Those words were the epitaph of Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer, who died on this day -- Jan. 10 -- in 1966 when the Ku Klux Klan firebombed his house in Hattiesburg, Miss. His "crime"? He offered to pay the poll tax for African-American voters who couldn't afford it.
Dahmer was a wealthy businessman and president of the local NAACP chapter. He went on a local radio station and repeated his offer: He would pay the poll tax for anybody who couldn't afford the voting fee.
On the night of Jan. 10, his house was firebombed. His wife, Ellie, and his children escaped, but he stayed to shoot back at the firebombers. He died the next day of severe burns.
Fourteen men with KKK connections were indicted, and 13 faced trial on charges of arson and murder. Four were convicted, but three of those were pardoned after four years.
A former imperial wizard of the KKK, Sam Bowers, ordered the firebombing. He was tried four times, with four mistrials. Finally, in 1988, with new evidence, the state of Mississippi charged Bowers with Dahmer's murder and assault on his family. He was convicted and died in prison.
"If you don't vote, you don't count" was Dahmer's mantra. With the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and the voter suppression laws passed in so many states, that mantra is something I wish every American thought about every time there's an election.
This information is also on my own blog,
politicalmurder.com, as my "political murder of the day." But it's basically a reiteration of this narrative.