Vernon Dahmer

People

Vernon Dahmer

Outcome

unknown

On January 10, 1966, Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer Sr., a 57-year-old civil rights leader and president of the Forrest County chapter of the NAACP, was murdered by the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan at his home in the Kelly Settlement area north of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Dahmer had dedicated his life to voter registration, and the day before his death, he announced on local radio that he would accept poll taxes at his grocery store and personally pay the $2 tax for anyone who could not afford it. That night, two carloads of Klansmen drove onto his property in the early morning hours, firebombed his home and store, and opened fire with shotguns. Dahmer grabbed his own shotgun and returned fire, giving his wife Ellie and their children time to escape through the windows. His 10-year-old daughter Bettie suffered severe burns on her arms. Dahmer himself sustained burns covering 50 to 80 percent of his body and suffered fatal lung damage from smoke inhalation. He died later that morning at the hospital. Vernon Dahmer was a prosperous farmer and businessman who owned a 200-acre commercial farm, a sawmill, and a grocery store. His economic independence allowed him to organize the Black community without fear of white financial reprisal. He served two terms as president of the Forrest County NAACP and in the 1950s had co-founded a youth NAACP chapter with Medgar Evers. In 1961, he invited the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to set up a voter registration project in Forrest County. He testified in federal court against Circuit Clerk Theron Lynd, whose discriminatory practices included asking Black applicants impossible questions like "How many bubbles are in a bar of soap?" Dahmer's famous words were: "If you don't vote, you don't count." Fourteen Klansmen were arrested and charged with murder, arson, and conspiracy. Four were convicted of murder or arson, but none served more than a few years. Sam Bowers, the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights who ordered the attack, escaped conviction in four trials during the 1960s when all-white juries deadlocked. It was not until 1998, more than 32 years after the murder, that Bowers was finally convicted by a racially mixed jury and sentenced to life in prison. He died at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in 2006. In 1992, Dahmer's widow Ellie was elected Election Commissioner of District 2 in Forrest County, the same district where her husband was murdered for advocating voting rights. In 2020, a bronze statue of Vernon Dahmer was erected in front of the Forrest County Courthouse, and Mississippi designated January 10 as Vernon Dahmer Day.