From The Mississippi Link Newswire
JACKSON – On Friday, May 10, the Mississippi Freedom Trail honored Rev. George Lee with a marker in Belzoni. The event was at Green Grove M.B. Church at 603 Church Street in Belzoni. This is the 11th Mississippi Freedom Trail marker to be unveiled.
“The Mississippi Freedom Trail recognizes both the celebrated and lesser known heroes of the Civil Rights Movement,” said Malcolm White, director of the Mississippi Development Authority’s Tourism Division. “This marker helps to preserve Rev. Lee’s legacy and to educate Mississippians and visitors alike on his role in the fight for justice and equality.”
Though not as well-known as some of his contemporaries in the Civil Rights Movement, Rev. Lee was an early participant in the movement.
He was a vice president of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, a co-founder of the Belzoni branch of the NAACP and a powerful public speaker. In the spring of 1955, he addressed a crowd of 10,000 people gathered for a voter registration rally in Mound Bayou, Miss.
Two weeks later, Lee was assassinated; no one was ever charged for his murder.
Rev. Lee’s funeral was held at Green Grove M.B. Church where the marker is being erected (corner of First and Church Streets). Lee is widely considered to be the first martyr of the modern Civil Rights Movement. His death came three months before the lynching of Emmett Till in Sunflower County, Miss.
