The Civil Rights Congress and the NAACP had legal teams that represented three men each in appeals to the State Supreme Court.
On the morning of January 27, 1948, William Horner (1875–1948) opened his second-hand furniture store as usual, at 213 North Broad Street in Trenton.
[1] The Trenton police, pressured to solve the case, arrested: Ralph Cooper, 24; Collis English, 23; McKinley Forrest, 35; John McKenzie, 24; James Thorpe, 24; and Horace Wilson, 37, on February 11, 1948.
All were arrested without warrants, were held without being given access to attorneys, and were questioned for as long as four days before being brought before a judge.
The trial began on June 7, 1948, when the State of New Jersey opened its case against the six based on the five signed confessions obtained by the Trenton police.
In the process of appeal, the Communist Party USA took on the legal defense of half the defendants, with Emanuel Hirsch Bloch acting as their attorney.
[2] The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) defended the other three men, seeking to get their convictions overturned.
The Civil Rights Congress and the NAACP generated publicity to highlight the racial inequities in the railroading of the suspects, their lack of access to counsel, the chief witness' inability to identify them, and other issues.
Du Bois to Pete Seeger, then active in leftist movements, joined the campaign for publicity about obtaining justice in the trials of these men.