Robert Franklin Williams Read online

  Prolollu.

  Why do I speak to you from exile?

  Because a Negro community in the South took up guns

  in self-defense against racist violence-and used them. I am

  held responsible for this action, that for the first time in history American Negroes have armed themselves as a group to defend their homes, their wives, their children, in a situation

  where law and order had broken down, where the authorities could not, or rather would not, enforce their duty to protect Americans from a lawless mob. I accept this responsibility and am proud of it. I have asserted the right of Negroes to meet the violence of the Ku Klux Klan by armed self-defense-and have acted on it. It has always been an

  accepted right of Americans, as the history of our Western

  states proves, that where the law is unable, or unwilling, to

  enforce order, the citizens can, and must, act in self-defense

  against lawless violence. I believe this right holds for black

  Americans as well as whites.

  Many people will remember that in the summer of 1 957

  the Ku Klux Klan made an armed raid on an Indian community in the South and were met with determined rifle fire from the Indians acting in self-defense. The nation approved

  of the action and there were widespread expressions of pleasure at the defeat of the Kluxers who showed their courage by running away despite their armed superiority. What the

  nation doesn't know, because it has never been told, is that

  the Negro community in Monroe, North Carolina, had set

  the example two weeks before when we shot up an armed

  motorcade of the Ku Klux Klan, including two police cars,

  which had come to attack the home of Dr. Albert E. Perry,

  vice-president of the Monroe chapter of the National Associ-

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  PROLOGUE

  ation for the Advancement of Colored People. The stand

  taken by our chapter resulted in the official re-affirmation by

  the NAACP of the right of self-defense. The Preamble to the

  resolution of the 50th Convention of the NAACP, New York

  City, July 1 959, states: " . . . we do not deny, but reaffirm,

  the right of an individual and collective self-defense against

  unlawful assaults. "

  Because there has been much distortion o f my position,

  I wish to make it clear that I do not advocate violence for its

  own sake or for the sake of reprisals against whites. Nor am

  I against the passive resistance advocated by the Reverend

  Martin Luther King and others. My only difference with Dr.

  King is that I believe in flexibility in the freedom struggle.

  This means that I believe in non-violent tactics where feasible; the mere fact that I have a Sit-In case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court bears this out. Massive civil disobedience is a powerful weapon under civilized conditions where the law safeguards the citizens' right of peaceful demonstrations. In civilized society the law serves as a deterrent against lawless forces that would destroy the democratic

  process. But where there is a breakdown of the law, the individual citizen has a right to protect his person, his family, his home and his property. To me this is so simple and

  proper that it is self-evident.

  When an oppressed people show a willingness to defend themselves, the enemy, who is a moral weakling and coward, is more willing to grant concessions and work for a

  respectable compromise. Psychologically, moreover, racists

  consider themselves superior beings and are not willing to

  exchange their superior lives for our inferior ones. They are

  most vicious and violent when they can practice violence

  with impunity. This we have shown in Monroe. Moreover,

  when because of our self-defense there is a danger that the

  blood of whites may be spilled, the local authorities in the

  South suddenly enforce law and order when previously they

  had been complacent toward lawless, racist violence. This

  too we have proven in Monroe. It is remarkable how easily

  and quickly state and local police control and disperse law-

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  PROLOGUE

  less mobs when the Negro is ready to defend himself with

  arms.

  Furthermore, because of the international situation, the

  Federal Government does not want racial incidents which

  draw the attention of the world to the situation in the South.

  Negro self-defense draws such attention, and the Federal

  Government will be more willing to enforce law and order if

  the local authorities don't. When our people become fighters, our leaders will be able to sit at the conference table as equals, not dependent on the whim and the generosity of the

  oppressors. It will be to the best interests of both sides to

  negotiate just, honorable and lasting settlements.

  The majority of white people in the United States have

  literally no idea of the violence with which Negroes in the

  South are treated daily-nay, hourly. This violence is deliberate, conscious, condoned by the authorities. It has gone on for centuries and is going on today, every day, unceasing

  and unremitting. It is our way of life. Negro existence in the

  South has been one long travail, steeped in terror and

  blood-our blood. The incidents which took place in Monroe, which I witnessed and which I suffered, will give some idea of the conditions in the South, conditions that can no

  longer be borne. That is why, one hundred years after the

  Civil War began, we Negroes in Monroe armed ourselves in

  self-defense and used our weapons. We showed that our policy worked. The lawful authorities of Monroe and North Carolina acted to enforce order only after, and as a direct result of, our being armed. Previously they had connived with the

  Ku Klux Klan in the racist violence against our people. Selfdefense prevented bloodshed and forced the law to establish order. This is the meaning of Monroe and I believe it marks a historic change in the life of my people. This is the

  story of that change.

