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

ABSTRACT
Although, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's and 1960's in the American
South is often characterized as a non-violent revolution, it also embodies this
longstanding tradition of armed resistance . Scholarly and popular literature of the
Movement rarely speaks about the significance of armed resistance in Black
struggle for desegregation, political and economic rights, and basic human dignity.
In dozens of Southern communities, Black people picked up arms to defend
their lives, property and movement for human rights. They often relied on armed
self defense, particularly in communities where Federal government officials
failed to protect Movement activists and supporters from the violence of racists
and segregationists, who were often supported by local law enforcement . Armed
resistance played a key role in allowing Black communities to survive and the
Movement to continue .
The primary purpose of this project is to examine the role and efficacy of
armed resistance in the Civil Rights Movement in the American South, particularly
as a compliment and alternative to non-violent direct action . I will examine
the post World War II Civil Rights Movement in the state of Mississippi, particularly
from 1954 until 1967 to illustrate the role of armed resistance in the human
rights struggle of Black people in the American South . Mississippi provided
interesting political and cultural terrain for this study because of its reputation as a
center of white supremacist terrorism during the period of de jute segregation .
Those who resisted faced some of the most brutal violence in the country's history.
This study examines the role of armed self-defense and other forms of armed
resistance in the survival and success of the struggle for human and civil rights fm
people of African descent in the state post-World War II Mississippi . I argue that
the tradition of Black armed resistance existed in the state of Mississippi as a
significant aspect of the culture prior to non-violence being formally introduced
into the Black freedom movement as a tactic or strategy. The evidence presented
in Eye forAn Eye will demonstrate that even after the tactic, strategy, and rhetort .
of non-violence was introduced in the state in 1961, it was generally compliment
ed, directly or indirectly, by armed self-defense . Finally, EyeforAn Eye will
examine the internal debates over armed resistance and the shift from non-violent
direct action and the rhetoric of non-violence in the Mississippi freedom movement
after 1964 to a greater reliance on armed resistance .