Dying to Vote in Mississippi, Part II

untimely death Birdie Keglar and Adeline Hamlet official result of the "car accident", although there are no reports investigating - and probably never existed.
However, many serious issues remain among the family members, close friends, and a few others who say they witnessed what happened.

Commenting on the fall of 1965, however, provides important clues: this is the time when the House Un-American Activities Committee (Huaca) opened the discussion for a period of 19 October to February, 1966 in Washington, DC on the activities of the Ku Klux Klan, including Klansmen from Leflore County, where Keglar and Hamlet were killed.

Of all the congressional committees, why is the Huaca, famous for its red-baiting and conservative nature, suddenly decided to investigate the Klan? Whether this shift is related to Keglar death?

Huaca a sudden shift occurred shortly after the Alabama shooting white Michigan volunteer who was shuttling demonstrators from Montgomery back to Selma. Viola Liuzzo, a mother of five-year-old, was killed by a volley of bullets fired from a passing car.

President Johnson took an intense interest in the murder and within 24 hours before his death, along with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover at his side, Johnson announced the arrest of four suspects, all members of the Ku Klux Klan.

At that time, Johnson praised the FBI for their work effectively, then urged Congress to mount a full-scale investigation Klan activities; Huaca immediately accepted this task.
But Johnson did not explain that the crime was solved so quickly because it is one of the arrested Klansmen, Gary Rowe, was also a paid FBI informant.

Edwin E. Willis, Chair House Subcommittee, released a statement in the 9th November 1965, outlining the findings of the total, after the debate went on for twelve days with the testimony of 52:

It was "about a dozen different organizations that are active Klan [the time]" with "significantly higher"than the estimated force. Instead of a total of Klan membership 10,000, the Commission now estimates "four to five times that number ."

Huaca According to the report, Klans were making "extensive use of innocent-sounding cover or front of the name - such as a civic improvement or salvage companies, hunting, fishing or sportsman clubs - to conceal their Klaverns and bank accounts."

Furthermore, "the Klan members and officials say the burning of schools that integrate and setting off intense fires in cars and department stores ."

secret Klan organization known by such names as vigilantes or Black Knights, Underground, and the White Band was formed by Klan members to carry out acts of violence and terrorism, the Huaca report.

Willis and his committee also learned of "a small minority of police officers who were members of the clan, an important key in examining Keglar and Hamlet's death.

As Huaca discussion focused on the specific testimony of the Mississippi Klansmen, civil rights of three deaths occurred in the first two week of January 1966th

first murder received international coverage, while the other two murders Keglar Hamlet and barely made ​​the national news. (Even today, many "old" Delta murders remain unexamined as stronger than those reported, particularly in the vicinity of Jackson and were given a second look by the media and law enforcement .)

Vernon Dahmer, 58, was mortally wounded in the night riders firebomb attack on his Hattiesburg home on the night of 11th January, the day before Keglar death, after leading the drive to register voters. Dahmer in the store and home were both destroyed because they allow blacks in his shop to pay $ 2 poll tax necessary to vote.

former President of the Hattiesburg NAACP, Dahmer, who died of shock from burns the next afternoon, his airway seared from inhaling so much smoke and fire

Dahmer's wife and 10-year-old daughter also were burned, and the child was hospitalized in fair conditions. Members of the NAACP, SNCC and others participated in a meeting in Edwards, a suburb of Jackson, quickly took off in the early morning hours of Hattiesburg, after hearing the news. But nobody goes to Charleston.

Three deaths in Leflore County

In the early evening of January 12, 1966, as they returned home from a special meeting with Senator Robert F. Kennedy in Jackson, two civil rights activists from Tallahatchie County were killed and four other passengers were injured, two seriously, after their car left the road near the small town of Sidon, south of Greenwood in Leflore County.

Birdie Keglar, 56, was found in the head and both hands Adeline Hamlet is a "clean" cut off from his body, confirmed by two Keglar family members, close friend and minister of Tallahatchie County. Hamletts a 78-year-old was killed and mutiliated.

months ago, both women were hanged in the character of local Klansmen and warned not to participate further in the voting rights activities. Each testified before the congressional hearing in support of the Voting Rights Act since 1965.

Keglar and others are returning home this time from the subcommittee meeting on the discrimination and poverty in the Delta led by Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

a few times before, Klansmen tried to force Gray off Grafton Road, Klansmen blacks running off the road is not an unusual event to be held in the Delta. Stories abound of such incidents, Chism and others confirmed.

Gray's surviving second wife is said to be married after the accident: "... and he would not tell me anything about it, nothing at all. I could tell that he's still afraid to speak. He told me the other times it Klansmen tried to escape road, but he will not say anything about this incident. That he was greatly influenced ."

Robert Keglar could not shake out information about his mother's death from Gray, the sheriff or any public officer, as well.
Highway Patrol officer threatened him to stay away from the accident site, he said, but Keglar crept up to Sidon to look around anyway and talked with people who live near the site of the wreck.

Richard L. Simpson, 27, from Massachusetts, a white SNCC volunteer who was reported as seriously injured, was not allowed any black visitors to the hospital in Greenwood, Robert Keglar said. "We tried to visit him to find out what happened, but the hospital did not treat black people and would not let us in the hospital.

"They were very rude and would not even tell us if it was OK. I do not know what happened to him, " said Keglar. Simpson worked on voting rights in Belzoni, south Delta town of Tallahatchie County.

