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

talking about self-defense," Williams confessed in 1961, "I would walk through the
streets and many of my black neighbors would walk away to avoid me'~ a
Understandably, many of the black citizens of Monr+oe warmed slowly to his call
to arms in the late 1950's . They were afraid, and rightly so : Williams posed a very real
danger to them all . Repercussion for speaking out against the status quo, let alone taking
steps to change it, could be swift in the South . In the past, some blacks had lost their
jobs, while others had lost their lives, and those whites bent on "justice" were not
discriminative in how they allotted it . Williams was inviting censure--or worse--by his
words and deeds ; but, there was something appealing about his example, and many in the
black community quickly saw him as more brave than insane . The respect he
commanded from whites was empowering for the black people of Monroe .
White Southerners lived their lives by the laws of tradition ; that is, the way things
had always been was the way things should be~ Clearly, whites in Monroe, like other
white Southerners, yearned for stability in their lives. They believed that change, if at all
necessary, should take place gradually and peaceably within the existing laws and
a3Williams, Negt+oes With Guns, 111 .
`Andrew Myers has best illustrated the reticence of Monroe's white citizenry to
embrace change . "Although Monroe whites took pride in their modernity," he has written,
"they still happily regarded their town as an isolated, conservative, southern community.
They feared the recent, rapid changes which had taken place . Their insecurity was
reflected in the 1949 enactment ofan alcohol prohibition law . A year later, during the
height of the Red Scare, thirty-five Monroe businessmen took out a four-column
advertisement in the [Monroe] i entitled `Americanism and Christianity or
Communism and Atheism?' Soon afterwards, they replaced the courthouse weather vane
with a neon cross :' Myers, "When Violence Met Violence : Facts and Images of Robert
F . Williams and the Black Freedom Struggle in Monr+oe, North Carolina" (M.A . thesis,
University of Virginia, 1993), 12-13 .
5 0