Benjamin E. Murph

Benjamin E. Murph became the president of the Laurel-Jones County Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) on February 1951, and he occupied that position until his death on 17 September 1972. As president, he led several voter registration drives, spoke across the nation, and aided local African Americans’ fight against the apparatus of oppression and racism.

Benjamin Murph was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, on 7 July 1908 to J. W. and L. B. Murph. The Murph family was strong in their faith, as Murph’s father was a pastor and dedicated to the pursuit of education. After graduating high school in 1926, Benjamin Murph attended South Carolina State College in hopes of becoming a dentist. By the mid-1930s he received his medical degree from Meharry Medical College and became a Doctor of Dental Surgery. He soon met Conoleta Grant, and on 14 June 1935 they moved to Laurel, Mississippi, where Dr. Murph opened his dental practice downtown. On 6 November 1939 he and Conoleta were married. She opened a nursery school in the basement of their church, Allen Chapel AME Church, where Murph also became the church’s Cub Scout leader.

By the 1950s, Murph became an activist in the freedom struggle after the execution of Willie McGee, a twenty-nine-year-old deliveryman for Laurel Wholesale Grocery accused of raping a white woman. In February 1951 Murph became the president of the Laurel-Jones County Branch of the NAACP, leading mass meetings to encourage blacks in Jones County to register for the vote.

Murph erected what Medgar Evers called “one of the finest Youth Councils in Mississippi.” He was also elected second vice president of the state’s NAACP and was selected as the youth advisor. Murph extended his loyalty to members who wanted to keep their identity hidden. He met them at their backdoors at night to collect NAACP dues so no one would tie them to the movement, but in 1962 Laurel’s police stole Murph’s briefcase, which held important documents, including NAACP correspondence, names, and addresses of local chapter members.

On the morning of 8 July 1964 Murph greeted an integrated group of NAACP board members in Laurel as part of their tour of Mississippi. After a long morning visit, the group wanted lunch. Dr. Murph called the local Holiday Inn and asked for a reservation for eleven people, which was granted. The group was shown a large table in the banquet room, but the group successfully broke into smaller groups in order to be seated in the main dining room with other customers. According to the New York Times, “There had been no previous successful tests of public accommodations along the highways here in Laurel.”

By 1965, the Grand Wizards of Ku Klux Klan began their reign of terror against Murph. In June, as his wife and kids were on vacation, a group of Klan members rained bullets through the windows of his home. In September his home was hit again. The shots knocked out a picture window in the kitchen and tore screens off a window in the kitchen. Later that day, Murph was notified that his insurance company canceled his policy, and he could not secure insurance from any other company.

In late 1966, Murph began battling a grave illness. The illness didn’t stop his devout commitment to the movement, although he was in and out of the hospital. He continued his civil rights work, advocating for school integration through his work on a biracial advisory committee for the Laurel School Board. Dr. Benjamin Murph died on 27 September 1972.