Herbert Lee
Age 49
A Black cotton farmer who worked to register Black voters
Amite County, Mississippi
September 25, 1961
"If you can imagine having a bucket full of water in a desert and having the bottom come out, that's what it felt like."
Ruby Johnson & Carrie Bennett
Daughter and Granddaughter of Lee
START
CB: Talk to me about Granddaddy, your dad as a person.
RJ: School was very important to him. Extremely important to him. He had a gift for numbers and he didn’t like for us to count on our fingers. He would figure it up in his head. Now, you couldn’t cheat him. But you can rest assured that he wasn’t going to cheat you. Integrity really meant a lot to him.
CB: The day that Granddaddy was killed, what was going on that day?
RJ: His truck came into the driveway and he wasn’t in it. I know my first cousin, Lanis, was driving. I could see mother running across the field just screaming and hollering and all the kids were behind us. So when they got there, Lanis said Uncle Herbert had been killed.
We didn’t know who killed him. Everybody had a story. But late that night, as people gathered in the yard in the evening, that’s when we heard that E.H. Hurst had killed him. And I thought, Why would he kill Daddy? He lives in this neighborhood. We know him. Why would he just go up and shoot Daddy?
CB: So what was life like after that?
RJ: Daddy was the leader and he was gone. A wife and seven children at home. We were a lost family. If you can imagine having a bucket full of water in a desert and having the bottom come out, that’s what it felt like. That’s what it has always felt like, even to this day.
Can you recall when I began to share with you things about Daddy’s life?
CB: Yeah, I remember hearing occasionally things like, “NAACP,” “assassinated.” Still didn’t really fully understand. But around second grade, hearing about Martin Luther King Jr., it was like, oh, that’s what that big word “assassinated” means. At about ten, when we went to the memorial, that was when I really began to wrap my mind around the things that you would say. As I learned more about Granddaddy as a person, every move you made began to make so much sense.
RJ: Like my telling you to don’t take being a straight-A student for granted.
CB: Yes.
RJ: Why is it so important for you to share Daddy’s life story?
CB: It’s important because racial tensions are not that far removed. This is more recent to where we are now. Most of what I learned was because I saw you speaking at different events like the SNCC meetings, and I felt it was my job for my generation to do the same.
RJ: He was this young Black male who really accomplished a lot in such a short time. He lived his life with a purpose and a mission.
END
Photo of Carrie by Green Tangerine Photography. (Left) Photo of Ruby by Bria Granville. (Right)
Mississippi cotton farmer and dairyman Herbert Lee had recently begun recruiting Black locals for a voter registration class when he was shot by a state legislator at a cotton gin in Liberty, Mississippi. Although at least five people witnessed the shooting, Lee’s killer was never prosecuted.
Lee, a father of nine, had long attended local NAACP meetings, despite threats from the white community. In August 1961, he attended voter registration classes and began recruiting other Black locals to the classes. According to a Department of Justice memo on the case, the next month, Lee was sitting in his truck at Westbrook’s Cotton Gin in Liberty, Mississippi, when he was approached by Eugene Hurst, a state representative. The two men had known each other since childhood, having grown up on neighboring farms, and had been on good terms for much of that time. Witnesses said, however, that Hurst soon raised his voice at Lee. At some point, the witnesses said, Lee slid across the seat of his truck and exited the passenger door. Hurst walked around the truck and shot him.
Initial Investigation
A state Coroner’s Jury was held inside the cotton gin office within about an hour of the shooting.
According to the DOJ memo, Hurst told authorities that he and Lee had argued over an outstanding debt and that Lee had picked up a tire iron and threatened Hurst with it. Hurst said that out of self-defense, he had hit Lee in the head with a .38 caliber revolver, which caused the gun to fire and kill Lee.
During the inquest, five witnesses gave statements under oath. Most of the witnesses’ views of the shooting were obstructed, but at least three said they saw the victim threaten the subject with a tire iron. The coroner’s inquest concluded that Hurst had acted in self-defense.
The day after the killing, the Amite County district attorney charged Hurst with murder. In a preliminary hearing presided over by two justices of the peace, Hurst repeated his claim that he had killed Lee in self-defense, and the witnesses reiterated their testimony. The judges declined to send charges to a grand jury, and Hurst was released.
The FBI began investigating the case the day of the shooting, after the DOJ received a call alleging that Hurst had murdered Lee for the latter’s participation in civil rights efforts. Agents interviewed Hurst, who repeated his previous statements. In the first interview, however, Hurst said Lee had simply pulled his arm back, as though to strike Hurst; in a second interview, Hurst claimed Lee had actually swung at him twice — a statement not supported by any witness testimony.
