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

armed with his rifle, stood watch. In instructions for volunteers coming to work
with Turnbow, SNCC staff member Mary King wrote when approaching the
Turnbow house, "get directions or an escort as he may shoot." 96
Due to his role in the local and statewide Movement and his act of armed
resistance that Spring 1963 evening, Turnbow was one of the Holmes County
leaders who was targeted for terrorist violence . Providing shelter to two volun
teers increased the danger facing the Turnbow family. One of these women,
Martha Honey, a student from Oberlin College, remembers returning to Mileston
from the funeral of James Chaney to find the Turnbow farm "had been converted
into an armed camp ." While Honey and others were in Meridian at the funeral
Turnbow's home was attacked again. Honey, whose father was a Quaker, was
influenced by the philosophy of pacifism and supported nonviolence as the princi-
pal tactic of the Movement. Since Turnbow had previously concealed weapons
around her, Honey was "shocked to see other people and guns for the first time ."
The "other people" Honey referred to were two white volunteers who were labor
activists and veterans from the Spanish Civil War. These two volunteers assisted
Turnbow in the security of his home by participating in a twenty four hour armed
watch of the Turnbow farm and designing and installing an electric alarm system
around the house. The alarm system was composed of wires around the house
which would alert theTumbows and their guests if intruders were approaching the
house. The Turnbw also had a two way radio to maintain intelligence of local
police activity and to communicate with the local Movement patrol if necessary.
Honey commented, in the Mississippi Movement :