Mar. 1, 1963 - The shooting of a 20-year-old civil rights worker sparked a vow by the South’s integration leaders today to sign up every qualified voter in Leflore County, Mississippi. The intention was announced in telegrams to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett. Meanwhile, the victim of Thursday night’s shooting, Jimmy Travis (pictured), was reported in satisfactory condition at a Jackson hospital. He has a bullet lodged near his spine. Another bullet, reportedly fired by three white men from a passing car, ripped through Travis’s shoulder, but that wound was not believed to be serious. Wiley A. Branton, director of the voter education project, wired the Attorney General from Atlanta saying that conditions as they now exist in Mississippi no longer can be tolerated. “We are accordingly today announcing a concentrated saturation campaign to register every qualified Negro of Leflore County,” Branton said. The Justice Department said today it was entering the case. The FBI entered the case after a telegram was received from the Congress of Racial Equality asking the Attorney General to provide protection for Mississippi Negro citizens who try to register to vote.
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