Lamar "Ditney" Smith (1892 – August 13, 1955) was an American

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life o ...

figure, African-American farmer,

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

veteran and an organizer of

voter registration In electoral systems, voter registration (or enrollment) is the requirement that a person otherwise eligible to vote must register (or enroll) on an electoral roll, which is usually a prerequisite for being entitled or permitted to vote. The r ...

for African-Americans. In 1955, he was shot dead in broad daylight around 10 a.m. at close range on the lawn of the Lincoln County courthouse in

Brookhaven, Mississippi Brookhaven is a small city in Lincoln County, Mississippi, United States, south of the state capital of Jackson. The population was 12,520 at the 2010 U.S. Census. It is the county seat of Lincoln County. It was named after the town of Brookha ...

Details

Lamar Smith, a 63-year-old farmer and

veteran, was a voting rights activist and a member of the

Regional Council of Negro Leadership The Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL) was a society in Mississippi founded by T. R. M. Howard in 1951 to promote a program of civil rights, self-help, and business ownership. It pledged "to guide our people in their civic responsibili ...

(RCNL). On August 2, he voted in the primary and helped get others out to vote. There was a run-off primary scheduled for August 23. On August 13, Smith was at the courthouse helping other African-American voters to fill out absentee ballots so they could vote in the runoff without exposing themselves to violence at the polls. He was shot to death in front of the courthouse in Brookhaven, Lincoln County, at around 10 a.m. Contemporary reports say there were at least 30 white witnesses, including the local sheriff, who saw a white man covered with blood leaving the scene. In spite of a public effort by prosecutor E.C. Barlow to obtain testimony, no witnesses would come forward. The three men who had been arrested went free. Smith apparently had attended meetings of RCNL, probably the largest civil rights organization in the state. He was also a personal friend of RCNL president T. R. M. Howard of Mound Bayou. In 2005, filmmaker Keith Beauchamp created a documentary, ''Murder in Black and White'' of Smith's murder. In 2009, Beachamp and the FBI attempted to interview witnesses in Brookhaven. In 2018, this murder came into the national spotlight when it was learned the murderer was related to the husband of Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, who made campaign comments, which she claimed were jokes, about public hangings and cast voter suppression in a positive light.

Background

Smith's murder was one of several racially motivated attacks in Mississippi in 1955. The other incidents included the murder of

George W. Lee George Wesley Lee (December 25, 1903 – May 7, 1955) was an African-American civil rights leader, minister, and entrepreneur. He was a vice president of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership and head of the Belzoni, Mississippi, branch of ...

, a civil rights leader in Belzoni (May), the killing of Emmett Till, a black teenager visiting from

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

(August), and the shooting of

Gus Courts Gus Courts (May 2, 1887 – April 23, 1969) was an American grocery store proprietor and African-American civil rights leader. In 1953, Courts and Rev. George W. Lee founded the Humphreys County, Mississippi chapter of the National Association fo ...

(December), a civil rights associate of Lee in Belzoni. The Smith case was cited in the NAACP's pamphlet ''M is for Mississippi and Murder''.

Lack of action

Three white men, Noah Smith, Mack Smith and Charles Falvey, were arrested in connection with Smith's murder. On September 13, 1955, an all-white Brookhaven grand jury failed to return any indictments. The district attorney reported that the sheriff, Carnie E. Smith, refused to make an immediate arrest "although he knew everything I know". The district attorney further reported that the sheriff told him he saw Noah Smith, one of the accused, "leave the scene with blood all over him. It was his duty to take that man into custody regardless of who he was, but he did not do it." Noting that all three of the accused were deceased, the US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division closed the civil rights case in 2016.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Lamar 1892 births 1955 deaths 1955 murders in the United States African-American activists Activists from Mississippi African-American history of Mississippi American military personnel of World War I Assassinated activists Assassinated American civil rights activists American civil rights activists (civil rights movement) Deaths by firearm in Mississippi Lynching deaths in Mississippi Male murder victims Murdered African-American people People from Lincoln County, Mississippi People murdered in Mississippi Unsolved murders in the United States

Details

Background

Lack of action

See also

References