"In a raid on the Progressive Bookstore of Oklahoma City in 1940, local officials seized thousands of books and pamphlets and arrested twenty customers and proprietors, several of them members of the Communist Party. All were detained incommunicado and many were held for months on unreasonably high bail. Four were tried and convicted for violating Oklahoma's 'criminal syndicalism' law and sentenced to ten years in prison. The defendants' convictions and sentences caused a nationwide furor and were ultimately overturned on appeal after protests from labor unions, churches, publishers, academics, librarians, the American Civil Liberties Union, members of the literary world, and prominent individuals ranging from Woody Guthrie to Eleanor Roosevelt." "Shirley A. Wiegand and Wayne A. Wiegand share the story of this important case for the first time, drawing on recently discovered trial transcripts, interviews with witnesses and those arrested, documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and other primary sources."--Jacket.
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