What is Non-Violence Exactly

 I’m of the firm belief that to be considered nonviolent you have to first have the ability for violence. If there’s no threat of imminent retaliation to any threat then practicing nonviolence ultimately leads to more danger for yourself, your family, and your community. If the threat to you knows that no matter what the situation, you will not react, then you simply become a walking doormat to be taken advantage of and abused. The belief that we must be nonviolent in all resistance to oppressive systems has not gotten us where we need to be. 

    This is where Robert F Williams stood. I recently read his book Negroes With Guns in which he tells the story of what led him to this belief and the violence he and his community faced in Monroe, NC. 

     The book itself hit me harder than I would’ve known when I first opened it. I lived in the area for years, graduating from college just about an hour away and starting my first after college job in Monroe. I traveled the very roads where Mr. Williams faced deadly threats from white mobs.

 The Black community’s request wasn’t unreasonable. The local Black community wanted access to the public pool. As tax paying citizens they have that right and that was what they argued. They offered certain times or days. Every option offered met with hostility or just flat out ignored. So as other Black communities across the country were staging their own protests for various reasons of their own, Mr. Williams’ community also wanted to make their voices heard. This was early on in the civil rights movement.

     What they were met with however, was starkly different than what the other communities had been facing. Flat out, deadly violence in the face of nonviolent and peaceful protests. Across the nation, the Freedom Riders had gone from community to community and while they faced backlash, the violence hadn’t yet gotten explicitly violent. It was different in Monroe.

They came to prove that their nonviolent tactics work and was quickly shown otherwise. No Black person or white ally as a part of the Freedom Riders in Monroe was safe. 

As what became common in these scenarios over time, all levels of law enforcement would fail the Black community. Requests for assistance ignored or denied. Something needed to be done and the youth of the community had no plans in stopping their protest. 

This was when the decision was made that as law abiding tax paying citizens exercising their constitutional rights, they would carry guns at these protests in order to protect themselves from further attacks. Not every protestor, but a few. Just enough to make the point that they wouldn’t be harmed anymore. This decision was frowned upon by many that had come to Monroe to help including many Freedom Riders who firmly believed in complete non-threatening nonviolence. 

     The results, however, could not prove Robert F Williams any more right. Suddenly when local law enforcement realized that not only could Black lives be at stake, but white lives as well, did they do their jobs and disperse the white mobs, allowing the Black youth to continue their protest. This didn’t go unacknowledged at all levels. In the end, because he knew he would be killed, Robert F Williams and his family fled to Canada and later to Cuba where he remained. 

   I tell this story because it’s a living example that while living under white supremacy, I believe it gives important lessons. Nothing in this country was ever gained in a nonviolent manner. The creation of this country was and continues to be violent. The only language it speaks is violence. To make sure your voice is heard, you must speak the only language it knows, violence.

The nuance comes in when you consider that this country considers any act of resistance from the oppressed populations as violence, this includes self-protection. This country will respond to acts of self-protection to its violence with violence to protect its status quo. If there is a plan to resist, then this needs to come with a plan to protect as well. It’s a fine line to tread, however, it is a necessary one.