13/08/2025
During the early to mid-1900’s it was rare to see a Black person to own a large amount of land. Regardless, Reverend Isaac Simmons owned more than 270 acres of debt-free land in Amite County, Mississippi. Simmons’s family was said to own the land since 1887, producing crops and selling the wood. However, it wasn’t long before the word spread of the fact that there was oil in southwest Mississippi.
Then, a group of six white men showed up to Simmons’ land and warned the landowner to stop cutting lumber. Simmons then talked to an attorney to work out the dispute and make sure his land would go to his children once he passed away.
Later, the same men went to Simmons’ oldest son Eldridge and ordered him to show them the property line. On the way to the property line, the men started to beat Eldridge and shouted that Simmons’s family believed they were “smart niggers” for consulting a lawyer. The men went to Reverend Simmons’ home, and dragged him out of his house, and drove off the property with him in the car.
The men would shoot Simmons three times, cut out his tongue and told his son that the family had ten days to get off the land. Then three days later Reverend Simmons was buried and his family fled the land. Then the men who killed the reverend took possession of the land. Later, an all-white jury acquitted the only one of the six men to face trial for murder.
Sources: Equal Justice Initiative & Los Angeles Times
