Ellie Dahmer, widow of slain civil rights leader Vernon Dahmer, being assisted to her car by family members after Dahmer's funeral on Jan. 15, 1966. Photo courtesy Wikicommons/Mississippi Department of Archives and History
HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — A request to use money for a memorial to honor a Mississippi man killed by the Ku Klux Klan in 1966 has been approved.
WDAM-TV reported Monday that the Forrest County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved President David Hogan's request to use $20,000 from his district's recreation fund for the memorial to honor Vernon Dahmer (DAY'-mur).
Hogan says with the new Civil Rights Museum and the African-American Museum in Washington, the board realized it was time to memorialize a Forrest County native who had paid the ultimate price.
Dahmer was targeted because he encouraged fellow African-Americans to register to vote during the Jim Crow era.
A jury in 1998 convicted one-time Klan leader Sam Bowers of murder and arson in the Vernon Dahmer killing. Bowers died in prison in 2006.
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