Black History 365 | # 287 Vernon Dahmer December 21, 2025 This is Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer, he is known as a Civil Rights leader (and martyr), community leader, businessman and American hero — in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In the early hours of January 10, 1966, members of the Ku Klux Klan shot into and firebombed the home he shared with his wife and children in the Kelly Settlement section of Hattiesburg. It occurred soon after he announced on local radio that he would accept poll taxes at his grocery store and take them to the Forrest County Voting Registrar, Theron Lynd. He offered to pay the poll taxes for those who could not afford them. In doing so, he was going up against the formidable Lynd, who had a reputation for failing most blacks on the literacy test when they tried to register to vote. It cost him his life. Shoutout to the allies.
