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18 THE RALLY ENDS; THE KILLING BEGINS Known paradoxically as both the most hated and the best loved man in Mississippi , Dr. Howard, along with other civil rights leaders in the state, was on a white racist death list. Doc hired gun-toting bodyguards to protect himself and his family around the clock. He kept a small arsenal of weapons in his home, including a .45-caliber Thompson submachine gun. Death threats against him and his family became increasingly common. During my stay in Mound Bayou, Doc introduced me to another prominent civil rights leader on the Klan’s death list, the Reverend George Washington Lee of Belzoni, Mississippi. Located in Humphreys County, the Delta town was named for the nineteenth century Italian archaeologist and explorer Giovanni Batista Belzoni. Lee, 51, who was also a speaker at the Mound Bayou rally, was a vice president of the Leadership Council. He told the massive audience, “Pray not for your mom and pop. They’ve gone to heaven. Pray that you can make it through this hell.” I was impressed by him and the way his down-home talk and sense of political timing electrified the crowd. A co-founder of the Belzoni branch of the NAACP, Lee was the first black person to register to vote in Humphreys County since Reconstruction. It didn’t make him popular with the White Citizens ’ Councils, especially in Belzoni, which enjoyed a particularly bad reputation for the way it dealt with blacks “who didn’t know their place.” In addition to being pastor of four churches, Lee ran a grocery store. A black-owned grocery store in Mississippi often served more than the obvious purpose. One almost legendary story originating in the Delta involved a Negro grocery store operator who frequently posted signs out front bearing misspelled words. Whites passing by laughed at the weird phonetics, but in the end, the blacks had the last laugh—the store was owned by the local NAACP president, whose civil rights activities went undetected. Lee and his wife, Rose Bud, also set up a small printing business, successful enough to provide the resources to enter the battle for civil rights. He 3 The Rally Ends; The Killing Begins 19 was able to register nearly all of the county’s black voters, despite resistance from the white power structure and reactions ranging from indifference to outright hostility on the part of many ordinary blacks and fellow preachers who didn’t want to alienate that powerhouse. He also had to watch his back against another group, the ones he called “Judas niggers.” Nothing new in the South, these blacks were cut from the same cloth as black slave drivers and plantation overseers. Now, almost 100 years after the Civil War, they still curried favor with the white power structure by informing on other blacks. By all accounts, the top dog in Humphreys County was Sheriff Ike Shelton . A rabid segregationist, he aggressively worked with the local White Citizens’ Council to purge blacks from the voting rolls through intimidation and economic pressure. While many potential voters backed down, Rev. Lee and Gus Courts, another black grocer, stood their ground. Even after white officials offered Rev. Lee protection on the condition that he halt the voter registration efforts, he steadfastly refused. As head of the town’s NAACP chapter, Gus Courts was ordered by his banker to turn over all NAACP books, and when he refused, was told to leave town. He refused to do that either. Once a Citizens’ Council member handed him a list of ninety-five blacks registered in Humphreys County, warning that anyone whose name was not removed from the voting list would lose his or her job. Both Courts and Rev. Lee had tried for years to pay poll taxes in order to vote and were finally allowed to sign the register only after Sheriff Shelton , fearing federal prosecution, gave the go ahead. Actually casting a ballot, however, required a separate fight. After the rally, David Jackson and I hung around Mound Bayou a few more days to interview Rev. Lee, Gus Courts, Medgar Evers, Amzie Moore, and Aaron Henry, before flying back to Chicago to file several articles for Jet. Under the circumstances, we didn’t trust any courier but our own hands to get our copy and photos there safely. I was excited by what I’d seen in Mound Bayou—the raw courage of the local activists, the spirit...

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