A White man will spend the next eleven years of his life behind bars for terrorizing Black people in Mississippi. Louie Revette, of Collins, Mississippi was recently sentenced after pleading guilty to burning a cross in a Black neighborhood, according to the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger.
Revette and another White man, Graham Williamson, drove to a predominately Black neighborhood in Seminary, Mississippi with the purpose of intimidating a Black 16-year-old male and the residents of that community.
Revette and Williamson admitted to building and burning the cross to threaten, frighten and intimidate a Black teenager and other residents because of their race.
Rose Marie Shears, the teen’s grandmother, appeared in court during the sentencing and asked that the judge sentence Revette to 20 to 40 years. She also said that her family feared for their lives following the incident.
However, U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett only sentenced Revette to 11 years in prison after being charged with one count of interference with housing rights, a federal civil rights violation, and one count of using fire during the commission of a federal felony. Williamson, who also plead guilty to the crime, will be sentenced in the upcoming weeks.
Mississippi continues to be a state haunted by its racist past. From 1882 to 1968 the state had the highest number of racially-motivated lynchings at 581, according to findings reported by the NAACP.
