Robert Franklin Williams
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years! Yet nobody spends money to go into the South and
ask the racists to be martyrs or pacifists. But they always
come to the downtrodden Negroes, who are already oppressed and too submissive as a group, and ask them not to fight back. There seems to be a pattern of some sort of
strange coincidence of interest when whites preach a special
doctrine to Negroes. Like the choice of theology when the
plantation-owners saw to the Christianization of the slaves.
Instead of the doctrines which produced the rugged aggressively independent and justice-seeking spirit that we associate with Colonial America as the New England Conscience, the slaves were indoctrinated in the most submissive "trust-your-master," "pie-in-the-sky after-you-die" form of Christianity.
It is because our militancy is growing that they spend
hundreds of thousands of dollars to convert us into pacifists.
Because our militancy is growing they come to us out of fear.
Of course, the respectable Negro leadership are the
most outspoken exponents of non-violence. But if these people, especially the ministers, are such pure pacifists, why is it that so few, if any, criticize the war preparations of this
country? Why is it that so few speak out against the Bomb?
Isn't that the sort of preaching one expects and hears from
sincere pacifists? The responsible Negro leadership is pacifist in so far as its one interest is that we do not fight white racists, that we do not "provoke" or enrage them. They constantly tell us that if we resort to violent self-defense we will be exterminated. They are not stopping violence-they are
only stopping defensive violence against white racists out of
a fear of extermination.
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This fear of extermination is a myth which we have exposed in Monroe. We did this because we came to an active understanding of the racist system and grasped the relationship between violence and racism. The existence of violence is at the very heart of a racist system. The Afro-American
militant is a "militant" because he defends himself, his family, his home and his dignity. He does not introduce violence into a racist social system-the violence is already there and
has always been there. It is precisely this unchallenged violence that allows a racist social system to perpetuate itself.
When people say that they are opposed to Negroes "resorting to violence" what they really mean is that they are opposed to Negroes defending themselves and challenging the exclusive monopoly of violence practiced by white racists.
We have shown in Monroe that with violence working both
ways constituted law will be more inclined to keep the
peace.
When Afro-Americans resist and struggle for their
rights they also possess a power greater than that generated
by their will and their hands. With the world situation as it is
today, the most racist and fascist United States government
conceivable could not succeed in exterminating 20,000,000
people. We know there is a great power struggle going on in
the world today and the colored peoples control the true
balance of power. We also know, from the statistics of the
Detroit race riots, that production in this country would fall
in forty-eight hours. People everywhere in the world would
be ready to support our struggle.
Nor should we forget that these same deceiving pacifist-preaching well-to-do southern blacks profit from the struggle, living lives of lUxury while most Afro-Americans
continue to suffer. Are they any better than the Negro Quisling in neighboring Charleston, North Carolina-a black man who rode around in a new pink Cadillac with anti-NAACP
and anti-integration literature, a huge roll of money and an
expense account, all the blessings of the White Citizens'
Council? It is an ironic sign that black Judases are becoming
more expensive as the white racist becomes desperate-
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though it is small consolation to those of us who suffer from
his betrayals.
In Monroe, where we fought the Klan, we were being
penalized. There are children there growing up without any
education, children without shoes, children without food.
Old people without medical attention. For the Monroe
Negro, there is no work; there is no welfare. From all the
money raised in the North by the official black leadership,
no one would send a penny to Monroe because the white
liberals who gave this money considered us to be outlaws
and thugs. They preferred to let us suffer rather than to identify themselves with our position. They sent truck convoys into other places in the South but penalized us because we
took a militant stand.
But our children who are growing up without shoes are
also growing up with a sense of direction they cannot obtain
in the Jim Crow schools. There once was a threat, in Monroe,
of Negro teen-age gang war. It abated as the teen-agers resolved their difficulties by coming to understand the problem. It is only natural to expect the black youth to be infected with a desire to do something. Frustrated by less
active adults, this desire may be projected in the wrong direction. The vigor of the youth can be channeled into constructive militant actions. It is simply a matter of common sense to have these young Negroes constructively fight racial injustice rather than fight among themselves. Danger is not a respecter of color lines. It is better to bleed for a just
cause than to bleed just for the thrill of the sight of blood.
Rebellion ferments in modern youth. It is better that it expend itself against its true enemies than against teen-age schoolmates who can't even explain the reasons for their
dangerous skirmishes.
