Thread by @ashtonpittman

Striking moment as Hattiesburg unveiled a statue of slain Civil Rights activist Vernon Dahmer, as children who benefited due to his sacrifice looked on. Just below the statue is his widow, Ellie Dahmer. Her husband died saving her & their kids when the KKK firebombed their home.

Even as the Dahmer family spoke at the unveiling, though, another statue memorializing the same forces of white supremacy that killed him loomed even taller than his statue in the background—a Confederate monument that Confederate revisionists erected 100 years ago.

Vernon Dahmer's statue (below) stands on the left lawn of Forrest County's Paul B. Johnson Chancery Court Building.

Paul B. Johnson is a former segregationist Mississippi governor.

Forrest County is named after Nathan Bedford Forrest—the founder of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Vernon Dahmer statue stands on ground that was once the domain of Forrest County Circuit Clerk & Registrar of Voters Theron Lynd, an ardent segregationist who made black voter applications answer questions like, "How many bubbles are in a bar of soap?"
jacksonfreepress.com/news/2019/oct/…

You should know Ellie Dahmer as more than just Vernon Dahmer's widow (whose life he helped save the night he was murdered in 1966).

In '92, she ran & won election to the Forrest Election Commission.

Think about that. That's what she did after her husband died for voting rights.

*applicants

The Forrest County Board of Supervisers (not the Hattiesburg City Council) is responsible for erecting the statue, which is on Forrest County property.

The Board of Supervisers could, if it chose, change the county's name & begin the process to remove the Confederate statue.