01/09/2016

Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer, Sr. (March 10, 1908 – January 10, 1966) was an African American Civil Rights leader and president of the Forrest County chapter of the NAACP in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Early life

Vernon Dahmer was born on March 10, 1908 in the Kelly Settlement, Forrest County, Mississippi to Ellen Louvenia (Kelly) and George Washington Dahmer. George Dahmer was a Caucasian man identified as being an honest, hardworking man with outstanding integrity. his occupation was a farmer. Ellen Kelly was biracial because of her mother, Henrietta. Henrietta was a biracial child born out of wedlock by a white slave owner, O.B Kelly, and one of his slaves. She was given to a black family, called the McCombs.

Vernon Dahmer attended Bay Spring High School until the tenth grade; failing to graduate. Vernon was light-skinned enough to pass as a Caucasian man, but instead chose to forgo the privileges of living as a Caucasian man and faced the daily challenges of being an African American man in Mississippi during that time.

Dahmer had three wives throughout the entirety of his life. His first wife was Winnie Laura Mott; they had ended their marriage of five years in divorce. In 1949, Dahmer had remarried to a woman named Aura Lee Smith. Unfortunately, Aura had died after a long illness. Ellie Jewel Davis was his third and final wife; she was a teacher from Rose Hill, Mississippi, and had recently moved to Forrest County. The couple had met after working on the school board together and married in March 1952. The couple had two children of their own together to add to the six children Vernon had had with his first two wives; seven boys and one girl. The family and their home was located north of Forrest County and was part of the Kelly Settlement, close to the Jones County boarder; the settlement (named for Dahmer’s maternal grandfather). Ellie Dahmer taught for many years in Richton, Mississippi and retired in 1987 from the Forrest County school system.

Dahmer was a member of Shady Grove Baptist Church where he served as a music director and Sunday School teacher. Dahmer was the owner of a grocery store, sawmill, planing mill, and also cotton farm. Dahmer’s main objective was to make a living for himself and to provide work for somebody else. Vernon would hire local individuals from the community to work for him and did not discriminate between black or white.

Civil Rights Movement

During the Civil Rights Movement Vernon served two terms as president of the Forrest County Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and led voter registration drives in the 1960s. His wife Ellie said “He was a good progressive Christian man. He wasn’t a mean, bitter Civil Rights worker, because he saw good in White as well as he did in Black.” As president of the Forrest County Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Vernon had personally asked the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to send workers to help aid the voter registrations efforts being made by African Americans in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. SNCC had sent two workers, Curtis Hayes and Hollis Watkins, to Hattiesburg. The act of calling SNCC to help aid the efforts made by the NAACP would eventually cost Vernon his NAACP presidency.

in 1949 Dahmer was in the process of making out his new registration card when Luther Cox denied his attempts to re-register. Luther Cox was the authority figure in charge of registered voters in Forrest County and was a white segregationist. Cox would only authorize a registration of an African American if they could answer the question “How many bubbles are in a bar of soap?” In 1950, fifteen leaders of theForrest County‘s black community, including Dahmer, filled a lawsuit against Cox for his administration of the voting laws; preliminary injunction. Twelve years late in March 1962, the preliminary injunction was in motion of being viewed by the court of law. Dahmer had testified in court against Luther Cox and his testimony helped demonstrate the pattern of discrimination in the county.

In the 1950s Vernon Dahmer and Medgar Evers founded a youth National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter in Hattiesburg. Unfortunately the student chapter did not last longer than a year. Dahmer continued to be supportive of the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee (SNCC) throughout the Civil Rights Movement. Vernon’s farm quickly became a home away from home for SNCC volunteers. The farm was also used for registration projects and helped employee the committee volunteers. Dahmer was also working closely withCoalition for Free and Open Election, COFO and the Delta Ministry.

Dahmer kept a voter registration book in his grocery store in late 1965 to make it easier for African Americans to register. Dahmer also made a public service announcement over the radio stating that he would helped the local African American population pay a poll tax for the right to vote if they could not afford to do so themselves. His mantra was, “If you don’t vote, you don’t count,” and those words, which he repeated on his deathbed, were used as his epitaph.

For more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Dahmer

The firebombed home of Vernon Dahmer, Sr by the Klu Kux Klan 1/10/1966

Murder and suspects

Vernon and Ellie Dahmer had been sleeping in shifts after receiving numerous death threats throughout the year. The Dahmer’s had a shotgun by their nightstand if case they had heard gunshots and always had the curtains drawn tight at night to make it harder for night riders to see into their home. On January 10, 1966 the Dahmer home was attacked by the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The family woke to the sound of a shotgun being shot and the sound of gas jugs being thrown through the windows. As Ellie went to grab the children the house erupted into fire. Vernon returned fire from inside the house to try and distract the Klan’s men while he helped hand Betty down to Ellie. Vernon was able to leave his burning home but was severely burned from the waist up; his daughter Betty also had severe burns on her arms. The Dahmer’s home, grocery store, and car were all destroyed in the fire. Vernon was taken to the hospital and passed away due to his lungs being severely burned and smoke inhalation. Before he died, Dahmer had told a local newspaper reporter: “I’ve been active in trying to get people to register to vote. People who don’t vote are deadbeats on the state. I figure a man needs to do his own thinking. What happened to us last night can happen to anyone, white or black. At one time I didn’t think so, but I have changed my mind.”

The Hattiesburg area was stunned by the attack. The Chamber of Commerce under William Carey, College President Dr. Ralph Noonkester, and Bob Beech had led a community effort to rebuild the Dahmer home. Local and state businesses such as the Masonite Corporation, Alexander Materials, and Frierson Building Materials donated materials, local unions donated their services, and students from the University of Southern Mississippi volunteered unskilled labor. Bob Beech’s second priority was to provide college funds for Dahmer’s school-aged children.Four of Dahmer’s sons were in the United States Military and had left their posts to help bury their father and reconstruct their families home

Authorities indicted fourteen men, most with Ku Klux Klan connections, were tried for the attack on the Dahmer home. Thirteen were brought to trial, eight on charges of arson and murder. Four were convicted and Billy Roy Pitts (Sam Bowers’ body guard), who had dropped his gun at the crime scene, entered a guilty plea and had his gun turned in as state evidence. Billy faced just three years of his federal sentence. However three out four of those convicted were pardoned within four years. In addition, eleven of the defendants were tried on federal charges of conspiracy to intimidate Dahmer because of his civil rights activities. Former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers, who was believed to have ordered the murder, was tried four times and each time pleaded the fifth amendment. Each trial ended in a mistrial.

Finally 25 years after the murder of Vernon Dahmer and assault on his family, the case was reopened by the state of Mississippi in 1991. The case lasted for seven years, and ended by the conviction and sentencing to life in prison, of Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers in 1998. Bowers died in the Mississippi State Penitentiary on November 5, 2006 at the age of 82.

For more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Dahmer#Murder_and_suspects