2016-07-27
-February 1994: Byron De La Beckwith is convicted for the June 12, 1963 murder of Medgar Evers, the first field secretary for the NAACP. Beckwith had been tried twice before for the crime, but both trials ended with hung juries. He is appealing the conviction.

-In 1998, Police in Jackson County, Miss., reopen investigation into the 1967 death of Benjamin Brown, who was shot to death by police during a student protest at Jackson State University. Brown had not been protesting, and no action was taken against the police officers.

-April 1998: Police in Natchez, Miss., begin reinvestigating the 1967 death of Wharlest Jackson, treasurer of the Natchez NAACP, who was killed by a car bomb. Weeks before his death, Jackson had been promoted to a position at a local tire plant that had previously only been held by white men. No one was ever arrested for the crime.

-August 1998: Sam Bowers, former imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, is convicted for the 1966 murder of Vernon Dahmer. Dahmer, president of the NAACP in Hattiesburg, Miss., was killed in a firebombing of his house. Originally, 14 Klansmen were tried for the crime, and three were convicted. The case of another suspect, Charles Noble, ended in mistrial in June 1999.

-November 1999: Charles E. Caston, James Caston and Hal Crimm are each sentenced to 20 years in prison for the 1970 murder of Rainey Pool. Pool, a one-armed sharecropper from Midnight, Miss., was beaten and dumped in a river. Seven white men were originally arrested for the crime, but charges were dismissed. Two had since died, one was acquitted in June 1998 and another pleaded guilty to reduced charges in 1999. Charles Caston died in prison in March, 2000.

-February 2000: The FBI reopens investigation into the 1964 murders of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee in Natchez, Miss. The House Un-American Activities Committee questioned at least five men in connection with the killings, and two were arrested, but authorities dismissed the charges.

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