The FBI investigated whether a tire iron had been found under Lee’s body after Hurst shot him but, due to conflicting witness testimony, could not reach a conclusion. The witnesses who had told local authorities they’d seen Lee brandish a tire iron then told the FBI they had not seen the iron in Lee’s hand. One of those witnesses, a Black man named Louis Allen, said he had given the false testimony because a white former sheriff had repeatedly said to him, “You saw that piece of iron, didn’t you,” and Allen had believed it was in his best welfare to lie. After changing his testimony, Allen was harassed and intimidated by the white community, including by the sheriff. Three years later, Allen was killed in front of his home. The DOJ cites credible evidence that the sheriff who harassed Allen had killed him in retaliation for changing his testimony.
Till Act Status
In 2008, the FBI initiated a new review of the case, primarily based on its own 1961 file. Agents did not re-interview any of the witnesses. The Justice Department closed the case in 2010, citing Hurst’s death in 1990 and that a 5-year statute of limitations had passed.
Case Status closed
Closed 04/16/2010
Themes
- Closed All Subjects Deceased
- Closed Cases
- Men
- Storycorps Stories
About the Project
This multiplatform investigation draws upon more than two years of reporting, thousands of documents and dozens of first-hand interviews. FRONTLINE spoke to family and friends of the victims, and witnesses, some of whom had never been interviewed; current and former Justice Department officials and FBI agents, state and local law enforcement; lawmakers, civil-rights leaders and investigative journalists, to explore the Department of Justice’s reopening of civil rights-era cold cases under the 2008 Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.
In addition to an examination of the federal effort, the project features the first comprehensive, interactive list of all those whose cases were reopened by the Department of Justice. Today, the list stands at 151 names. Among the victims: voting rights advocates, veterans, Louisville’s first female prosecutor, business owners, mothers, fathers, and children.
The project consists of a web-based interactive experience, serialized podcast, a touring augmented-reality exhibit, documentary and companion education curriculum for high schools and universities.
A project like Un(re)solved would not be possible without the historic and contemporary contributions of universities, civil rights groups, and the press, particularly the Black press, who have ensured the ongoing public record of racist violence in the United States. To pay homage to these groups, the web interactive begins with a quote from journalist, activist and researcher Ida B. Wells, one of the first to document with precision the horrors of racial terror in America. “The way to right wrongs,” she wrote, “is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
At the outset of the project, FRONTLINE forged a relationship with Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), bringing them on as an academic partner. Launched in 2007 by Distinguished Law Professor Margaret Burnham, CRRJ is a mission-driven program of interdisciplinary teaching, research and policy analysis on race, history, and criminal justice. Their work has expanded beyond the names on the Justice Department’s list, archiving documents in over 1,000 cases of racially motivated homicides.
With support from the CRRJ, FRONTLINE reporters gathered what could be known about the individuals on the list, conducting interviews with family, friends and witnesses, delving into newspaper archives and gathering documentation including headstone applications, draft cards and archival photographs.
At the heart of the project has been a drive to center the voices of the families of those on the list. FRONTLINE partnered with StoryCorps to record nearly two dozen oral histories with victims’ next of kin, which are featured both in the web-based interactive and traveling AR exhibit. These oral histories will also be archived in the National Library of Congress.
To lead the creative vision for the web experience and installation, FRONTLINE partnered with Ado Ato Pictures, a premier mixed reality studio founded by artist, filmmaker, and technologist Tamara Shogaolu.
Shogaolu rooted the visuals in the powerful symbolism of trees. In the United States, trees evoke the ideal of liberty, but also speak to an oppressive history of racially motivated violence. In Persian myth, trees are humanity’s ancestors, while in Toraja, Indonesia, they serve as sacred burial sites.
“I was really inspired by looking at the role of the tree as a symbol in American history” Shogaolu said. “It’s been looked at as a symbol of freedom, we look at it as a connector between generations, and also there’s the association of trees with racial terror.” When designing the creative vision for Un(re)solved Shogaolu wondered whether she might be able to reclaim the symbol of the tree. “As a person of color, we’re often terrified of being in isolated places in the woods. And I thought it was kind of crazy that there are natural environments that instinctually give great fear because of this connection with racial terror and I wanted to reclaim that — to turn these into beautiful spaces.”
Un(re)solved weaves imagery of trees, which also recall family ties, into patterns and textures from the American tradition of quilting. Among enslaved African Americans forbidden to read or write, quilts provided an important space to document family stories. Today, quilting remains a creative outlet rich with story and tradition for many American communities.
We invite you to enter this forest of quilted memories — a testimony to the lives of these individuals, and the multi-generational impact of their untimely, unjust loss.
(Credits to come)