User:JohnFMayer/Dennis, Delmar

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Delmar Dennis was a citizen of Mississippi, a product of his place and time, who had a very conservative––one might say far right––view of politics and was uneasy about changes then taking place in the South. Nonetheless, he was appalled by the excesses of the Ku Klux Klan and, when he learned of the Freedom Rider murders of 1963, agreed to work covertly with the FBI to bring the murderers of those three activists to some semblance of justice. He was the main witness against the murderers and, without his undercover work and testimony, it is very unlikely they'd ever have been prosecuted, let alone convicted; the victims were buried beneath a new dam being built there.

Dennis also brought about the trial and conviction of Byron de la Beckwith 31 years after his murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, long after authorities had all but abandoned prosecuting de la Beckwith after two hung juries failed to convict him. Dennis is portrayed in the movie about that prosecution, The Ghosts of Mississippi, by actor Jim Harley, but is portrayed as a semi-literate hillbilly. Actually, Dennis was very well educated and was an editor of a Sevierville, Tennessee newspaper.

Dennis paid a harsh price for his undercover work in the Freedom Rider murders. His car was bombed, his house burned down, and his wife left him, gaining custody of their children. The FBI, in recognition of his valuable contribution and for his enhanced security, relocated Dennis from Mississippi to Sevierville in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains where he opened and operated a health food store.

He remained strongly conservative and was active in right-wing politics as a member of the American Independent Party and, later was the presidential candidate of its offshoot The American Party in both 1984 and 1988.

Reflecting on the vagaries of his life and the animosity his principled stands had taken on him once remarked, "You know, no one has ever thanked me."

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