Herbert Lee

Herbert Lee, 52, a farmer and NAACP voter-registration organizer who worked closely with SNCC activist Bob Moses, was shot and killed at Westbrook's Cotton Gin in Liberty on September 25, 1961, by Mississippi state representative E.H. Hurst. Hurst said the two men argued over a debt and that Lee swung a tire iron at him, prompting Hurst to strike him with a pistol, which discharged and killed him. A coroner's inquest, held inside the cotton gin office within an hour of the shooting, found Hurst acted in self-defense; witnesses, including Lee's friend Louis Allen, corroborated Hurst's account under oath. Two justices of the peace subsequently declined to send the case to a grand jury, and Hurst was released the same day he was charged. Louis Allen later told the FBI he had lied at the inquest out of fear, and that Lee had not actually threatened Hurst. Allen was harassed for years afterward and was murdered in 1964, shortly before he planned to leave Mississippi — a killing documented separately in this archive.

Liberty, MS · Amite County

• 1961: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• Victim identity, background, and the September 25, 1961 date and circumstances, per the DOJ's public case file.
• A coroner's inquest and two justices of the peace concluded Hurst acted in self-defense and declined to refer the case to a grand jury; the corroborating witness, Louis Allen, later told the FBI he had lied out of fear, per the same file.

• Whether Lee actually threatened Hurst with a tire iron, as multiple witnesses testified under oath at the time, was directly contradicted by at least one of those same witnesses years later.
• No one was ever convicted in Lee's death.

• U.S. Department of Justice — Notice to Close File
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs