In 1955, he was shot dead in broad daylight around 10 a.m. at close range on the lawn of the Lincoln County courthouse in Brookhaven, Mississippi.

[2] Lamar Smith, a 63-year-old farmer and World War I veteran, was a voting rights activist and a member of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL).

On August 13, Smith was at the courthouse helping other African-American voters to fill out absentee ballots so they could vote in the runoff without exposing themselves to violence at the polls.

The other incidents included the murder of George W. Lee, a civil rights leader in Belzoni (May), the killing of Emmett Till, a black teenager visiting from Chicago (August), and the shooting of Gus Courts (December), a civil rights associate of Lee in Belzoni.

The district attorney further reported that the sheriff told him he saw Noah Smith, one of the accused, "leave the scene with blood all over him.