Jan. 10, 1966, the Klan wanted to shut Vernon Dahmer up and
stop his voting registration drives, they did but brought the full power
of the Department of Justice down on them.
In the early morning hours of Jan. 10th, the home and grocery
of Mr. Dahmer were firebombed by the Klan as retribution for his years of work
in civil rights and fighting to get people registered to vote and to the polls.
Although he could have passed for white and moved from
Mississippi Dahmer was very aware of his place and the racial discrimination
and early in his life decided he was going to overcome it. So, he worked hard
and built himself up eventually owning not just his store but a sawmill and a 200-acre
farm.
He had earned respect because of his labor and the fact he provided
jobs in the community and was very active in the community not just in Civil
Rights. However, Dahmer never lost sight of the struggle most Black Americans
faced. He was elected president of the local NAACP and urged his friends and
neighbors to vote.
Vernon Dahmer knew Sam Bowers, the Ku Klux Klan leader in the
area, and was aware that because of his position and registration activism, it
was probable Bowers had ordered his murder.
What Bowers was unprepared for was the reaction to the heinous
act. President Lyndon Johnson called the murder, “a grievous tragedy,” and
ordered his Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach to make the full resources of
the Department of Justice available to Forest County and Mississippi State
officials. Mississippi governor Paul Johnson expressed dismay at such an open
murder in his hometown and said, “We will do everything in our power to find
these vicious and morally bankrupt criminals and make them pay.”
Often times this was rhetoric but Paul Johnson had learned
from the previous case of the Mississippi Civil Rights Workers' Murders and
praised the Voting Rights Act. He understood Mississippi’s reputation was damaging
the economy of his state.
Also, White officials and community leaders were genuinely
outraged. The Hattiesburg City Council set up a relief fund for the family, and
a white-owned bank made the first donation. Whites and blacks alike donated
furniture, clothes, and materials to rebuild the Dahmer home. Local officials
pledged their full resources to solve the crime.
All this focus led to 14 Klansmen being arrested for arson and
murder, One pleaded guilty to arson, and three more were convicted of murder
and sentenced to life in prison. Bowers and another Klansman were freed by hung
juries, however.
In August 1991, the case was reopened, and in 1998, Bowers was
convicted and sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2006 at the age of
82. He had previously served six years in federal prison on civil rights
violations in connection with the murders of three civil rights workers in
Neshoba County in 1964.
Sources:
https://www.splcenter.org/vernon-dahmer
https://www.civilrightsteaching.org/voting-rights/vernon-dahmer-civil-rights
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2016/01/02/vernon-dahmer-day-honors-civil-rights-martyr/78039742/
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