Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer Sr. (March 10, 1908 – January 10, 1966) was an American civil rights movement leader and president of the Forrest County chapter of the NAACP in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

[8] Ellie Jewel Davis (born June 27, 1925) was his third and final wife; she was a teacher from Rose Hill, Mississippi, and had recently moved to Forrest County.

Ellie Dahmer taught for many years in Richton, Mississippi and retired in 1987 from the Forrest County school system.

Dahmer was a member of Shady Grove Baptist Church where he served as a music director and Sunday School teacher.

[9][10] During the civil rights movement, Dahmer served two terms as president of the Forrest County Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and led voter registration drives in the 1960s.

"[9] As president of the Forrest County Chapter of the NAACP, he had personally asked the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to send workers to help aid the voter registrations efforts being made by African Americans in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Luther Cox was the authority figure in charge of registered voters in Forrest County and was a white segregationist.

"[6] In 1950, fifteen leaders of Forrest County's black community, including Dahmer, filed a lawsuit against Cox for his administration of the voting laws; preliminary injunction.

Dahmer had testified in court against Luther Cox and his testimony helped demonstrate the pattern of discrimination in the county.

Dahmer also made a public service announcement over the radio stating that he would help the local African American population pay a poll tax for the right to vote if they could not afford to do so themselves.

Dahmer returned fire from inside the house in order to try and distract the Klansmen while he helped hand Bettie down to Ellie.

"[7] The Chamber of Commerce, under Bob Beech and William Carey College President Dr. Ralph Noonkester, led a community effort to rebuild the Dahmer's home.

[7] Four of Dahmer's sons were serving in the United States military but they left their posts in order to help bury their father and reconstruct their family's home.

[14] In addition, eleven of the defendants were tried on federal charges of conspiracy to intimidate Dahmer because of his civil rights activities.

In August 1998, Governor Kirk Fordice indefinitely suspended his sentence, at the request of Dahmer's family, after he agreed to become a key witness for the prosecution in the murder trial of Bowers.

[16][17] Twenty-five years after the murder of Vernon Dahmer and the assault on his family, the case was reopened by the state of Mississippi.

The case lasted seven years, and it ended with the conviction and sentencing to life in prison of Imperial Wizard Bowers in 1998.

For more than a decade, she served in this position, supported by black and white residents, in the same district where her husband was killed for his voting rights advocacy.