  5

  Chapter 1

  ill ill

  Self-Defense Prevents Iloodshed

  ill ill ill ill ill ill ill ill ill ill ill ill ill ill ill ill ill ill ill ill ill In June of 1961 the NAACP Chapter of Monroe, North

  Carolina, decided to picket the town's swimming pool. This

  pool, built by WPA money, was forbidden to Negroes although we formed one quarter of the population of the town.

  In 1957 we had asked not for integration but for the use of

  the pool one day a week. This was denied and for four years

  we were put off with vague suggestions that someday another pool would be built. Two small Negro children had meantime drowned swimming in creeks. Now, in 1 96 1 , the

  City of Monroe announced it had surplus funds, but there

  was no indication of a pool, no indication of even an intention to have a pool. So we decided to start a picket line. We started the picket line and the picket line closed the pool.

  When the pool closed the racists decided to handle the matter in traditional Southern style. They turned to violence, unlawful violence.

  We had been picketing for two days when we started

  taking lunch breaks in a picnic area reserved for "White People Only." Across from the picnic area, on the other side of a stream of water, a group of white people started firing rifles

/>   and we could hear the bullets strike the trees over our

  heads. The chief of police was on duty at the pool and I appealed to him to stop the firing into the picnic area. The chief of police said, "Oh, I don't hear anything. I don't hear

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  SELF-DEFENSE PREVENTS BLOODSHED

  anything at all." They continued shooting all that day. The

  following day these people drifted toward the picket line firing their pistols and we kept appealing to the chief of police to stop them from shooting near us. He would always say,

  "Well, I don't hear anything."

  The pool remained closed but we continued the line

  and crowds of many hundreds would come to watch us and

  shout insults at the pickets. The possibility of violence was

  increasing to such a proportion that we had sent a telegram

  to the U.S. Justice Department asking them to protect our

  right to picket. The Justice Department referred us to the

  local FBI. We called the local FBI in Charlotte and they said

  this was not a matter for the U.S. Justice Department; it was

  a local matter and they had checked with our local chief of

  police, who had assured them that he would give us ample

  protection. This was the same chief of police who had stood

  idly by while these people were firing pistols and rifles over

  our heads, the same chief of police who in 1 957 had placed

  two police cars in a Klan motorcade that raided the Negro

  community.

  Attempt to Kill Me

  On Friday, June 23, 1 9 6 1 , I went into town to make another telephone call to the Justice Department. While I was there I picked up one of the pickets and started back to the

  line at the swimming pool, which was on the outskirts of

  town. I was driving down U.S. Highway 74 going east when a

  heavy car 0 was driving a small English car, a Hillman), a

  1 955 DeSoto sedan, came up from behind and tried to force

  my lighter car off the embankment and over a cliff with a 75-

  foot drop. I outmaneuvered him by speeding up and getting

  in front of him. Then he rammed my car from the rear and

  locked the bumper and started a zig-zag motion across the

  highway in an attempt to flip my light car over. The bumpers

  were stuck and I didn't use the brake because I didn't want

  to neutralize the front wheels.

  We had to pass right by a highway patrol station. The

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  NEGROES WITH GUNS

  station was in a 35-mile-an-hour zone and by the time we

  passed it the other car was pushing me at 70 miles an hour.

  I started blowing my horn incessantly, hoping to attract the

  attention of the highway patrolmen. There were three patrolmen standing on the opposite side of the embankment in the yard of the station. They looked at the man who was pushing

  and zig-zagging me across the highway and then threw up

  their hands, laughed, and turned their backs to the highway.

  He kept pushing me for a quarter of a mile until we

  came to a highway intersection carrying heavy traffic. The

  man was hoping to run me out into the traffic, but about 75

  feet away from the highway I was finally able to rock loose

  from his bumper, and I made a sharp turn into the ditch.

  My car was damaged. The brake drum, the wheels, and

  the bearings had been damaged, and all of the trunk compartment in the rear had been banged in. After we got it out of the ditch, I took the car back to the swimming pool and

  showed it to the chief of police. He stood up and looked at

  the car and laughed. He said, "I don't see anything. I don't

  see anything at all." I said, "You were standing here when I

  left." He said, "Well, I still don't see anything." So I told him

  I wanted a warrant for the man, whom I had recognized. He

  was Bynum Griffin, the Pontiac-Cheverolet dealer in Monroe.

  He said, "I can't give you a warrant because I can't see anything that he's done." But a newspaperman standing there started to examine my car, and when the chief of police discovered that a newspaperman was interested, then he said,

  "Well, come to the police station and I'll give you a warrant."

