Angelo Herndon
Let Me Live
(New York, 1937).
Angelo Herndon (1913-1997) was a coal miner and labor organizer who worked across racial lines. After being suspected of organizing protests in Depression-era Atlanta he was arrested. A search of his apartment found Communist literature, resulting in a charge of insurrection. Found guilty, Herndon was sentenced to 18 to 20 years of hard labor on a chain gang. On appeal to the Supreme Court, the Georgia insurrection law was found unconstitutional, violating the rights of free speech and free assembly.
Herndon’s account of his life and case, Let Me Live (1937), was written in prison. The jacket art refers to Herndon’s prison experience and captures a powerful iconography of resistance. Our copy of the autobiography holds particular interest as Herndon has inscribed it to labor leader Tom Mooney.
