Eye for an Eye: The Role of Armed Resistance ... - Freedom Archives

noted "(I]t would also provoke and, to many, justify such repressive measures as
would stymie the movement.""
Farmer's fears of CORE members abandoning nonviolence as a way of
life and primary strategy were not imagined or exaggerated . In the South, many
key CORE activists began to recognize the utility of armed resistance as a
complement or alternative to nonviolent direct action. Young CORE leaders from
the New Orleans group, who were so committed to Gandhian principles that in
1961 spoke of "preparing to die if necessary," in 1963 and 1964 recognized
armed resistance as legitimate and in some cases used its potential as a bargaining
measure. One example occurred in May 1963 during a heated exchange between
CORE activist Jerome Smith and Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Smith, once
a committed Gandhian and mentor of the New Orleans group, asserted if the
Federal government could not protect Movement activists he could not promise a
continued commitment to nonviolence . Smith told Kennedy, "When I pull the
trigger, kiss it (nonviolence) good-bye ." COFO leader and CORE representative
in Mississippi Dave Dennis also began to change his total commitment to nonvio-
lence . In January 1964, Dennis cautioned Robert Kennedy that due to a lack of
federal protection, Blacks "shall not watch their families starve, be jailed, beaten,
and killed without responding to protect themselves. You have proven by your
refusal to act that we have no other recourse but to defend ourselves with what-
ever means we have at our disposal ."' s
On the eve of Freedom Summer an incident occurred that would move
Dennis to emotionally and politically break with the philosophy of nonviolence .
On June 21st, 1964, two CORE volunteers, James Chaney and Mickey