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

as equals, not dependent on the whim and generosity of the oppressor."~ Williams
claimed that he and King were not ideologically dissimilar . "I wish to make it clear," he
wrote, "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." 3~
Consistently, the two men misunderstood one another. As a spokesman for
nonviolent direct action, King mistook Williams' call to "mat violence with violence" as
an invitation to kill white people with impunity . He noted :
Mr. Williams would have us believe that there is no collective and practical
alternative [to violence . He argues that we must be cringing and submissive or
take up arms . To so place the issue distorts the whole problem . There arc other
meaningful alternatives . 38
Williams, for his part, failed to understand the militance of King's nonviolent
direct action, and sometimes equated nonviolence and pacifism . In Negroes With Guns ,
he would later write that if student protesters could show him the gains of nonviolent
methods, then he too would "become a pacifist." 39 Williams' equating nonviolence with
pacifism denied nonviolent direct action its forcefulness. He characterized self-protection
as the only manly response to violent attack, but King redefined nonviolence as a manly
~Williams, Ness With Guns, 41 .
3gKing, "The Social Organization of Nonviolence, Liberation 4 n 7 (October 1959) : S .
39Williams, News With Guns , 78 .
48