From Christopher Benson’s interview on Booknotes:

“… you had White Citizens Councils throughout Mississippi, who I heard described as the KKK in business suits, who would publish lists of registered voters, and if there were black who had attempted to register, they were fired from their jobs. Their home mortgages were foreclosed on, and they were not allowed to buy feed for seed for planting, if they were farmers. They could not get loans for equipment. They were driven out of business. And there was no forgiveness. Even after they would remove their names from the voter rolls, they still were not allowed to have a livelihood. So it was a horrible state, at that point.

But beyond the economic reprisals, people were actually murdered for attempting to exercise their rights. Just before Emmett arrived in Mississippi, Reverend George Lee, in nearby Belzoni, was murdered. He was an NAACP leader in the state. He was murdered for attempting to register people to vote. There was a major cover-up of his murder. And you know, the sheriff said, Well, it wasn’t a shotgun blast, as everybody had determined, but it was, in fact, a car accident. He was shot as he was driving down the highway. And even though the lead pellets were retrieved, the sheriff denied that that ever happened.”