Earlier this month FBI agents arrested a man they believe is responsible for the 34-year-old unsolved murder of a black Adams County man.

The arrest made state and national newspapers and television reports. And the arrest of Ernest Avants was, in fact, big news.

Lost amidst the sound bites of prosecutors vowing for justice and the small video clips of a handcuffed Avants being led into court was an inquisitive young boy.

Don Simonton was only a child in 1966, when polcie say three men including Avants lured Ben Chester White into a car under the premise of getting him to help them find their lost dog. It was the last time White would be seen alive.

Police found White’s bullet-riddled body dumped in Pretty Creek in the Homochitto National Forest.

He was, police assumed, killed simply because he was black. White wasn’t active in the civil rights movement. He wasn’t, as racists of the time said, &uot;uppity.&uot;

White was simply a laborer who worked and lived on a farm in a community called Bude Camp, off Liberty Road.

Originally three men were charged in the murder. One of the suspect’s trial ended in a hung jury; Avants was acquitted in state court; and a third suspect was never tried.

Avants is the only suspect still living. He is being retried in federal court because authorities believe the murder took place in the federally owned Homochitto National Forest.

For Simonton, the death of White was a puzzle of sorts. At the time, adults tried to protect the innocence of childhood by simply not talking about the murder.

&uot;I started (researching White’s murder as a historian) because when I was a kid a man who lived down the road from my grandparents was killed,&uot; he said.

&uot;When I was visiting them, I said ‘what happened to him?’&uot; Simonton said. &uot;Every body said ‘nevermind. We can’t talk about it.’&uot;

Although Simonton didn’t know White that well, he was acquainted with the farmhand.

&uot;He lived in the neighborhood, and I knew him to see him,&uot; said Simonton, who is now a graduate student and instructor at the Center for South Culture at the University of Mississippi.

Although he wasn’t close to White, the questions surrounding his death never disappeared from Simonton’s memory.

&uot;When I became older I said ‘I think I’ll find out what happened,’&uot; Simonton said.

And he did. Simonton researched the topic and delivered his findings at the Historic Natchez Foundation’s annual history conference in 1998.

Although Simonton shies away from taking any credit for the reopening of the White case, his research has most certainly assisted print and television reporters who have helped push the case into the national spotlight and consequently back into the criminal justice system. Through his research, Simonton was one of the first people to realize that since White’s murder likely occurred on federal property prosecution in federal court was a possibility. Because this would be a federal charge, Avants escapes the security of a constitutional protection against being tried for the same time.

&uot;Prosecution was not on my to-do list,&uot; Simonton said. &uot;(But) it’s a matter of social justice.

&uot;The South can’t move ahead into a new bi-racial, multi-racial future … until we can lay to rest, if not all at least the most terrible, things that happened during that period.&uot;

But people like Simonton are moving the South ahead simply by revisiting the past.

&uot;I am not a hero,&uot; Simonton said. &uot;I’m just a scholar who is researching and writing about the past. If people are looking for heroes they should look at the people who died. Heavens I haven’t done anything heroic.&uot;

Some of us disagree.

Kevin Cooper is managing editor of The Democrat. He can be reached at (601) 445-3541 or by e-mail at kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.