
O
Oscar McDowell
Oscar McDowell was a Black worker active in the Scottsboro defense movement in Chattanooga. The August 28, 193...
J
Joe Morelock
Joe Morelock was a prisoner elected to the strike committee of the August 14, 1933 convict-miners' protest at...
G
George Oldhan
George Oldhan was one of three Black defendants whom the January 1933 entry of the annual review describes as...
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 Tennessee coal miner jailed with his brother Nelson on December 5, 1933 and sentenced to a...
N
Nelson Pierce
Released
Nelson Pierce was a coal miner of the Washburn, Tennessee area arrested in December 1933 and sentenced to a ye...
J
Joe Polsnot
Joe Polsnot was a strike leader apprehended with Jim Hinds amid the Rockwood Hosiery Mill strike in Tennessee,...
H
Haley Rainwater
Released
Haley Rainwater was one of six people arrested October 9, 2020 in Collierville TN after spray-painting and thr...
H
H.B. Roberts
Released
H.B. Roberts was a conscientious objector from Tennessee imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for re...
W
W. D. F. Sawrie
Released
W. D. F. Sawrie was a Nashville Methodist minister. W. D. F. Sawrie was jailed in 1862 on Andrew Johnson’s ord...
E
Edmund W. Sehon
Released
Edmund W. Sehon was a Nashville Methodist minister. Edmund W. Sehon was jailed in 1862 on Andrew Johnson’s ord...

Institutions in Tennessee

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

Knox County JailKnoxville, Tennessee
4 cases
Brushy Mountain Penitentiary
3 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