Louis Allen Murdered (1964)
Fri Jan 31, 1964
Louis Allen was a civil rights activist in Liberty, Mississippi who was assassinated by white supremacists on this day in 1964. When Allen told the U.S. government that he feared for his life, the Justice Department refused to protect him.
Allen had previously tried to register to vote and had allegedly talked to federal officials after witnessing the 1961 murder of Herbert Lee, an NAACP member and volunteer with the SNCC, by E. H. Hurst (1908 - 1990), a white Mississippi state legislator.
Allen watched as Hurst assassinated Lee with a single gunshot to the head and was forced by local police to testify in court that Hurst acted in self-defense (Hurst falsely claimed Lee attacked him a tire iron).
After giving this coerced testimony, Allen talked to the FBI and the United States Commission on Civil Rights in Jackson, asking for protection if he testified about how his testimony was made under duress. The Justice Department said they could not offer him protection, and so Allen declined to speak out.
When Allen reported receiving death threats, the FBI referred the matter to the office of Amite County Sheriff Daniel Jones. The FBI did so despite an agent acknowledging in a 1961 memo that "the local sheriff was involved in the plot to kill him". FBI documentation also noted that Jones was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Following the murder of Herbert Lee, Sheriff Jones began a campaign of harassment against Allen, arresting him on false charges multiple times and breaking his jaw with a flashlight. When Allen filed formal complaints about Jones' behavior, they were ignored.
On January 31st, 1964, the day before Allen had planned to move out of the state entirely, he was assassinated on his own property. In 2011, the CBS program "60 Minutes" conducted a special on his assassination which suggested that Allen was killed by Sheriff Jones. No one has been arrested or prosecuted for his murder.
- Date: 1964-01-31
- Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, snccdigital.org, www.blackpast.org.
- Tags: #CivilRights, #Assassinations.
- Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org