The Montgomery bus boycott was perhaps the most
successful example of completely pacifist action. But we
must remember that in Montgomery, where Negroes are riding in the front of buses, there are also Negroes who are starving. The Montgomery bus boycott was a victory-but
it was limited. It did not raise the Negro standard of living. It
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did not mean better education for Negro children, it did not
mean economic advances.
Just what was the issue at hand for the white racists?
What sacrifice? Remember that in Montgomery most white
Americans have automobiles and are not dependent on the
buses. It is just like our own experience in Monroe when we
integrated the library. I called the chairman of the board in
my county. I told him that I represented the NAACP, that we
wanted to integrate the library, and that our own library had
burned down. And he said, "Well, I don't see any reason why
you can't use the same library that our people use. It won't
make any difference. After all, I don't read anyway." Now,
this is the attitude of a lot of white Southerners about the
Montgomery bus boycott. The white people who control the
city didn't ride the buses anyway. They had their own private cars, so it didn't make any difference to them.
But when Afro-Americans get into the struggle for the
right to live as human beings and the right to earn the same
amount of money, then they'll meet the greatest amount of
resistance, and out of it will come police-condoned or inspired violence. When that happens, the racist must be made to realize that in attacking us he risks his own life.
After al
l, his life is a white life, and he considers the white
life to be superior. So why should he risk a superior life to
take an inferior one?
I believe, and a lot of other Negroes do too, that we
must create a black militancy of our own. We must direct
our own struggle, achieve our own destiny. We must realize
that many Afro-Americans have become skeptical and extremely suspicious of the so-called white liberals who have dominated "Negro" freedom movements. They just feel that
no white person can understand what it is like to be a suppressed Negro. The traditional white liberal leadership in civil rights organizations, and even white radicals, generally
cannot understand what our struggle is and how we feel
about it. They have always made our struggle secondary and
after all these years we really never got any place.
They have a patient sense of good public relations. But
we're not interested in a good press. We're interested in be-
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coming free. We want to be liberated. To me oppression is
harmful. It is painful. I would wake up in the morning as a
Negro who was oppressed. At lunchtime, I would eat as a
Negro who was oppressed. At night I would go to bed as a
Negro who was oppressed. And if I could have been free in
thirty seconds, it would not have been too soon.
"Too long have others spoken for us," began the first
editorial in the first Afro-American newspaper, which began
publication in 1 827. The truth of these words has not
dimmed in the century and a half since they first appeared
in Freedom's Journal. They are more appropriate than ever.
There are white people who are willing to give us aid
without strings attached. They are willing to let us direct our
own struggle. They are genuinely interested in the liberation
of the Negroes. I would not have been able to remain in the
South as long as I did if it had not been for the support that
I got from some white people in the North. And I might never
have succeeded in escaping the legal-lynching manhunt fomented by the FBI or have reached Cuban sanctuary but for the help of whites. They will be willing to continue helping
us for the sake of justice, for the sake of human decency.
"Every Freedom Movement in the U.S.A.
Is Labeled 'Communist' "
I am not a member and I have never been a member of
the Communist Party. But most decent-minded Americans
should realize by now that every movement for freedom that
is initiated in the United States; every movement for human
dignity, for decency, every movement that seeks fairness
and social justice, every movement for human rights, is
branded as "Communistic." Whenever a white person participates in a movement for black liberation, the movement is automatically branded as "under the domination of Moscow." I can't expect to be an exception.
This Communist-thing is becoming an old standard. An
old standard accusation now. Anyone who uncompromisingly opposes the racists, anyone who scorns the religious 79
NEGROES WITH GUNS
fanatics and the super-duper American conservatives is considered a Communist.
This sort of thing gives the Communists a lot of credit
because certainly many people in my movement in the South
don't know what a Communist is. Most of our people have
never even heard of Marx. When you say Marx some of the
people would think that maybe you were talking about a
fountain pen or a New York City cab driver. Or the movie
comedians.
But people aspire to be free. People want to be liberated when they are oppressed. No matter where the leadership comes from. The enslavement and suppression of Negroes in the American South were going on before Karl
Marx was born, and Negroes have been rebelling against
their oppression before Marxism came into existence. As far
back as the 1 6th century, and the beginning of the 1 7th century, Negroes were even rebelling on the slave ships. The history of American Negro slavery was marked by very many
conspiracies and revolts on the part of Negroes.
