A local family reflects on the civil rights movement in Hattiesburg. The Dahmer family told students of the “Sojourn To The Past” project about the role Vernon Dahmer Sr. played in helping African Americans get registered to vote.
Dahmer served as the President of Forrest County’s NAACP chapter and led voter registration drives in the 1960s.
“He would often say… until the African Americans had the opportunity to vote and participate in selecting the leaders we would not be free,” Vernon Dahmer Jr. said (Vernon Dahmer Sr.’s son).
Rules such as the Jim Crow laws and poll taxes stood as key factors to why many African Americans could not vote.