Eye for an Eye: The Role of Armed Resistance ... - Freedom Archives

population it only had one registered Black voter (who never voted) out of 3,560
of voting age . In the early 1950's, Amite sheriff deputies and white civilians,
including Klan members, raided an NAACP meeting at a local black Baptist
church and seized the local membership rolls. Only after FBI intervention were
the membership rolls returned . On September 24, 1961, Steptoe informed a
Federal Justice department official that his and other Amite county NAACP,
organizers' lives were in danger. The next day E.H . Hurst, a white Mississippi
state legislator, shot and killed a charter member and vice president of the Amite
NAACP Herbert Lee in downtown Liberty. Acoroner's jury acquitted Hurst the
very day of Lee's death, ruling the shooting was self-defense . Moses and Steptoe
found three Black witnesses who stated Hurst murdered a defenseless Lee . One of
these witnesses, Louis Allen, had been coerced into corroborating Hurst's claims
of self-defense at the coroner's inquest. Allen told Moses he would be willing to
change his previous testimony and acknowledge to a grand jury that Hurst mur-
dered Lee if he could receive protection . Moses appealed to the Justice depart-
ment for protection for Allen . Unfortunately, Moses was informed by Justice
department officials "that there was no way possible" to provide protection for
Allen . The result was that Allen was constantly harassed by local whites and three
years later was shot in the drive way of his farm on the eve of planning to leave
the state to escape the harassment. The lack of intervention by Federal official
somewhat stymied the voter registration efforts in Amite .13
Steptoe was quite familiar with Hurst since the white politician lived dow n
the road from the Steptoe farm . In spite of Lee's murder and the lack of Federal
protection for human rights in Amite, E.W. continued to attempt to organize local