On this day, August 13, in 1955

Black WWII veteran and Civil Rights activist Lamar Smith was shot and killed on the lawn of the Lincoln County Courthouse in Brookhaven, Mississippi. Lamar Smith was organizing black voter registration in Mississippi and he also had ties to the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, which was the largest civil rights organization in the state at that time. Although Smith was murdered in broad daylight and in front of many people, none of the witnesses would agree to testify and the three men that were arrested for his murder went free. (...)