Lamar Smith

Lamar “Ditney” Smith, 63, a World War I veteran, farmer, and voter registration organizer with the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, was shot to death on the lawn of the Lincoln County courthouse in Brookhaven at around 10 a.m. on August 13, 1955, while helping other Black residents complete absentee ballots ahead of a runoff election. He was killed in broad daylight before dozens of witnesses, including the local sheriff, who watched a blood-covered white man walk away from the scene without arresting him; it took eight days before three white men — Noah Smith, Mack Smith, and Charles Falvey — were arrested. A state grand jury heard from as many as 75 witnesses in September 1955 but adjourned without returning any indictment, after witnesses who had stood within 30 feet of the killing told the panel they had seen nothing. Decades later, an FBI interview suggested Smith may have been deliberately lured to the courthouse. Smith's killing was cited in the NAACP's own 1955 pamphlet documenting racial violence in Mississippi, alongside the killings of Rev. George Lee and Emmett Till. The Mississippi Department of Archives and History approved a historical marker for Smith in 2026.

Brookhaven, MS · Lincoln County

• 1955: 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 August 13, 1955 date and circumstances, per the DOJ's public case file, PBS FRONTLINE's “Un(re)solved” case summary, and the Equal Justice Initiative.
• Three men were arrested but never indicted after a September 1955 grand jury heard dozens of witnesses and adjourned without action, per the same sources.

• No one was ever convicted in Smith's killing.
• Whether Smith was deliberately lured to the courthouse, as one witness later suggested to the FBI decades afterward, was never independently confirmed.

• PBS FRONTLINE Un(re)solved — case summary
• Equal Justice Initiative — case summary
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs