Rev. George Lee: Sovereignty Commission Investigated the Slain Minister

The Rev. George Lee, voting rights advocate, murdered in Belzoni, Miss.

Some voters who stood in lines to elect this country's first black president, may have spent some of the long hours remembering stories people who gave their lives for this moment.

The story of Rev. George Washington Lee of Belzoni, Miss., would surely be one to remember.

Lee, the first black person to register to vote in Humphreys County since Reconstruction, was shot to death on a neighborhood street while driving his car on the night of May 7, 1955.

Those who knew Lee -- and there were many -- say the Baptist minister was brutalized and killed by white men angered over his voting rights advocacy.

BOTH LEE AND his friend Gus Courts ran small grocery businesses and were targets of Belzoni's White Citizen's Councils, formally organized Klan-influenced organizations initiated in the Delta in 1954 to scare black citizens away from the polls and keep integration from taking place.

Lee often used his pulpit and his printing press to urge others to take action and vote. White officials once offered protection on the condition he end his voter registration efforts, but Lee refused.

Heading the town's new NAACP Chapter, Courts was ordered by his banker to turn over all NAACP books and when he refused, Courts was told to leave town. But he stayed. Courts once was handed a list of ninety-five blacks registered in Humphreys County by a Citizens Council member who warned that anyone not removing their name from the voting list would lose their job. He later testified about his experiences before a Congressional Committee.

Both men had tried for years to pay poll taxes in order to vote and were finally allowed to sign the register only after the county sheriff feared federal prosecution. Casting a ballot required a separate battle.

THE DAY OF REV. LEE'S murder, almost a year after Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education and three months before the lynching of Emmett Till in nearby Sunflower County, he and Courts met and talked about the latest warning.

Lee had received an anonymous death threat demanding he remove his name from the voting list and told Courts that he had a strange feeling about this particular threat.

That night as Reverend Lee drove his car along Belzoni's Church Street, two gun blasts shattered the night stillness, and the minister's Buick sedan swerved over the curb and rammed into a frame house. With the lower left side of his face gone, Rev. Lee staggered from the wreckage but died as he was being driven to the Humphreys County Memorial Hospital. When NAACP leader Medgar Evers arrived from Jackson to investigate Lee's murder, he was told by Sheriff Ike Shelton that Lee lost control of his car and died from the crash; the lead pellets found in his jaw tissues were dental fillings.

An autopsy was not necessary for the "freak accident," Shelton said.

But at Mrs. Lee's insistence, two black physicians examined her husband's body and reported the tissues contained pellets "fired at close range from a high-powered gun." They also found powder burns. Over the next few days, Evers and two national NAACP representatives met with eyewitnesses and the full story emerged:

Lee had been followed by three men in another car. His right rear tire was punctured by a rifle shot and as he slowed, the second car "pulled parallel and a shotgun was fired point-blank into his face. There were also descriptions of the three men, with tentative identifications."

Evers always doubted that any FBI investigation took place, since there was never any public report "or even a solid rumor" as to what was in the report.

Rev. Lee's murder was a cold-blooded answer to demands for equal treatment coming from more Mississippi blacks and was backed by the lies of the sheriff and local police, Evers later reported; Evers was assassinated ten years later in his Jackson driveway by a Delta Klansman and member of the white Citizens Council. Questions remain over Evers' murder.

Aaron Henry,a popular civil rights leader (who lived long enough to die a natural death), asserted, "We felt we needed protection because the past had taught us that when one Negro is killed, stay out of town if your skin is black."

But surprisingly, no protection was needed at the public funeral that took place in Belzoni.

"There wasn't a white man on the streets the day of the service, except for the press. There was a great turnout of Negroes for the funeral. This large presence of Negroes and absence of whites marked a turning point," Henry reported. As Henry predicted, the murder of Rev. Lee became a critical turning point back in 1955; his untimely death would help prompt later passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) -- one of the most successful civil rights laws in American history, guaranteeing millions of minority voters the equal

VRA ended literacy tests, poll taxes and other methods of keeping blacks from voting that had long poisoned the roots of this country's democracy. In 1964, only 300 African Americans served in public office nationwide, including just three in Congress. But recently, more than 9,100 black elected officials were serving, including 43 members of Congress, the largest number ever, according to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. often simply called Inc.

