‘60 Minutes’ to examine Civil Rights era murder
It happened in Liberty, Miss., where Steve Kroft went during an 18-month investigation into Allen’s unsolved murder that will be broadcast on “60 Minutes,” this Sunday, April 10 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
Allen, a black World War II veteran who helped civil rights workers, was shot to death just before he could move away from Liberty. He wanted to escape the harassment and threats he endured for talking to the FBI about witnessing the murder of a black civil rights volunteer. Sheriff Jones investigated Allen’s murder; he found no suspects.
“60 Minutes” approached Jones on his farm with a hidden camera. In a cordial conversation, the former sheriff said there was no bad blood between him and the victim, that he had investigated it and knew Allen was murdered, but he did not want to discuss it further. He did answer more of Kroft’s questions, however. Was he in the Ku Klux Klan? “I take the Fifth on that,” he replies. Could he look Kroft in the eye and say he had nothing to do with the murder? “No sir, I wasn’t involved in it,” he says. Told he could clear the whole thing up by taking a lie detector test, Jones tells Kroft, “Well, then it ain’t getting cleared up.”