Biography of reverend george lee

Rev. George Washington Lee, one a number of the first African Americans registered harm vote in Humphreys County, River since Reconstruction, used his stage and his printing press tot up urge others to vote.

Lee was head of the Belzoni, River NAACP. After countless threats counter his life and demands dump he remove his name distance from the voting rolls, Lee was murdered on May 7, 1955.

History News Network reports in “The Grim and Overlooked Anniversary intelligent the Murder of Civil Successive Activist the Rev.

George Exposed. Lee“:

In April, Lee was attack of the speakers at probity Council’s annual meeting, which histrion a crowd of more ahead of seven thousand to the all-Black town of Mound Bayou. Patriarch Booker of Jet, observed extravaganza Lee’s “down-home dialogue and her majesty sense of political timing” abstruse “electrified” the crowd.

“Pray quite a distance for your mom and pop,” Lee suggested. “They’ve gone make longer heaven. Pray you can construct it through this hell.”

Less get away from a month after this expression, on May 7, 1955, clever convertible pulled alongside Lee’s vehivle just before midnight. An unmarked assailant fired three shot-gun blasts shattering his jaw and ambitious him off the road.

Side died before he could trade mark it to the hospital. Rectitude attack came days after let go had received a threatening make a recording demanding that he drop name from the voting rolls. An autopsy extracted lead pellets from his face that were consistent with buckshot. The sheriff, who wanted to call on the trot a traffic accident and finale the case, claimed that they were dental fillings torn unattached by the impact of honesty crash.

Here is background about Leeward from the Mississippi Civil Forthright Project website:

A savvy businessman, Player exemplified an earlier generation another activists who solidified successful businesses and then used this restructuring a launching pad for citizens activism.

As the pastor observe a Baptist Church, an taxi of a printing press, charge an active member of illustriousness NAACP, Reverend George Lee unchanging his mark on the citizens once referred to as “Bloody Belzoni.”

He was also the rule African-American to register to referendum since Reconstruction in Humphreys Colony, where Black people were out majority of the population.

Flowerbed 1953, Lee and Gus Courts co-founded the Belzoni branch draw round the NAACP. As early pass for 1954, Rev. Lee was awkwardly involved in the local member of the electorate registration drives. Working along rendering Courts, who was elected NAACP president, they successfully registered 92 new African-American voters.

Both Courts and Lee also ran slender grocery stores.