  When I went to the police station he said, "Well, you

  just got a name and a license number and I can't indict a

  man on that. You can take it up with the Court Solicitor." I

  went to the Court Solicitor, which is equivalent to the District Attorney, and he said, "Well, all you got here is a name and a number on a piece of paper. I can't indict a man on

  these grounds." I told him that I recognized the man and

  mentioned his name. He said, "Wait a minute," and he made

  a telephone call. He said, "I called him and he said he didn't

  do that." I again told him that I had recognized the man and

  that I had the license number of the car that he had used.

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  SELF-DEFENSE PREVENTS BLOODSHED

  Finally the Court Solicitor said, "Well, if you insist, I'll tell

  you what you do. You go to his house and take a look at him

  and if you recognize him, you bring him up here and I'll make

  out a warrant for him." I told him that was what the police

  were being paid for, that they were supposed to go and pick

  up criminals. So they refused to give me a warrant for this

  man at all.

  "God Damn, The Niggers Have Got Guns!"

  The picket line continued. On Sunday, on our way to

  the swimming pool, we had to pass through the same intersection (U.S. 74 and U.S. 60 1). There were about two or three thousand people lined along the highway. Two or three policemen were standing at the intersection directing traffic and there were two policemen who had been following us

  from my home. An old stock car without windows was

  parked by a restaurant at the intersection. As soon as we

  drew near, this car started backing out as fast as possible.

  The driver hoped to hit us in the side and flip us over. But I

  turned my wheel sharply and the junk car struck the front of

  my car and both cars went into a ditch.

  Then the crowd started screaming. They said that a nigger had hit a white man. They were referring to me. They were screaming, "Kill the niggers! Kill the niggers! Pour gasoline on the niggers! Burn the niggers!"

  We were still sitting in the car. The man who was driving the stock car got out of the car with a baseball bat and started walking toward us saying, "Nigger, what did you hit

  me for?" I didn't say anything to him. We just sat there looking at him. He came up close to our car, within arm's length with the baseball bat, but I still hadn't said anything and we

  didn't move in the car. What they didn't know was that we

  were armed. Under North Carolina state law it is legal to

  carry firearms in your automobile so long as these firearms

  are not concealed.

  I had two pistols and a rifle in the car. When this fellow

  started to draw back his baseball bat, I put an Army .45 up

  9

  NEGROES WITH GUNS

  in the window of the car and pointed it right into his face

  and didn't say a word. He looked at the pistol and he didn't

  say anything. He started backing away from the car.

  Somebody in the crowd fired a pistol and the people

  again started to scream hysterically, "Kill the niggers! Kill

  the niggers! Pour gasoline on the niggers!" The mob started

  to throw stones on top of my car. So I opened the door of

&nb
sp; the car and I put one foot on the ground and stood up in the

  door holding an Italian carbine.

  All this time three policemen had been standing about

  fifty feet away from us while we kept waiting in the car for

  them to come and rescue us. Then when they saw that we

  were armed and the mob couldn't take us, two of the policemen started running. One ran straight to me, grabbed me on the shoulder, and said, "Surrender your weapon! Surrender

  your weapon!" I struck him in the face and knocked him back

  away from the car and put my carbine in his face, and I told

  him we were not going to surrender to a mob. I told him that

  we didn't intend to be lynched. The other policeman who

  had run around the side of the car started to draw his revolver out of the holster. He was hoping to shoot me in the back. They didn't know that we had more than one gun. One

  of the students (who was seventeen years old) put a .45 in

  the policeman's face and told him that if he pulled out his

  pistol he would kill him. The policeman started putting his

  gun back into the holster and backing away from the car,

  and he fell into the ditch.

  There was a very old man, an old white man out in the

  crowd, and he started screaming and crying like a baby, and

  he kept crying, and he said, "God damn, God damn, what is

  this God damn country coming to that the niggers have got

  guns, the niggers are armed and the police can't even arrest

  them!" He kept crying and somebody led him away through

  the crowd.

  Self-Defense Forces Protection

  Steve Presson, who is a member of the Monroe City

  Council, came along and told the chief of police to open the

  highway and get us out of there. The chief of police told

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  SELF-DEFENSE PREVENTS BLOODSHED

  the City Councilman, "But they've got guns!" Presson said,

  "That's OK. Open the highway up and get them out of here!"

  They opened the highway and the man from the City Council

  led us through. All a long the highway for almost a third of a

  mile people were lined on both sides of the road. And they

  were screaming "Kill the niggers! Kill the niggers! We aren't

  having any integration here! We're not going to swim with

  niggers!"

  By the time we got to the pool the other students who