Ye Vol. , No. meen July 1; 1966
DEFENSE PROBLEM GROWS ACUTE FOR MEREDITH MARCHERS
The Meredith March in Mississippi and its central problem -how to defend the Negro freedom movement from physical attack from its vicious and depraved opponents, including local police, state troopers and other instruments of the capitalist government ~- continues to hold the spotlight in the United States. Accompanied by television crews and correspondents from all the main news agencies, the march has remained on the front pages of the press and is one
the standpoint of i i i i
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of the first items reported on the daily newscasts coming over America's 246,000,000 radio and television sets. - 7
The column, which at times grew to as many as.1,000 marchers, was under constant harrassment. The difficulty of providing food and nightly shelter in hostile territory for the large group was. formidable enough, particularly since the action was not planned in advance but grew spontaneously in response to the shotgun blasts that brought James Meredith down. But the big problem is what to do about the violence.
As against armed whites itching to punctuate their heckling with gunfire, the Deacons for Defense and Justice have brought in the wholesome deterrent of an immediate response in the same language, the only language the average Southern racist respects.
The problem of violence took on new dimensions June 23 at Canton when 200 marchers reached the town. In a rally, the crowd built up to 3,500. When the time came to pitch the tents for the marchers, local authorities intervened. They barred use of. the grounds of the segregated school and offered no other site. The marchers went ahead despite the order; and state troopers went into action.
They waited until the tents were up and then, fixing gas masks, they lobbed volley after volley of tear and irritating gas into the crowd under and around the tents.
The scenes as people were trampled or aragged away by the. troopers or kicked by them could have been taken in Saigon. If anything, the white supremacists were more vicious than Ky's troops.
An unidentified white girl who was with the ‘marchers rushed up crying to twenty sheriff's deputies and city policemen. "Can't you see I'm a human being, just like you?" she was reported as. asking. "Can't you see it? Can't you see it?"
"I couldn't see it friend, I couldn't see it," camo’ ‘ins
response of a city policeman as the girl stumbled away.
A graphic example of the ineffectiveness of pacifist reasoning in face of reflexes conditioned like those of a police dog!
- Asked by a TV reporter if this experience had changed his views. “about always meeting violence with nonviolence, the Rev. Martin luther King said, "Not at all. "
Stokeley Carmichael's response was different. He acknowledged that in the particular case, the marchers were not prepared to meet the assault, but he pointed to the overall solution: "black power." By this he meant that the Negro people must organize on the political field -- independently of both the Republicans and Democrats -and strive to win power commensurate with their inherent strength. In view of the time and circumstances, the idea obviously had tremendous impact.
“GALLUP POLL