‘Brother Ralph Cray’s Story’ by His Brother from Labor Defender. Vol. 11 No. 8. August, 1935.

(Ralph Gray was murdered in Alabama on July 17, 1931. The Share Croppers Union of which he was one of the founders declared July 17, 1935 a Ralph Gray Memorial Day throughout the South -A real Southern Toiler holiday. This short sketch of his life was written by his brother.)

There were 15 of us children that were born unto James and Fannie Gray. They were nine boys and six girls. Brother Ralph was the fourth child born to James and Fannie Gray. He was born on March 7, 1873 in Tallapoosa County in the state of Alabama. Brother Ralph was raised on the farm and there he worked until he was twenty one years of age.

Brother Ralph was a mighty hunter and trapper of wild game from his earliest youth. At the age of 15 he would go out and catch wild game. After he was 21 he left the farm and went to Birmingham and there he stayed for a year after which he returned back home and began working on the farm again.

He was married to Junnie Row in 1896 and there were two children born to Ralph and Junnie. The first born died while he was a little child and the second child is living and with her mother today.

Brother Ralph and Junnie lived together on the farm for 23 years. In the fall of 1919 he left Alabama and went to Oklahoma where Andrew, our oldest brother was living at that time. And Brother Ralph farmed there for two years and was greatly robbed by the landlord.

He left Oklahoma and went to New Mexico and farmed there for eight years, but while he was there he also did a lot of hunting and trapping and he made pretty good on selling the hides from the different animals that he caught.

So in the fall of 1929 Brother Ralph returned back to Alabama to his native home. And he began to work on the farm again. The conditions on the farms got so bad until it was impossible to get along at all or get any help except by organizing ourselves together.

In 1931 Brother Ralph borrowed $40.00 from the government and he rented a farm from John J. Langley. When the check came both John J. and Brother Ralph had to sign it to get it cashed. John J. being the landlord he wanted all the check for himself. He was also the mail carrier on Brother Ralph’s route- so when the check came he told Brother Ralph to sign it and he would get it cashed and bring the money back. Thinking he would do what he said, Brother Ralph signed the check, but he never saw the money.

He went to ask for his money but Langley refused to give it to him. Brother Ralph went right back to the county agent and told him what Jonn J. the landlord had done and asked the agent to consult the papers and notes that held him responsible for the $40 that John J. had. When the landlord heard what he had done, he got mighty mad and jumped on Brother Ralph to give him a whipping. Instead Brother Ralph whipped him. And that made him still more angry.

And so in 1931 when the first trouble with our union broke out and the sheriff and thugs broke up a meeting at my home where we were protesting against the Scottsboro frame-up, and I was brutally beaten up together with all of my family, John J. thought this was a good time to do what he had been wanting to do for some time.

And so on the next evening after they had beaten me and my family up they came upon Brother Ralph on the public highway and the sheriff and some others shot him down. And when he fell the sheriff came up to him to take his gun but Brother Ralph shot the sheriff.

He lay there suffering until some of his friends went for him and carried him home.

In a short while a great crowd of gangsters and thugs crowded around his house and they took axes and clubs and broke down the door of his house and went in on him though he was helpless on his bed.

One of the thugs poked a pistol into Brother Ralph’s mouth and shot him down his throat.

By the time they loaded him into a car and carried him to the jail his body was riddled with bullets and he was dead and his body was left before the gates of the jail-house like that of a wild animal.

We all honor the memory of Brother Ralph Gray- he was a leader and a fighter and his work goes on though he is not here to see it grow.

Labor Defender was published monthly from 1926 until 1937 by the International Labor Defense (ILD), a Workers Party of America, and later Communist Party-led, non-partisan defense organization founded by James Cannon and William Haywood while in Moscow, 1925 to support prisoners of the class war, victims of racism and imperialism, and the struggle against fascism. It included, poetry, letters from prisoners, and was heavily illustrated with photos, images, and cartoons. Labor Defender was the central organ of the Scottsboro and Sacco and Vanzetti defense campaigns. Editors included T. J. O’ Flaherty, Max Shactman, Karl Reeve, J. Louis Engdahl, William L. Patterson, Sasha Small, and Sender Garlin.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1935/v11n08-aug-1935-orig-LD.pdf