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Washington, D.C. - Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson is expressing alarm over news reports revealing that the National Chairman of the Reform Party played a major role in the legal defense of the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who was convicted for masterminding the murder of a legendary NAACP leader in Mississippi. This weekend the Reform Party, which is headed by Mississippi businessman and political office seeker Shawn O’Hara, is meeting in Irving, Texas to nominate Ralph Nader for President.
Congresswoman Johnson is calling on Nader to reject O’Hara’s support and to repudiate his role in defending one-time Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers as he stood trial for the 1966 murder of Mississippi NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer, Sr. According to published reports, Bowers ordered Dahmer’s murder during a special 1965 meeting at a Mississippi farmhouse. The Klan leader was finally brought to justice in 1998. He was convicted of the murder 32 years after he ordered the firebombing of the Dahmer (pronounced DAY-mer) home in Mississippi.
“Vernon Dahmer was a hero and a martyr in the civil rights movement. He was savagely murdered because he sought to help people to vote,” Congresswoman Johnson said today. “It is unconscionable that Ralph Nader would seek the support of the person who assisted in the defense of Vernon Dahmer’s murderer.”
The Clarion Ledger, a newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi, chronicled O’Hara‘s involvement in the Bowers case. In its May 24, 1999 edition, the newspaper reported, “O’Hara gained public attention last year as he assisted in the defense of one-time Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers. A Forrest County Circuit Court Jury on Aug. 21 convicted Bowers of planning the January 1966 fire-bombing death of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer.”
“For more than three decades the Dahmer family waited in tears as justice was delayed. I am calling upon Ralph Nader and the entire Reform Party to immediately renounce its national chairman for his involvement in the Sam Bowers case.”
According to news reports, the Reform Party is meeting in Irving, Texas today through Sunday at the Marriott Courtyard Airport South. Nader is slated to accept the Reform Party’s nomination tomorrow at 1:00 P.M.
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