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

and cohesiveness of each community. In communities that had a strong sense of
solidarity and self-reliance, like Harmony and Mileston, collective armed organi-
zation was more developed. At the same time, whether in Black land-owning
"haven" communities, in town or country in the Delta, or in cities like McComb
or Meridian, armed self-defense was a component of Freedom Summer and the
overall resistance movement for civil and human rights .
The Beginning of the End of Non-Violence
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, in June 1964, SNCC had its first
national organizational debate on the issue of armed self-defense . Since 1963,
CORE's national leadership was challenged by this same issue . While both
organizations maintained a public posture of nonviolence, much of its member-
ship and volunteers began to be armed during 1964. It could also be argued that in
Mississippi and other parts of the South these organizations could not function
without the armed protection of local people.
Despite the ban on SNCC organizers being armed during the Summer
Project, several of the SNCC and COFO staff were armed during Freedom Sum-
mer. As previously mentioned Hollis Watkins participated in armed patrols in
Mileston . Sundiata Acoli commented that his COFO escorts were armed when he
was transported from Jackson to his assignment for the Summer Project at
Batesville . After receiving an unsatisfactory response from federal authorities
when their Freedom House bombed, and being the victims of harassment and
violence on several occasions, Jesse Harris and other SNCC staff set up an armed
patrol of the McComb Freedom House . McComb SNCC organizer Joe Martin,
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