Home / Full timeline / Ku Klux Klan leader Samuel H. Bowers, Jr., indicted for the 1966 fire-bomb slaying of Black civil rights leader Vernon Dahmer, is freed on mistrial.
Ku Klux Klan leader Samuel H. Bowers, Jr., indicted for the 1966 fire-bomb slaying of Black civil rights leader Vernon Dahmer, is freed on mistrial.
1969 (Jan 25)
A mistrial was declared in the Mississippi murder trial of Ku Klux Klan leader Samuel H. Bowers, Jr., one of thirteen men indicted for the 1966 fire-bomb slaying of Black civil rights leader Vernon Dahmer. All were tried separately. Four defendants were convicted of murder, three of whom received life sentences, and the fourth was sentenced to serve ten years in prison. The Bowers trial was one of the five mistrials that resulted because juries were unable to reach verdicts. Bowers's May, 1968, trial for arson in connection with the Dahmer slaying had also resulted in a mistrial.
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.