Mississippi: DOJ calls Brown as a witness
The Commercial Dispatch reports: The U.S. Justice Department finished grilling Noxubee County Democratic Party Chairman Ike Brown on the stand Wednesday as the federal government tries to prove he diluted whites' votes and kept their candidates out of local government.
The first voting-rights trial of its kind resumed today in the second week of witnesses appearing before U.S. District Judge Tom Lee.
Lee is being asked by the Justice Department to impose measures for ensuring Noxubee County's black Democratic Party leaders are fair to white voters and candidates.
Brown was called up Tuesday by the Justice Department to testify as an adverse witness to answer allegations he's politically stifled whites in violation of the Voting Rights Act.
The charges include recruiting a black lawyer with a fake Noxubee County residence to try to defeat white County Attorney Ricky Walker, threatening to keep some whites out of Democratic Party meetings and defying a court order to hold a new sheriff's election after black incumbent Albert Walker had defeated the white-favored challenger. -- Commercial Dispatch Online