We will shoot back armed resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement - Umoja, Akinyele Omowale (New York University Press, 2013)
Includes bibliographical references and index
Terror and resistance: foundations of the civil rights insurgency -- "I'm here, not backing up": emergence of grassroots militancy and armed self-defense in the 1950s -- "Can't give up my stuff": nonviolent organizations and armed resistance -- "Local people carry the day": freedom summer and challenges to nonviolence in Mississippi -- "Ready to die and defend": Natchez and the advocacy and emergence of armed resistance in Mississippi -- "We didn't turn no jaws": black power, boycotts, and the growing debate on armed resistance -- "Black revolution has come": armed insurgency, black power, and revolutionary nationalism in the Mississippi freedom struggle -- "No longer afraid": the United League, activist litigation, armed self-defense, and insurgent resilience in northern Mississippi
My father was born in 1915 to a sharecropping family in the Bolivar County village of Alligator in the Mississippi Delta. Dad told me stories about Mississippi when I was growing up in Compton, California. These stories were full of examples of White terrorism and intimidation. One story I heard invoked mixed feelings of fear and pride. My father remembered seeing a Black man hanging from a Delta water tower, apparently after being lynched by White supremacists. Angered by this visible assault on Black humanity, my grandfather grabbed a rifle and intended to shoot the first White man he saw. My father, his siblings, and his stepmother tackled my grandfather and disarmed him. After hearing this story, I was proud that my grandfather wanted to fight back against the terrorists who lynched one of our people. On the other hand, I understood the fear in the hearts and minds of my father, uncles, and grandmother as they visualized the retaliation that would have been inflicted on the family if my grandfather had carried out his plans