Feb. 28, 2003
A U.S. District Court jury in Jackson, Mississippi, convicted Ernest Avants of murder — the first federal murder charges connected to the pursuit of unpunished killings from the civil rights era.
Avants received a life sentence for joining other Klansmen in killing an African-American handyman, Ben Chester White, near Natchez, Mississippi. The Klansmen had hoped to lure Martin Luther King Jr., who was taking part in a march in Mississippi, to the area by killing White. The plot failed.
White is among the 40 martyrs listed on the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama.
The post On this day in 2003 appeared first on Mississippi Today.
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