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

'~P~opk With StrenSth": Questioning tlK Noavbknt Ida1,19S7-1962
9n other communiligg Ihen wen Negrog who had Muir ela~le hactured, but not a single demonshatorwu even spat
upon during our sit-in :. We had lee: violence becewe we'd shown IM witinpnea and readings b Hpht and defend
ourgNg . . . We eppeued u people with etrengpi, and it wu b the mutwl advantage of aA pardg concerned Ihd
pucelul nlatiorra be mainWned."
~RobeR Wiwiarne, describing origin campaigra in Monroe, North Carolina, t ti82
By the middle of L956, Martin Luther King's ideas regarding nonviolence and
self-defense had congealed ; however, in the next few years, each new crisis within the
burgeoning civil rights movement compelled him to explain his thoughts on self-defense
in order to justify nonviolence . Not everyone involved in the struggle for black equality
subscribed to the sensibilities girding nonviolence, and disagreements with King's
methods cropped up periodically . These were not always personal responses or reactions
to King, but parallel currents within the movement : part of a larger dialogue regarding the
best path toward black equality. During the late 1950's and early 1960's, many activists
felt that nonviolence was yet to be established and proven in an American context, and
many questioned its efOcacy. Many expressed reservations about nonviolence, each of
which seemed to center on the question of self-defense .
For example, P. L. Prattis, a columnist for The Pittsburgh Courier, took aim at
King in 1957 in a five-part series on the virtues of nonviolence . A black man writing for
a leading black newspaper, Prattis was not only a respectedjournalist but also director of
the Youth Education Project and a member of the Pennsylvania House of
Representatives. He questioned the relevance of nonviolence to the plight of Afro-
Americans, and differed with King on several points. He saw nonviolence as little more
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