Robert F. Williams Cause Of Violence

In a world were segregation was known as the norm, whites did not value blacks as humans. Blacks could not, at any point, be looked at equally to a white man. During that time blacks were reminded on a daily basis of their value in a southern society. They were followed and abused both physically and verbally at every turning point in their lives. Robert F. Williams, an African American Civil Rights Leader, felt that after coming back from serving his country, his life had altered. Later in his years of living through such racial abuse, he began promoting black armed self-defense. As the leader of the NAACP in Monroe, he began to try and convince some of his fellow men that violence was the answer to their problems. Soon after, as a …show more content…
He suggested that they should all come together without turning to futile or harmful violence. Because in the end, whether they were right or not, violence would only turn bad for them. He felt that violence was never the answer no matter what the situation was. But he had seen that many blacks were being tempted to thinking being violent was right. Negroes are being misled into the belief that this is the only path (TOP 113). When being provoked by whites, blacks were expected to not solve the situation with violence. Because whether they were right or wrong being violent would only hinder them in the end. There was no way that a small group of blacks could fight off a whole entire gang of angry whites. So instead of wanting to fight, Dr. King advised them to charge back at them with something that was more powerful than a gun or a rope. For example, in the case were Rosa Parks was arrested for sitting in the wrong section of a segregated bus that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. That alone was more powerful than violence and it definitely ended with a greater outcome than violence would have. For instance, if a black man was being ganged on by a group of white men and he felt like he had to protect himself and would have fought back, then that would have led to him going to jail and more than likely getting hung. That is why Dr. King, as well as other civil rights …show more content…
King viewed retaliating to the violence differently, they both felt that it was very necessary. Both of them thought that something needed to be done about the violence that blacks had to endure every day. Both of them just had different ways of retaliation that they wanted to stress to their communities. Williams’ was of retaliation was to be equally violent as the whites were. And the only way to do that was to be armed and practice self-defense. His frustrations from the violence led him to believing that this was the way to survive in such a time. This led him to write “Negroes with Guns,” letting blacks know that it was only right that they defended their lives. He felt that it was their way to their freedom. Dr. King on the other hand wanted to retaliate in a more sophisticated way. He felt that coming together as one was a better way to get back at the whites than fighting. He knew that coming together as a union was just as powerful, if not more, as violence would have been. Turning the other cheek was better than trying to physically fight back. Because during that time there was no way that a black man would ever get away with hitting a white man, or even saying something to them that would not have liked. It never would have mattered if they did feel that their life was in danger. They still would have been

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