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

He likened racism to a disease, a mass psychosis treatable like any other mental
illness . "Iwe read that one of the best treatments for some forms of mental illness is the
shock treatment ;' he noted wryly, "and the shack treatment must come primarily from the
Afro-American people themselves in conjunction with the white youth." He did not
reject the aid of white liberals in the civil rights movement, but saw their monetary
contributions as a massive effort to convert blacks to pacifism. "We rcaliu that there
must be a struggle within our own ranks to take the leadership away from the black
Quislings who betray us," he wrote . "Then the white liberals who are dumping hundreds
of thousands of dollars into our struggle in the South to convert us to pacifism will have
to accept o~ understanding of the situation or drop their liberal pretensions."~~
The real enemies, as far as Williams could tell, were poor whites, flaunting the
one thing southern society allowed them : their superiority over blacks . "[M]ost of the
people who were sympathetic toward us were either intellectuals, upper class or middle
class people," he recalled, "and the children, their children, but I did not know any
workers, in fact any farmers in the South when I lived there who were sympathetic ." n
"Rednecks" were a lifelong source of annoyance for Williams.
In response to the charge that fighting back would bring only extermination to
blacks in America, he replied that his race was already being exterminated . "It is being
'~Williams, Negroes With Guns, 112-113 .
'2'festimony of Robert F. Williams, U.S . Senate Judiciary Hearings, Subcommittee on
Internal Security, 91st Congress, Second Session, Febnrary 16, 1970 (Washington, D.C. :
U.S . Government Printing Office, 1971), 4. In subsequent notes, this testimony will be
referred to simply as U.S . Senate Judiciary Hearings.
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