Louis Allen
Age 43
A Black WWII veteran planning to move north
Amite County, Mississippi
January 31, 1964
"The spirit and the energy of my grandfather will be remembered throughout the generations."
Hank & Louis Allen
Son and Grandson of Allen
START
LA: What was your father like? Can you paint me a picture of him?
HA: Daddy — man, he was a real cool guy. We hit it off real good. He farmed, he logged. We raised all our own food, and he would take us to work in the woods with him. He said he was gonna bring us up to work, and that’s what he did.
LA: Did he have any nicknames for you?
HA: When I was little, he called me Pee Wee ‘cause I wouldn’t get fat; and when I got fat, he started calling me Big Man.
LA: [Chuckles]
HA: Yep, that was my nickname: Big Man.
LA: Were you ever afraid for his safety?
HA: No, because we was always brought up to never be afraid. I had never seen him back down from nobody. And so I never did worry about him too much. I knew he could take care of hisself.
The last thing he told me, that he was going to be gone for three weeks and that I need to stay at home and look after my mama and my little sister. He said, “I want you to stay home. ‘Cause I be leaving in the morning for Milwaukee.”
LA: Do you think he was going to Milwaukee to escape this Klan-infested environment in the South?
HA: Yeah, and to save his own life, really, and to save us.
LA: Can you take me back to that day that your father was killed?
HA: I worked with him that day. We hauled two loads of, uh, hickory logs. That night, I was out at some friend’s house…and uh…something told me to just go home. So I went. I made it home early…and found him, up underneath the log truck…after they shot him.
LA: What happened after your father was gone?
HA: Man. Chaos. We buried Daddy that Monday. And we moved that Monday.
But after happened to him…it took so much away from me. It’s something I don’t guess you ever get over.
When you were growing up, what did you know about your grandfather?
LA: When I was a little boy, I really didn’t know much. I just noticed in the family they called me Little Louis, and I always wondered to myself, “Is it that I’m just that small?” And it only started dawning on me later on, when I would hear other people talk about my grandfather…that I had a name that was kind of attached to history.
The Allens, all of us have picked up components of his life and made it our lives. I know in my heart I have a better life today based on not just what my grandfather sacrificed, but what you sacrificed.
HA: That’s a good way of lookin’ at it.
LA: I believe that we will receive justice. Because I know that life is not just a line. It’s a circle. The spirit and the energy of my grandfather will be remembered throughout the generations.
END
Photo by Rolovision LLC
Louis Allen had served in World War II and then came home to work as a logger in Amite County, Mississippi. On January 31, 1964, his son and nephew found his body beneath his truck in the driveway. He had been killed by shotgun blasts to the head. On the seat of the truck was a recommendation letter he’d obtained that day to secure a job in Milwaukee, according to a Department of Justice memo sent to his surviving relatives.
Initial Investigation
The county sheriff and the coroner were the first to arrive at the scene, according to the DOJ record. The sheriff, Daniel Jones, who was later interviewed by the FBI, said he found no physical evidence at the scene and could not determine a motive for Allen’s murder. At the time, the FBI briefly investigated the case as a potential civil rights violation. Allen had been a member of the NAACP and had tried to register to vote, which, for Black Southerners at the time, often brought violent or fatal retaliation by whites. The FBI concluded then that Allen had not been involved in organized voter registration activities and closed the case.
The same day Allen’s family members in Mississippi buried him, many moved to Louisiana to live with other relatives.
Till Act Status
The FBI reopened Allen’s case in 2006. Agents drew in part on interviews conducted by Tulane historian Plater Robinson, who had begun investigating the case years earlier.
During the investigation, the FBI explored many theories surrounding Allen’s murder, including one they believed to be the likeliest: that Allen had been killed by Sheriff Jones and two Black men in retaliation for Allen’s testimony in another killing. Allen had witnessed the murder of Herbert Lee, a Black voting-rights activist, by Eugene Hunter Hurst Jr., a white state representative in Mississippi. At both the coroner’s inquest and the preliminary hearing into Lee’s murder, Allen testified that Lee had been armed with a pipe, and Hurst had acted in self-defense. Allen later approached the FBI and the United States Commission on Civil Rights to say Jones and others had pressured him to lie, and he did so out of fear for himself and his family. He told them Lee had been unarmed.
