From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is Reveal.

I'm Al Letton.

It's May 7, 1955 in Belzona, Mississippi.

It's a warm summer evening in the Mississippi Delta, the type of night where fireflies

synchronize their light and lead a chorus of

wondrous small things that fill the air.

That simple beauty belies a tension that has blanketed the area.

The Brown versus Board of Education ruling has come down and many white Southerners are not

happy.

All the people of the South are in favor of segregation.

And Supreme Court or no Supreme Court, we are going to maintain segregated schools down in Dixie.

Despite the overwhelming opposition to equality in the state, many activists put their lives on the line.

Reverend George W. Lee became a successful businessman in Belzona and was a fiery preacher in the

pulpit. He believed black folks' deliverance would come from God and getting people to the polls.

That wasn't a small order.

Racists tried to stop them from registering to vote by imposing poll taxes, literacy tests,

and intimidation. But Lee was insuppressable. He passed their tests, paid their taxes,

and when that didn't work, he took them to court.

Ultimately, Lee was one of the first black men to register to vote in Humphys County since

Reconstruction. He founded the local chapter of the NAACP and was determined to get other

black people registered. And that put him on the radar of white supremacist

terrorists. They warned him to stop, but Reverend Lee would not be moved. On this balmy night,

...