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

teers throughout Hinds county. Realizing they would meet stiff resistance from
armed Blacks, White Line leaders ordered their combatants to retreat, realizing
the elevation of hostilities could possibly lead to federal intervention . Black
militia forces also stabilized the security of Black and Republican forces in Yazoo
and DeSoto counties after being supplied with arms by the state . Rather than
expand this victory by utilizing predominately Black militia forces to restore
order throughout the state, Ames sought compromise with the Democrats . After
receiving promises by Democratic leaders that no harm or violence would come
to Mississippi Blacks, Ames disbanded the militia forces . Unfortunately the white
planters would not keep their promises of a peaceful election, as white terrorism
resumed unabated . The demobilization of Black militia forces would give white
planters and the Democrats the advantage through the tactics of terror to defeat
the Black majority's attempts to participate in the 1875 election. In December of
that year Charles Caldwell would be assassinated by white vigilantes in Clinton."
Black militias bore the brunt of the combat with white supremacist vigi-
lantes in defense of local and State Republican governments in the South . Often
Federal forceswere neutral or slow to act when white terrorists attacked Black
communities and Republicans . Unfortunately the Federal and Republican
government's ambivalence and opposition to relying on and reinforcing Black
military force in the South led to the defeat of Reconstruction and the reign of
white supremacy.
Some Mississippi Blacks not only armed for self-defense but for retalia-
tion. The Klan feared Blacks who organized themselves into armed bands to
retaliate against perpetrators of violence against Black people . The Klan labeled