3. Strain, Christopher Barry. “Civil Rights and ... - Freedom Archives

His first impulse when threatened was to arm himself s°
Others relied on self-protection, too. Rosa Parks' husband kept a gun by his bed
because of the threats and harassments his wife endured as an indicted boycott leader.s ~ King
recalled in Stride Toward Freedom that members of the executive board of the MIA would
occasionally approach him in private to advocate a "more militant" approach. Some felt that
"at least a modicum of violence" would convince whites that they "meant business and were
not afraid ." He told the story of a member of his church who suggested that they should
"`kill offeight or ten white people" to show they were no longer afraid . Such a sacrifice
would also involve the federal government in an advantageous way. s2
If King was tempted, he did not show it . Aware of some dissent, he remained
convinced of the power of nonviolence . To Bayard Rustin's question "What is the attitude in
the Negro community?" in Montgomery in the fall of 1956, King replied :
The people arc just as enthusiastic now as they were in the beginning of the protest .
They are determined never to return to jim crow busses . The mass meetings arc still
jammed and packed and above all the busses are still empty. Every now and then we
will hear some complaint, but the vast majority of the people are dedicated to
sacrificing and sticking out to the finish . I think also there is a growing commitment
to the philosophy of nonviolence on the part of the Negro community. Even those
who were willing to get their guns in the beginning are gradually coming to see the
futility of such an approach . s3
s°See supra note 12 .
s ~See The King Parsers 3 : 122 note 7 .
s2 King, Stride Toward Freedom, 88 .
s3 King, letter to Bayard Rustin, September 20, 1956, Box 67, VIII, 34, Cornespondence
"W," Martin Luther King Collection, Department of Special Collations, Boston University .
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