Jan. 10, 1966
Vernon F. Dahmer. Sr. Statue was dedicated and unveiled during a ceremony at the Forrest County Courthouse Monday, January 6, 2020. Credit: Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For AmericaVernon Dahmer Sr. defended his family from a KKK attack at their home near Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
The farmer, businessman, entrepreneur and NAACP leader had dedicated his life to voting rights. Upset by his work on voting rights in the African-American community, Klansmen firebombed the family’s home while they were sleeping and began firing their guns into the home. Dahmer grabbed his shotgun and fired back at Klansmen, enabling his family to escape safely out a back window. Flames from the blaze seared his lungs, and he died a day later.
On his deathbed, a reporter pressed him on why he kept pushing for voting rights for Black Americans. Dahmer explained, “If you don’t vote, you don’t count.”
The case led to a few convictions, but the Klansmen didn’t stay behind bars long because governors pardoned them, commuted their sentences or released them early. Most of the killers walked free, including Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers, who ordered the attack.
Bowers was finally convicted in 1998 and sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2006.
In 2020, county officials erected a statue in honor of Vernon Dahmer outside the same courthouse where Black residents once protested for the right to vote. Sculptor Ben Watts and artist Vixon Sullivan worked together on the statue.
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