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

mation of Klan death threats, Ready commented, "My preacher friends guarded
my house for five years . . . . We used to sit up many a night, waiting . Our wives had
learned to make us all night meals ." One time, after receiving word that the Klan
was to make an attack on his home, Ready positioned himself across the street
from his house in a ditch. While Ready was waiting for his attackers, a car ap-
proached his house . According to Charles Young "one of them (the nightriders)
got out (of the car) and started towards the house . . .he (Ready) cut loose (meaning
he fired his weapon at them) ."43
While the level of violence was certainly intense in Meridian, the Black
community and the Movement was certainly challenged in McComb, particularly
during the Summer and early Fall months of 1964 . In 1964, McComb was popu
larly known as the "bombing capital of the world ." Between June 22 and August
12, there were 12 bombings of homes, churches, and businesses in the Black
community of McComb . The perpetrators of the rash of bombing were the local
Klavem of the United Klans ofAmerica. With access to guns, ammunition, as
well as dynamite, the local United Mans group initiated a campaign to terrorize
McComb's Black community. The goal of this campaign was to instill so much
fear into McComb's Blacks that they would not support the voter registration
program of COFO. In 1963, a Black domestic worker in the household of mem-
bers of the white power structure came upon an important revelation. The domes-
tic, serving her function as part of the intelligence apparatus of the Movement,
uncovered that the local segregationist forces developed a "hit list" of local
NAACP and COFO leaders, who local Blacks believed were targeted for assassi-
nation. Prior to SNCC's initial campaign in Pike County in 1961, an increase of