WOULD BARACK OBAMA know the story of Rev. George Lee. "Oh, I'm very sure he know this story," said Margaret Block, the sister of civil rights advocate Sam Block and a civil rights veteran, herself.

"The story of Rev. George Lee is one that we simply do not forget. It is so important to this country's history. And I'm very certain that our new president knows of Rev. Lee and much more about the brave men and women, black and white, who fought so hard for this day to come."

Some interesting links ...

Letter to Atty. Gen. from NAACP

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Other records

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Susan Klopfer, journalist and author, writes on civil rights in Mississippi. Her newest books, "Where Rebels Roost: Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited" and "The Emmett Till Book" are now in print. "Where Rebels Roost" focuses on the Delta, Emmett Till, Fannie Lou Hamer, Aaron Henry, Amzie Moore and many other civil rights foot soldiers. Emphasis on unsolved murders of Delta blacks from mid 1950s on...

Filmmaker collaborating with FBI on civil rights cases for TV show

JACKSON, Miss. — As an African-American teenager in Louisiana, Keith Beauchamp tried interracial dating - behaviour that prompted his parents to tell him the grisly tale of Emmett Till, who was murdered for whistling at a white woman.

The story of Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago who had come to Mississippi to visit his uncle in August 1955, was seared into Beauchamp's mind and, when he moved to New York to begin his career as a filmmaker, the slaying was his first major project.

Beauchamp's 2005 documentary on Till, in large part, led the federal government to reopen the 1955 murder case. Last year, a grand jury declined to indict Carolyn Bryant Donham, the object of the whistle, on a manslaughter charge. The two men who brutally beat the teen and dumped his body in a river died years ago.

Still, Beauchamp's documentary expertise and his ability to persuade people to talk about buried secrets of the civil rights era have earned him a rare collaboration with the FBI.

Now, Beauchamp is filming a series of documentaries based on civil rights killings for the cable channel History as well as TV One. Any new evidence Beauchamp uncovers is shared with the FBI for its Cold Case Unit that focuses on crimes that have gone unpunished from that era.

In turn, the FBI is arranging interviews for Beauchamp with veteran agents who covered the cases and other contacts, said agency spokesman Ernie Porter.

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Sovereignty Commission files on Clinton Melton, murdered shortly after the Emmett Till trial ended ...

A second Sovereignty Commission file regarding Melton's murder

Files on Birdia Keglar

"Birdie Kilgar" [Birdia Keglar, also listed as Elizabeth Keglar]
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CONTINUED --

Mississippi Cold Case; Louis Allen

Reward offered in 1964 slaying; efforts to find Louis Allen's killer increase after solving other cold cases

Family members of Louis Allen, a Liberty resident shot to death 43 years ago in what the FBI is investigating as a civil rights-era slaying, are offering $20,000 for information leading to the arrest of his killers.

Allen's namesake grandson, Louis Allen Jr., said family members suspect the killer is alive and that other people were involved.

The Allen case is one of more than 100 civil rights-era slaying under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. Louis Allen Jr. said he hopes the reward offered by the Mississippi Religious Leadership Conference will spark more interest in finding justice for his grandfather.

Efforts to solve the case have gained steam, following prosecutions in other civil rights-era cold cases, including two life sentences handed down this summer to James Ford Seale of Roxie in the May 2, 1964, kidnapping of Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore. The teens were beaten and drowned.

Story Continued --

From Sovereignty Commission files, here are several links

Initial report filed by the investigator, A. L Hopkins

Rev. E. H. Hurst is "cleared of blame"

Five more deaths reported; citizens councils says it is not responsible

More links can be found at the Sovereignty Commission website when searching under Lewis Allen ...

