Wharlest Jackson

Wharlest Jackson (1929–1967) was the treasurer of the Natchez, Mississippi branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People until his assassination by a car bomb. The culprit was never found, though the FBI suspected the involvement of the Silver Dollar Group, an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan.^[1][2]

Jackson was a Korean War veteran, married with five children, who worked at the Armstrong Rubber and Tire Company.^[3] The company had a number of white employees affiliated with the Klan, and under pressure from civil rights activist the company management had opened more positions to African Americans, and promoted Jackson to a more advanced explosives-mixing position that had previously only been held by whites.^[2]

References

1. Newton, M. (2010). The Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi: A History. McFarland, Incorporated Publishers. p. 173. ISBN 9780786457045. Retrieved 2016-01-06.
2. Bullard, S.; Bond, J. (1994). Free At Last: A History of the Civil Rights Movement and Those Who Died in the Struggle. Oxford University Press. p. 94. ISBN 9780199762279. Retrieved 2016-01-06.
3. Carter, D.C. (2012). The Music Has Gone Out of the Movement: Civil Rights and the Johnson Administration, 1965-1968. University of North Carolina Press. p. 240. ISBN 9781469606576. Retrieved 2016-01-06.

online link

• Wharlest Jackson cold case website