Events

ASE Day 2017 to visit with the Vernon Dahmer Family, among others.

On January 9, 1966, Vernon Dahmer led a voter registration drive in Hattiesburg, ms.  A local white owned radio station announced that Mr. Dahmer would allow Black prospective voters to pay the two dollar poll tax at his store.  At about 2 am on the morning of January 10, 1966, Mr. Dahmer’s home was firebombed in Hattiesburg, Mississippi with his family inside.  Two or three carloads of white knights klansmen pushed their way into the Dahmer home and ignited 12 one-gallon containers of gasoline. While the house and adjacent store were on fire, shots were fired at the home by the klansmen.  Mr. Dahmer returned fire from a window in the house in order to hold off the klansmen while his wife, Ellie, and their small children, all in the home during the attack, escaped from a rear window. His family survived the attack but Brother Vernon Dahmer did not.  He died as a result of his burns the next day.  The Dahmers’ home, store and car were all destroyed.  Thanks to the mississippi sovereignty commission, a spy agency run by the governor, the state legislature and the white citizens council, the state of mississippi refuse to prosecute the klanmen murder or the radio station owners for complicity in the crime.

The klansmen arrested and charged with federal violations of civil rights statutes barring intimidation and violence to civil right workers were:

1. Sam Holloway Bowers Jr., imperial wizard of the White Knights of the ku klux klan of mississippi.
2. Cecil Victor Sessum, 10, exalted cyclops of Klavem No. 4 Jones County, miss.
3. Howard Travis Giles. 37, former exalted cyclops of the Ellisville. Miss., Klavern:
4. Laurence Byrd 44. Laurel, Miss.;
5. Henry Edward de Boxtel, 29, a Laurel I restaurant worker;
6. Cliften iEudell Lowe, 50, a Houston, Tex., motel worker.  
7. James Franklin Lyons, 33, a Laurel employee of the Masonite Corp.:
8. Melvin Sennett Martin, 33, a tractor operator;
9. Emanuel Moss, 52, a service station operator;
10. Deavours Nix, 42, a restaurant operator:
11. Charles Richard Noble, 23, a factory worker;
12. Billy Roy Pitts, 22, a Laurel furniture factory worker:
13. William Ray Smith, 28, employed by the Masonite Corp. in Laurel.
14.  Charles Lamar Lowe of Houston, Tex, a former resident of Laurel and had worked at the Masonite Corp.
15. Lester Thornton, Laurel

Our Annual ASE Day Excursion is a spiritual journey through mississippi to revisit the atrocities of our enslavement; the horrors of the post direct enslavement Black Experience, commonly referred to as the jimcrow era, and the inhumanity of the "southern confederate culture" toward People of African Descent.  It is through these spiritual excursions that We spiritually reconnect with our Revered Ancestors to push us forward toward healing and repairing the damage done to us through the full Black Experience in mississippi and america (commonly called our Maafa or Hellacaust).

It is our intent to stop-by on the Saturday, July 22nd to visit with Mrs. Ellie J. Dahmer and family to hear firsthand the story of the one of our truly spirited state heroes, Mr. Vernon Dahmer.  As a tour guide for this and other state tours, iam forever calling the name of this Gallant Warrior for Justice.  And We, the ASE Day Coordinators, feel it is essential that our group get to know all We can about Mr. Dahmer.

To RSVP a seat on the bus contact Sister Maati on 601-355-5335 or get your ticket (only $49), the Afrikan Art Gallery (800 N Farish Street) or Marshall's Music & Bookstore (618 N Farish Street), both in MedgarEversville (bka Jackson), ms.