Herbert Lee was a voting rights activist who worked to register African Americans to vote in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement. At the time, the state of Mississippi had an extremely discriminatory and restrictive voting system that made it nearly impossible for African Americans to exercise their right to vote.
Lee was part of the Civil Rights Movement’s efforts to challenge this system and increase voter registration among African Americans. He worked with other activists, such as Fannie Lou Hamer and Bob Moses, to encourage local people to register to vote and to educate them about their rights.
Lee’s activism and involvement in the civil rights movement drew the attention of local white supremacists, who saw him as a threat to their power and authority. He was repeatedly harassed, threatened, and intimidated by these groups, but he continued to work for voting rights despite the danger.
Ultimately, Lee was murdered by a white state legislator and member of the Ku Klux Klan in 1961, while driving another civil rights activist to the courthouse to register to vote. His death became a symbol of the violence and intimidation faced by African Americans seeking to exercise their right to vote in Mississippi and helped galvanize support for the civil rights movement across the country.