This is the 50th anniversary of the death of Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer. He was a Mississippi businessman and civil rights activist who made the fatal mistake of going on the radio and telling listeners that he would pay their poll taxes if they couldn’t afford the voting fee.
It cost him his life.
Dahmer ran a successful grocery store in Hattiesburg, Miss., and served twice as president of the local NAACP chapter. He led voter registration drives and was the one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the local voter registrar, who told him in 1949 that he would only register African-American voters if they could answer the question, “How many bubbles in a bar of soap?”
Dahmer and his wife, Ellie, had been receiving death threats for Dahmer’s efforts on black voter registration. The night of Jan. 10, 1966, they awoke to the sound of a shotgun blast and breaking windows, where open containers of gasoline were being thrown into the house.
The house erupted in flames. Ellie Dahmer and the couple’s children escaped, but Dahmer was severely burned and died later in a hospital.
Fourteen men, most of whom had Ku Klux Klan connections, were indicted for the firebombing. Thirteen faced trial, eight on charges of arson and murder. Four were convicted, but three of those were pardoned after four years. Eleven defendants also faced federal civil rights charges.
Sam Bowers, former imperial wizard of the KKK, was believed to have ordered the murder and was tried four times, but each case ended in a mistrial. Finally, in 1998, based on new evidence, the state of Mississippi charged Bowers with Dahmer’s murder and assault on his family. He was convicted and died in prison.
A memorial to Dahmer was dedicated in a park in Hattiesburg that was also named after him. His widow, Ellie Dahmer, was elected as the election commissioner of Forrest County, Miss., in 1992 and served for more than a decade — the same county where he fought for voting rights. She was elected with the support of both black and white residents.
Throughout his years-long work on voter registration, Dahmer’s mantra was always, “If you don’t vote, you don’t count.” The words were used as the epitaph on his grave.
We all need to remember those words — in every election.
