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

September of 1964, SNCC activists Joe Martin stated :
The thing that was threatening white folks, was thinking they was
putting fear in Blacks . The fear turned into anger, but it wasturning
the wrong way (from where white supremacists intended) . They
(many McComb Blacks) was ready to start shooting people who
was white . . .Deacon (Claude) Bryant and the other older guys went
to them (the white power structure and the FBI) and told them
`some peoples fixin' to be killed. And ain't all of them going to be
Black .sz
On the evening of September 20, 1964, the fuse of the explosive element
within the McComb Black community was lit and the explosive was ignited . That
evening, the residence of Aylene Quin was bombed, injuring her two children, a
nine-year-old girl, Jacqueline, and a five-year-old boy, Anthony. Later the same
night, the politically active Society Hill Baptist Church of the Baertown commu-
nity was bombed and almost completely destroyed. These two bombings, particu-
larly the assault on the home of the well loved and respected Quin, brought an
immediate reaction from angry Blacks . Hundreds of Black McComb residents
poured into the streets armed with guns, Molotov cocktails, bricks and any
weapon which was available to them . Roving mobs of youth marched down
McComb's streets looking for white people or white owned property and estab-
lishments to attack . Johnnie Nobles remembered the effect the Quin bombing had
on him, saying "I was hateful and mean and I wanted to do something." Leaving
his shift guarding his brothers cleaners from nightriders, Nobles, armed with his
.32 handgun, was arrested on his way to Quin's neighborhood. In order not be
arrested for possession of a concealed weapon, Nobles passed his weapon to a