September 1961

Under pressure from the Freedom Rides and the Kennedy administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations banning segregation in all interstate bus and rail terminals, effective November 1, 1961. Signs reading 'White' and 'Colored' were required to be removed from interstate travel facilities.

On September 25, 1961, Herbert Lee, a Black farmer and NAACP member who had been assisting SNCC's Bob Moses with voter registration in Liberty, Mississippi, is shot and killed by state legislator E.H. Hurst in front of numerous witnesses at a cotton gin. An all-white coroner's jury rules the killing self-defense on the same day. No charges are filed. Louis Allen, a Black witness who agreed to testify honestly, is himself murdered in 1964 after telling federal officials what he saw. Lee's murder is representative of the lethal consequences of voter registration work in Mississippi.