[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 10, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF LOUIS ALLEN

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                        HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 10, 2004

  Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize 
the anniversary of the death of Louis Allen. I submit the following 
article from Dittmer, John. ``Local People.'' Urbana. University of 
Illinois Press, 1994, page 215.
  ``Mississippi Freedom Summer Timeline,'' January 31, 1964
  On the evening of January 31, 1964, Louis Allen was gunned down 
outside his home in Amite County, Mississippi. Married and the father 
of four children, the 45-year-old independent logger was hit in the 
face with two loads of buckshot, dying almost instantly. Three years 
earlier, he had seen Mississippi State legislator E.H. Hurst shoot 
Herbert Lee, local civil rights pioneer, in cold blood. After word got 
around that Allen had talked with Justice Department officials about 
the case, his life became a nightmare. Over the next two years, Allen 
suffered economic harassment, was jailed on false charges and had his 
jaw broken by a deputy sheriff.
  When, early in 1964, he learned that whites were planning to kill 
him, the victim made plans to join his brother in Milwaukee. Allen was 
to leave Mississippi on February 1, one day too late. No one was ever 
charged in the murder.

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