Herndon went to Atlanta as a labor organizer for the Unemployment Council. His involvement with the Communist Party brought him national prominence after he was arrested in Atlanta, convicted of insurrection, and his case twice reached the US Supreme Court on appeal. He campaigned to organize working-class blacks and whites to become politically active. He solicited blacks and whites alike for membership in an integrated Communist Party of Atlanta. Nearly 1,000 unemployed workers, both black and white, demonstrated at the federal courthouse on June 30, 1932, seeking resumption of relief payments. Officials were alarmed that the protest was biracial, as it crossed the segregated lines of the Jim Crow South. They began to monitor known and suspected radicals, even as the city became more crowded with rural migrants. On July 11, Herndon checked on his mail at the Post Office and was arrested by two Atlanta police detectives. A few days later his hotel room was searched, and Communist Party publications were found. At first, Herndon was charged for being a communist. Then, Herndon was charged with insurrection under a Georgia
Reconstruction era law. ,
Scottsboro Case witness Ruby Bates, and Communist leaders
Robert Minor and
James W. Ford. He was held for nearly six months in jail and was released on
Christmas Eve, after his bail of $7,000 was paid by the
International Labor Defense, a legal organization affiliated with the Communist Party USA. An
all-white jury found Herndon guilty at trial on January 18, 1933. Hired by the ILD, his young attorneys were
Benjamin J. Davis Jr. and John H. Geer. The
International Juridical Association provided support by reviewing their brief for Herndon. The prosecutor, John Hudson, wanted the death penalty for Herndon for possessing communist literature, however, Geer and Davis made it known that the literature could be found in the public library. On December 7, 1935, Herndon's conviction was overturned by the state appeals court and he was released on bail. After the Georgia Supreme Court upheld his original conviction, Herndon went on a national speaking tour in 1936 to promote his case while his defense appealed it to the Supreme Court. He appeared before crowds in
Denver, Colorado;
Topeka, Kansas; and
Kansas City, Missouri. He also ran for
New York State Assembly in
Manhattan's 21st district, based in
Harlem, as the candidate of the "All People's Party," a Communist front. He came in fourth place with roughly 1% of the vote. and
Robert Minor lift Herndon on their shoulders following the
Supreme Court ruling in his favor, April 1937 On April 26, 1937, a narrow five-to-four majority of the United States Supreme Court ruled in Herndon's favor, striking down Georgia's insurrection statute as unconstitutional, as it violated the First Amendment, which protects individual's right to free speech and the right of assembly. Herndon was greeted as a hero by a crowd of 6,000 well-wishers when he returned by train to
Pennsylvania Station in
New York City. Several leading Communist Party officials were on hand to welcome him. On October 13, 1937, Angelo's brother
Milton Herndon was killed fighting for the
Republicans in the
Spanish Civil War. Like Angelo, Milton was a Communist Party member. Milton had sought to use his previous experience as a National Guard while in Spain. In the 1940s, Herndon founded the Negro Publication Society of America, which published the radical African-American newspaper ''The People's Advocate'' in
San Francisco,
California, among other works. ==Later life==