The "mysterious killing of the only witness to the murder of a negro by a white man" report by investigator Tom Scarbrough

More files can be found under both spellings. sk

Sovereignty Records Could Help Solve Cold Cases

Widows of two civil-rights activists slain in the 1960s in 2006 appealed to Congress yesterday to help bring justice in scores of cold murder cases from that era.

To do so, Myrlie Evers-Williams said, would aid surviving families and tell the nation "that these people's lives were not in vain." She testified on the 44th anniversary of the assassination in Mississippi of her husband, Medgar Evers.

Further prosecutions could help the nation understand its history better in order to heal deep wounds and achieve reconciliation, added Rita Schwerner Bender. Her husband, Michael Schwerner, was killed in Mississippi in 1964.

A House subcommittee unanimously approved a bill to authorize spending $13.5 million a year over 10 years for reopening the cases that have gone cold. Of that, $11.5 million would go to the Justice Department and the remainder to help state and local authorities.
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Don't hold your breath, it never happened.

Yet, Mississippi Sovereignty Commission records were used to convict several people for the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, as well as Medgar Evers (just not everyone involved).

All of these cases, and many others of murder and terrorism against civil rights activists (and people in the wrong place at the wrong time) have files in the Sovereignty Commission. Here are a few links to help you get started in a journey to learn more about Mississippis cold, warm, warmer and hot civil rights cases--

Sov. Comm. funds "book" on Medgar Evers

Early reports by Medgar Evers of young men killed in Corinth and Philadelphia

Medgar Evers constantly "tracked" by the Commission ... for "exploiting" Delta blacks in this file

Blog Across the Mississippi Delta Civil Rights History Tour

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AS FREEDOM VOLUNTEERS packed up and left Mississippi in 1964, brutality and murder kept going on. Some stories made it into the news and into later history books, but in smaller Delta towns several hundred miles north of Jackson, many incidents remain only as whispers among those who once picked the cotton ...


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Bloggers Set to Revisit Mississippi Delta Civil Rights People and Places

Mount. Pleasant, Iowa (USA), May 29, 2007--Two friends from Cleveland, Mississippi and Mount Pleasant, Iowa, are spending ten days roaming and blogging the Mississippi Delta while visiting civil rights people and places. Their pictures and stories will be placed daily at http://mississippimurders.com on the Internet. (Photo at left, courthouse in Belzoni, home of the Rev. George Lee who was murdered in 1955.)

Margaret Block, an early civil rights advocate, and Susan Klopfer, author of Where Rebels Roost; Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited, plan to roam the Mississippi Delta starting June 1, visiting people and places of the modern civil rights movement. “We'll be traveling in and out of the Delta for ten days as we photograph important spots and talk about the region's history,” Klopfer said.

“We plan to visit the towns of Money, Drew, Glendora, Greenwood and other spots connected to the murders of Emmett Till, Birdia Keglar, Adlena Hamlett and Cleve McDowell, among others who were killed for their civil rights activities or just for being black.”

Block, an early SNCC volunteer, spent her first years out of high school in the small town of Charleston where they will kick off their blogging venture by attending a program June 1 honoring Keglar. The NAACP leader was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in 1966 on her way home from a Jackson meeting with Sen. Robert Kennedy. Keglar once saved Block’s life by moving her out of Charleston in a hearse from the funeral home that Keglar managed.

“We have very few scheduled stops, but we will also leave the Delta to attend the funeral of Mrs. Chaney, James Chaney's mother in Meridian,” Block said. The two also plan to visit with Unita Blackwell, Mississippi’s first black woman mayor, and will take pictures as they roam the historical Brooks Farm, Parchman penitentiary, and Clarksdale, home of Aaron Henry, an early civil rights leader who Block also knew.

The two women met when Klopfer was researching a book on the civil rights movement, “Where Rebels Roost; Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited.” Klopfer was living on the grounds of Parchman at the time, where her husband was the chief psychologist.

...Contact:
Susan Klopfer
775-340-3585 (cell) sklopfer@gmail.com
http://mississippimurders.blogspot.com
http://themiddleoftheinternet.com

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