Certainly the Marxists have participated in the human
rights struggle of Negroes, but Negroes need not be told by
any philosophy or by any political party that racial oppression is wrong. Racial oppression itself inspires the Negro to rebellion. And it is on this ground that the people of Monroe
protested and on this ground that the people of Monroe refused to conform to the standard of Jim Crow life in a Jim Crow society. It is on this basis that they have struck out
against the insanity of racial prejudice. We know that the
Southern bigot, the Southern racist is mentally ill, that he is
sick. The fact that Jim Crow discrimination and racial segregation may very well be based on economic exploitation is beside the point.
We are oppressed and no matter what the original
cause or purpose of this oppression, the mind and personality of the racist doing the oppressing have been warped for so long that he is a mental case. Even if the economic situation is changed it will take quite a while and require quite a shock to cure this mental disease. I've read that one of the
best treatments for some forms of mental illness is the shock
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treatment. And the shock treatment must come primarily
from the Afro-American people themselves in conjunction
with their white allies, in conjunction with the white youth.
This movement that I led was not a political organization. It had no political affiliations whatsoever. It was a movement of people who resented oppression. But I would
say one thing about our movement. What happened in Monroe, North Carolina, had better become a lesson to the oppressors and the racists of America. Because it is symbolic of a new attitude, symbolic of a new era. It means that the
Negro people are becoming restless. It means that there will
be many more racial explosions in the days to come. Monroe
was just the beginning. I dare predict that Monroe will become the symbol of the new Afro-American, a symbol of the Afro-American determined to rid himself of the stigma of
race prejudice and the pain and torture of race hate and
oppression at any cost.
Black Nationalism: Another Label
The label "Black Nationalist" is as meaningless as the
Communist label. The Afro-American resents being set aside
and oppressed, resents not being allowed to enter the mainstream of American society. These people who form their own groups because they have been rejected and start trying to create favorable societies of their own are called
"Black Nationalists. "
This i s a misleading title. Because the first thing you
must remember is that I am an Afro-American and I've been
denied the right to enter the mainstream of society in the
United States. As an Afro-American I am rejected and discriminated against. We are the most excluded, the most discriminated-against group in the United States; the most discriminated-against class. So it is only normal that I direct
most of my energy toward the liberation of my people, who
are the most oppressed class.
As for being a "Black Nationalist," this is a word that's
hard to define. No, I'm not a "Black Nationalist" to the point
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that I would exclude w
hites or that I would discriminate
against whites or that I would be prejudiced toward whites.
I would prefer to think of myself as an Inter-Nationalist. That
is, I'm interested in the problems of all mankind. I'm interested in the problems of Africa, of Asia, and of Latin America.
I believe that we all have the same struggle, a struggle for
liberation. Discrimination and race hatred are undesirable,
and I am just as much against racial discrimination, in all
forms, every place in the world, as I am against it in the
United States.
What do we mean by "nationalism"? When you consider the present white American society it can be classified as nothing but a nationalistic society based on race. Yet as
soon as an Afro-American speaks out for his people and is
conscious and proud of his people's historical roots and culture, he becomes a "nationalist." I don't mind these labels. I don't care what they call me. I believe in justice for all people. And because the Afro-American is the most exploited, the most oppressed in our society, I believe in working foremost for his liberation.
Non-Violence and Self-Defense
The tactics of non-violence will continue and should
continue. We too believed in non-violent tactics in Monroe.
We have used these tactics, we've used all tactics. But we
also believe that any struggle for liberation should be a flexible struggle. We should not take the attitude that one method alone is the way to liberation. This is to become
dogmatic. This is to fall into the same sort of dogmatism
practiced by some of the religious fanatics. We can't afford
to develop this type of attitude.
We must use non-violence as a means as long as this is
feasible, but the day will come when conditions become so
pronounced that non-violence will be suicidal in itself. The
day is surely coming when we will see more violence on the
American scene. The day is surely coming when some of the
same Negroes who have denounced our using weapons for
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self-defense will be arming themselves. There are those who
pretend to be horrified by the idea that a black veteran who
shouldered arms for the United States would willingly take
up weapons to defend his wife, his children, his home and
his life. These same people will one day be the loud advocates of self-defense. When violent racism and fascism strike at their families and their homes, not in a token way but in