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Mississippi Police Use Dogs on Negroes Trying to Register

Mar. 28, 1963 - In Greenwood, Mississippi today, policemen set a snarling dog at the heels of 42 Negroes as they marched homeward after having applied to register as voters. The German shepherd lunged again and again at the group and seized the left ankle of the Reverend D.L. Tucker. The minister apparently was not bitten seriously. A half dozen policemen and auxiliary policemen armed with nightsticks drove the other Negroes along a sidewalk in the heart of the business section until they had dispersed. White bystanders yelled at the patrolman handling the dog, “Turn him loose!” and “Sic ‘em, sic ‘em.” Mayor Charles E. Sampson was asked why the police had dispersed the Negroes, who were marching by twos along the sidewalk and stopping for traffic signals. “They had a report up there that them n*****s was going to the Alice Café for a sit-in,” the mayor replied. The only arrest made was that of Dick Perez, identified by the police as a CBS cameraman. He was released without charges after his film of the incident had been confiscated.

© 2024 by Joe Rubenstein

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