On January 22, 1964, nearly 150 Black citizens marched here in the rain demanding the right to vote, launching Mississippi's Freedom Summer and facing a system designed to stop them.
316 Forrest St, Hattiesburg, MS 39401
Research updated June 2026
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No fee to visit; courthouse exterior and monument are on public grounds
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Urban downtown; flat paved grounds around courthouse
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Site of Freedom Day, January 22, 1964 — second major Freedom Day protest in the South · Organized by Vernon Dahmer, Victoria Jackson Gray, Joyce and Dorie Ladner, SNCC · Targeted Theron Lynd's documented refusal to register Black voters · Directly preceded the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project · Vernon Dahmer statue on grounds; engraved: 'If you don't vote, you don't count' · Stop on the 16-site 1964 Freedom Summer Trail
On January 22, 1964, a cold, rainy Monday in downtown Hattiesburg, nearly 150 Black citizens gathered at the Forrest County Courthouse carrying signs reading 'One Man, One Vote.' This was Freedom Day — a coordinated demonstration organized by civil rights activists including Vernon Dahmer, Victoria Jackson Gray, Joyce Ladner, and Dorie Ladner, affiliated with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Ella Baker had spoken at the organizing meeting held at St. Paul's Methodist Church.
The target of the demonstration was Theron Lynd, the Forrest County circuit clerk and voter registrar. Lynd had built a documented record of refusing to process Black applicants, processing only four people at a time regardless of the line stretching two blocks. Police maintained a heavy presence but only three arrests occurred, and no violence took place that day — a notable contrast to many contemporaneous demonstrations elsewhere in Mississippi.
Freedom Day in Hattiesburg was the second major Freedom Day protest in the South, following Selma, Alabama. It drew a significant contingent of white northern civil rights workers, signaling the beginning of what would become the Mississippi Summer Project — the 1964 voter registration and freedom school campaign that brought hundreds of volunteers to the state. The demonstration helped build the organizational case for that project and inspired subsequent protests in Greenwood and Liberty.
The courthouse today is a featured stop on the 16-site 1964 Freedom Summer Trail maintained by a Hattiesburg preservation organization. A bronze statue of Vernon Dahmer Sr. — the NAACP leader and voting rights activist who helped organize Freedom Day and was murdered by the KKK on January 10, 1966 — stands on the courthouse grounds, engraved with his quote: 'If you don't vote, you don't count.'
Sources
The dark history at the Forrest County Courthouse is not legend — it is documented record. Theron Lynd, the registrar who presided over the systematic exclusion of Black voters in Forrest County, was found in contempt of federal court and legally compelled to cease discriminatory practices in the years following Freedom Day. His obstruction was not improvised cruelty; it was official county policy backed by the state apparatus of Mississippi during the Jim Crow era.
The KKK violence that surrounded the civil rights work in Hattiesburg was equally documented. Vernon Dahmer Sr., who helped organize the January 22, 1964 demonstration and served as NAACP chapter president, made a radio announcement on January 9, 1966 that he would personally pay the poll tax for any Black resident who could not afford it. In the predawn hours of January 10, 1966, armed Klan members firebombed his home and grocery store ten miles north of Hattiesburg. Dahmer grabbed his shotgun and fired back while his family escaped, but his lungs were seared by the smoke and flames; he died the following day. Sam Bowers, who ordered the attack, was not convicted until 1998, when he received a life sentence at age 74.
The bronze statue of Dahmer now stands outside the courthouse where the demonstration he helped lead took place. His words on the base — 'If you don't vote, you don't count' — are drawn from the speech and the life.
Notable Entities
The courthouse is Stop 2 on the 16-site 1964 Freedom Summer Trail through Hattiesburg. A bronze statue of voting-rights martyr Vernon Dahmer Sr. stands on the grounds, engraved with his quote 'If you don't vote, you don't count.' Visitors can walk the grounds, read the interpretive materials, and place the January 22, 1964 Freedom Day demonstration in the full context of the trail.
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Hattiesburg, MS
Vernon Dahmer Sr. owned a farm and grocery store at the Kelly Settlement, north of Hattiesburg in Forrest County. A successful Black businessman and NAACP chapter president, Dahmer had been a central organizer of Freedom Day at the Forrest County Courthouse in January 1964. On January 9, 1966, he announced over local radio that he would personally pay the poll tax for any Black citizen who could not afford it. In the predawn hours of January 10, armed KKK members firebombed his home and store; Dahmer died the following day from lung injuries sustained while protecting his family.
Kansas City, MO
On June 17, 1933, gunmen ambushed a federal law-enforcement party in the south parking lot of Kansas City Union Station, killing four officers — including FBI Special Agent Raymond Caffrey — and the prisoner they were transporting, escaped bank robber Frank Nash. The FBI attributed the attack primarily to Vernon Miller and, controversially, to Pretty Boy Floyd and Adam Richetti. The killings outraged Congress and directly prompted legislation granting FBI agents the permanent authority to carry firearms and make arrests.
Baton Rouge, LA
On January 10, 1972, a confrontation between Baton Rouge police officers and Nation of Islam demonstrators on North Boulevard turned violent, leaving two sheriff's deputies and three demonstrators dead and 31 people wounded. Governor John McKeithen deployed 700 National Guard troops and imposed a citywide curfew. Nine Black men were convicted in a 1976 trial. The Louisiana Supreme Court subsequently reversed those convictions, a rarely discussed chapter of Louisiana's civil rights era.