Louis Allen
| Louis Allen | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
April 25, 1919 Amite County, Mississippi U.S. |
| Died | January 31, 1964 (aged 44) Amite County, Mississippi U.S. |
| Cause of death | Murder |
| Occupation | Businessman |
Louis Allen (April 25, 1919 – January 31, 1964) was an African-American citizen and married businessman with a family in Liberty, Mississippi. He was shot and killed on his land during the civil rights era. He had tried to register to vote. In addition, he was suspected of talking to federal officials after witnessing the 1961 murder of Herbert Lee by a white state legislator.
Allen was among a dozen witnesses of the daylight murder in September 1961 of Herbert Lee, an NAACP member, by E.H. Hurst, a white state legislator. Civil rights activists had come to Liberty that summer to organize for voter registration; essentially no black had been allowed to vote since 1890, when the state disfranchising constitution was passed.
Later Allen was repeatedly harassed by the county sheriff and jailed more than once. He was fatally shot on his own property the day before he planned to move out of state. Since the late 20th century, his case has been investigated by a history professor at Tulane University, by the FBI beginning in 2007 as part of its review of civil rights-era cold cases, and in 2011 by CBS 60 Minutes. Their work suggests that Allen was killed by Daniel Jones, then the county sheriff. No one has been prosecuted for the murder.
Louis Allen was a native of Amite County, Mississippi, where he was born in 1919. The population was majority black, with an economy based on agriculture: cotton, dairy farming and logging. Many blacks left before World War II because of the poor economic opportunities, racial violence, and social oppression under Jim Crow. Population declined by 29% from 1940 to 1960, following earlier declines. In the first half of the 20th century up to 1970, more than six million blacks left the South in the Great Migration to the North, Midwest, and, beginning in the 1940s, West Coast in search of jobs and better living conditions.
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