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

NAACP had always appealed, he scoured the local pool hall . In the course of one month,
he drummed up fifty members, the requisite number to keep the branch open . ib
Williams' NAACP branch was unique in two aspects. First, it was integrated;
second, it was comprised mainly of working-class blacks . He had recruited an atypical,
motley bunch, including construction workers, day laborers, farmers, domestics, and the
unemployed . There were some whites, and a few black professionals . Additionally, it
had a strong representation of returned veterans.' He recognized their will and
determination, forged in service of their country, to fight for a better standard of living for
blacks in Monrce .
Williams had become aware of the ardent militancy of Monroe's black veterans
during a peculiar episode in which he participated ten years earlier : the burial of Kenny
Montgomery, a high-school classmate . Seriously wounded in Europe in World War Q,
Montgomery had returned to Monroe with a steel plate in his head after a long
hospitalization . Mentally impaired, he managed to hold down a steady job on a local
dairy farm . Shortly before Williams returned from the Army in 1946, Montgomery
stabbed another man to death after a drunken argument . Disregarding both his mental
instability and the possibilities of psychiatric treatment and rehabilitation, an all-white
jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death. Despite pleas for clemency, the
b~' , 90.91 .
"See Williams, Negroes With Guns , S1, 66.
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