Editing Belzoni, Mississippi (section)

===Civil rights movement===
[[File:Segregated movie theater.jpg|thumb|Segregated movie theater in Belzoni, 1939]]
Belzoni was the site of the murder of an early civil rights pioneer. The Rev. [[George W. Lee]], an African American minister who was seeking voting rights for the [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised blacks]] of the [[Mississippi Delta]] and registered to vote, was murdered in 1955 in "Bloody Belzoni" by white residents committed to upholding segregation.<ref>{{Cite web| last = Klopfer| first = Susan| title = Rev. George Lee 'Died to Vote' in 'Bloody' Belzoni| work = Buzzle.com| date = December 2, 2005| url = http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/12-2-2005-82898.asp| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060103193247/http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/12-2-2005-82898.asp| url-status = usurped| archive-date = January 3, 2006| access-date = November 13, 2009}}</ref> His killers were never found, as the governor of Mississippi, [[Hugh L. White]], refused to investigate the case.<ref name=GWL>{{cite web |url=http://www.themiddleoftheinternet.com/OnlineBooks/Rebels/14.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060605141300/http://themiddleoftheinternet.com/OnlineBooks/Rebels/14.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 5, 2006 |title=Rev. George W. Lee |work=The Middle of the Internet |access-date=January 17, 2010 }}</ref> Many consider Lee the first martyr of the modern civil rights movement.<ref name=GWL />

As an undergraduate at the [[University of California, Berkeley]], [[Margot Adler]], later a [[National Public Radio]] correspondent, was active in the voter registration drive in Humphreys County (Belzoni) in the summer of 1965, before the passage of the [[Voting Rights Act]] on August 6 of that year. In 2000, she recalled: 
<blockquote>"I remember how difficult it was to register people: the fear was palpable. I remember that after one month of daily work there were only seven people registered, and a bunch of us almost got ourselves killed after being chased onto private property by a group of men who belonged to the [[Citizens' Councils|White Citizens' Council]]".</blockquote> She said that the civil rights movement changed Humphreys County, and bettered the lot of African Americans. <blockquote>"There was real change in Belzoni. Streets were paved in hog town, sewers no longer overflowed into the dirt streets. Several black families I knew from then have held political office during the last decade".<ref>{{Cite web| last = Adler| first = Margot|work = Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement| title= Margot Adler|publisher = Westwind Writers Inc.| date =November 23, 2000| url = http://www.crmvet.org/vet/adler.htm| access-date = November 13, 2009| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20091029090127/http://www.crmvet.org/vet/adler.htm| archive-date= October 29, 2009 | url-status= live}}</ref></blockquote>