After Allen changed his testimony, the Department of Justice memo states that he was blackballed by the white community and harassed by the sheriff. Jones arrested him on two occasions, once breaking Allen’s jaw in the process. Before he was killed, Allen told the FBI he had received death threats and planned to flee the state.
The DOJ said the new investigation initiated in 2006 revealed “additional information” pointing to Jones’ involvement in Allen’s death but not enough to pursue a criminal case. In interviews with Plater Robinson, Jones repeatedly denied any involvement in Allen’s death. Jones died in 2013. The FBI closed the case two years later.
Case Status closed
Closed 05/18/2015
Themes
- Closed All Subjects Deceased
- Closed Cases
- Men
- Storycorps Stories
About the Project
This multiplatform investigation draws upon more than two years of reporting, thousands of documents and dozens of first-hand interviews. FRONTLINE spoke to family and friends of the victims, and witnesses, some of whom had never been interviewed; current and former Justice Department officials and FBI agents, state and local law enforcement; lawmakers, civil-rights leaders and investigative journalists, to explore the Department of Justice’s reopening of civil rights-era cold cases under the 2008 Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.
In addition to an examination of the federal effort, the project features the first comprehensive, interactive list of all those whose cases were reopened by the Department of Justice. Today, the list stands at 151 names. Among the victims: voting rights advocates, veterans, Louisville’s first female prosecutor, business owners, mothers, fathers, and children.
The project consists of a web-based interactive experience, serialized podcast, a touring augmented-reality exhibit, documentary and companion education curriculum for high schools and universities.
A project like Un(re)solved would not be possible without the historic and contemporary contributions of universities, civil rights groups, and the press, particularly the Black press, who have ensured the ongoing public record of racist violence in the United States. To pay homage to these groups, the web interactive begins with a quote from journalist, activist and researcher Ida B. Wells, one of the first to document with precision the horrors of racial terror in America. “The way to right wrongs,” she wrote, “is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
At the outset of the project, FRONTLINE forged a relationship with Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), bringing them on as an academic partner. Launched in 2007 by Distinguished Law Professor Margaret Burnham, CRRJ is a mission-driven program of interdisciplinary teaching, research and policy analysis on race, history, and criminal justice. Their work has expanded beyond the names on the Justice Department’s list, archiving documents in over 1,000 cases of racially motivated homicides.
With support from the CRRJ, FRONTLINE reporters gathered what could be known about the individuals on the list, conducting interviews with family, friends and witnesses, delving into newspaper archives and gathering documentation including headstone applications, draft cards and archival photographs.
At the heart of the project has been a drive to center the voices of the families of those on the list. FRONTLINE partnered with StoryCorps to record nearly two dozen oral histories with victims’ next of kin, which are featured both in the web-based interactive and traveling AR exhibit. These oral histories will also be archived in the National Library of Congress.
To lead the creative vision for the web experience and installation, FRONTLINE partnered with Ado Ato Pictures, a premier mixed reality studio founded by artist, filmmaker, and technologist Tamara Shogaolu.
Shogaolu rooted the visuals in the powerful symbolism of trees. In the United States, trees evoke the ideal of liberty, but also speak to an oppressive history of racially motivated violence. In Persian myth, trees are humanity’s ancestors, while in Toraja, Indonesia, they serve as sacred burial sites.
“I was really inspired by looking at the role of the tree as a symbol in American history” Shogaolu said. “It’s been looked at as a symbol of freedom, we look at it as a connector between generations, and also there’s the association of trees with racial terror.” When designing the creative vision for Un(re)solved Shogaolu wondered whether she might be able to reclaim the symbol of the tree. “As a person of color, we’re often terrified of being in isolated places in the woods. And I thought it was kind of crazy that there are natural environments that instinctually give great fear because of this connection with racial terror and I wanted to reclaim that — to turn these into beautiful spaces.”
Un(re)solved weaves imagery of trees, which also recall family ties, into patterns and textures from the American tradition of quilting. Among enslaved African Americans forbidden to read or write, quilts provided an important space to document family stories. Today, quilting remains a creative outlet rich with story and tradition for many American communities.
We invite you to enter this forest of quilted memories — a testimony to the lives of these individuals, and the multi-generational impact of their untimely, unjust loss.
(Credits to come)