Prologue
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 authori¬ ties 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 1957 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 Association 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 1959, 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 of 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 de¬ fend 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 lawless 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.
