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

Goodman . Another element of this case that profoundly affected Dennis was that
during the federal search for Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman federal officials
found several dead bodies in remote areas of Mississippi. One of these corpse was
the body of fourteen-year-old boy found in the Big Black River clad in a CORE t-
shirt. While the search for his three comrades was important, Dennis was dis-
traught by the fact that no serious effort was being made to investigate the cause
of death and, if the motive was murder, to pursue the perpetrators of these
crimes ."
One result of this experience was that the Dennis began to disassociate
himself from an adherence to nonviolence . In fact, when Dennis was asked to
speak at the memorial service for James Chaney he either conscious disobeyed or
unintentionally disregarded an order from CORE national leadership to preach
reconciliation and nonviolence at the ceremony. Dennis gave an emotional
address. He was quoted by the press as stating "I'm sick and tired of going to the
funerals of Black men who have been murdered by white men . . . .I've got ven-
geance in my heart tonight. . ." Dennis also told the audience "If you go back home
and take what these white men in Mississippi are doing to us . . . If you take it and
don't do something about it . . .then God damn your souls . . ." Years later reflecting
on his emotional comments that day Dennis attempted to explain his intent .
I felt then that there was only one solution . If we're gonna have a
war, let's have it . And people say, `Let's leave it up to the government
to take care of this . . .' Let's go in there ourselves, let's go on
and get it over with, one way or another. That's the emotion I felt . I
was just tired of going to funerals . . .I never did . . .try to deal with
anyone on nonviolence again.'
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