Chism Simpson believes that, "if he survived, possibly taken from the Mississippi and sent home as soon as possible. That would be the only way to make it safe." Grafton Gray, Birdie Keglar cousin who was the driver, was also seriously injured and taken to a hospital in Mound Bayou, "said Gwen Dailey, Grafton Gray super-niece.

Gray suffered emotionally afterwards and was never the same, "she said. Dailey to say that her father was suspicious of what happened to his brother and others who were injured or killed:

"My great-uncle was already a peaceful man. He has received threats in hand, while in the hospital are silent about the 'what happened," my father taught.

"Employees and visitors will come to your room and tell him to" be cautious ", but not in the way of care. When he came home, the threat remains.

"He will go out into the fields to his house and stand, looking away. He rarely spoke. Even my own father became far more cautious with their children, and he looked like a hawk Uncle Grafton. Mr. Brewer was not hurt too much, and he was never the same. His reaction was the same as my great-uncle ."

Three months later, in April, Birdie Keglar son, James Eddie "Sonny Boy" Keglar, died unconscious in a suspicious fire at his home.

James was trying to learn what happened to his mother, "said Alma Chism of Memphis, daughter of James and Birdie Keglar grandchildren.

"My father, James Keglar, was hit on the head before the fire started, " said Chism. "I know that his death was an accident ."

Nearly forty years later, she joined with relatives and friends for help in piecing together this story because they're still trying to learn what happened on the night as Keglar and others are returning home.

"I know that Sonny Boy had been trying to get answers, and neither went to Washington, DC on my grandmother's murder. But I never knew who he was speaking in Washington. Maybe someone in the Justice Department .

"I just do not know. We all know that they were killed. Nothing has shown us that Birdie's death, and Adeline's death, were the result of auto accidents ."

James Keglar, 38, is usually a quiet person, both Chism and his brother Robert Keglar said. "My grandmother's death really changed James. He became very angry and open, and he wanted to know who did that to his mother.

"He had just come home from military service and stayed in Charleston while I worked on this from Memphis, where I lived with my family, " said Mrs. Chism.

When Chism attended her grandmother's funeral in Charleston, she also visited the site a car wreck to collect data. "I talked with some people who lived in Sidon, and learn other car came straight at them, crossing the line.

", the other driver was not hurt It was obvious to me -. and the witnesses - they were run off the road ."

"James was a lot like my dad, " Keglar said his brother, who left the army and returned home after his mother's death. "He would drink too much. But he never committed any crime ."

weekend James Keglar death, James had called his brother from jail after being arrested for stealing a car - something I never would, "said Robert Keglar. "I could tell that she was very frightened." James Robert was asked to call the FBI in Clarksdale, "... and what I did, but no investigators came to see him,"said Robert Keglar.

, "James got out of prison and went straight to the house party. Early on Sunday morning around 6 o'clock in the morning, police came to my house and said that James was dead.

"They would not tell me what happened to him later. I was told that another" hired killer "he was killed. I know that he was hit on the head and began to fire burned down his house. He died in a fire ."

BIRDIE KEGLAR WAS Jackson anticipating a meeting that was supposed to be secret, according to Gwen Daily, Keglar is a great niece.

"Senator Robert Kennedy, the board comes in Jackson to meet with a small group of people who met with him before. They did not tell anyone about this meeting, but Birdie, I'm afraid, you might let it slip.

"She was excited about meeting and will come to our house with different suits and dresses on, asking what she should wear. The fact of the meeting and somehow put the Klan out and knew where to find them. Birdie passed Some notes about the times and routes for the people she thought she could trust ."

Tallahatchie and Leflore County Sheriff's Department and state highway patrol could not provide reports and information when asked about this incident in 2004.

Leflore County representative, in response to a Freedom of Information Act or FOIA request refused to seek the records, saying "they do not exist ."

a spokesman for the State Department for security maintained - "It was too long for all records that exist now." He did ask the officer to search, but nothing has been reported found.
Brown Lee Bruce, Jr., informed the driver of another car was not injured, Chism learned during his research. "I'm sure his family could put all kinds of pressures that make anything from happening to him ."

(Bruce died in 2003. relative claimed to have suffered a traumatic brain injury accident since 1966, but Hamletts grandson, said that several families said Bruce in the hospital, trying to learn more about what happened. "He is rude and does not want help. But he knew exactly what we were talking about, "she said .)

REV. Edwin King, an active civil rights leader from Tougaloo College of Jackson in Hattiesburg when Keglar Hamletts and murdered after he attended a meeting of the SNCC Edwards the day before.

King left for Hattiesburg heard about Vernon Dahmer incident. He remembers hearing a lot later than Keglar in a car accident, but no further information given.

"We all assume that the traffic accident, " he said years later.
Nobody outside of Delta came to the funeral Keglar Lucy Boyd could not remember. "It really hurts. We need to be the worst way.

"This is the 'Free State of Tallahatchie' and it was awfully scary place to be. None of us, even the son of Birdie, could dig around and find out what really happened, without taking risks we would be killed. Mogli We use some outside help ."

"We were not allowed to see the car - 1965 Plymouth Fury II -.. and we were too afraid to push the thing no one ever returned a brief case that held all of Birdie's records Somehow, he disappeared along with the car.

"rumor has it that the patrolmen and deputies pulled the car away."
Boyd said she remembers hearing - "and I can not remember where it came from - that the officer had a flashlight shone on the faces of their victims when they were in the car, and said: " These are the sons of bitches we are looking for. ""