Louis Allen facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Louis Allen
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| Born |
April 25, 1919
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| Died | January 31, 1964 (aged 44) |
| Cause of death | Murder |
| Occupation | Businessman |
Louis Allen (April 25, 1919 – January 31, 1964) was an African-American businessman in Liberty, Mississippi, who was shot and killed on his land during the civil rights era. He had previously tried to register to vote and had allegedly talked to federal officials after witnessing the 1961 murder 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, as no African-American had been allowed to vote since the state's disenfranchising constitution was passed in 1890.
Allen was harassed and jailed repeatedly by Amite County Sheriff Daniel Bryant Jones (January 3, 1930 – July 26, 2013). The day before he planned to move out of state, Allen was fatally shot on his property. Since the late 20th century, his case has been investigated by Tulane University history professor Plater Robinson. The case was reopened by the FBI beginning in 2007 as part of its review of civil rights-era cold cases. In 2011 the CBS program 60 Minutes conducted a special on his murder as well. Their work suggested that Allen was killed by Jones. However, no one has been prosecuted for the murder.
Early life
Louis Allen was a native of Amite County, Mississippi, where he was born in 1919. The county's population was majority African-American, with an economy based on agriculture: cotton, dairy farming and logging. Many blacks left before World War II because of poor economic opportunities, racial violence, and social oppression under Jim Crow, decreasing the black population by 29% from 1940 to 1960, following earlier declines. More than six million blacks left the Southern United States in the Great Migration to the North, the Midwest, and, beginning in the 1940s, the West Coast.
Allen served in the United States Army during the war; he enlisted at age 23 in the service at Camp Shelby on January 12, 1943. After his return to Mississippi, he worked as a logger and farm laborer. Allen and his wife Elizabeth had four children together, including a daughter and a son named Henry (called Hank). He built up his own logging business, doing well enough also to buy his own land, where he and his family raised produce and cattle.
