Real Victims of Violence
One sweltery summer night in 1954, the
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church Parsonage
was victimized by a racist bomb. Shortly
after the incident, a crowd of angry black
people gathered to view the destruction;
the product of over a century of prejudice
and hate, Alabama style. Some of the
bystanders carried guns and talked in
hushed voices o£ the need for retaliation
against their oppressors. Suddenly into
their midst strode the intended target of
the bombers hate, the head of the
Montgomery Bus Boycott, a young black
minister by the name of Martin Luther
King. The young minister, who was
destined to become the prophet and martyr
for oppressed people the world over, spoke
calmly to the crowd urging them to return
to their homes and put down their guns.
Unblighted by the violence, King preached
to the crowd on the need to love their
white brothers and use non-violence in
their struggle against oppression. The
crowd listened and obeyed their young
prophet. Within a year, the Montgomery
buses were desegregated; and the cause of
non violence had scored its first major
victory.
In the next several years the nonviolent
method was used successfully in scores of
cities from Greensboro to Birmingham.
However as the movement progressed,
so-called militant leaders began to express
doubts about its feasibility in eliminating
discrimination on a continued basis.
Evidently the participants in the struggle
for equality were experiencing a tragic
change of heart.
After the spontaneous combustion in
Detroit, Newark, and Watts, many activists
in the civil rights movement began to
earnestly defend the activities of the small
segment of black communities which
engaged in the violent destruction. Often
such defense came from the lips of white
suburbanites whose neighborhoods were
unscared by violence.
Certainly there are causes for riots which
must be eliminated before any lasting
solution to the problem can be attained.
However, to excuse the arson, looting, and
murder which accompany such disorders
would seem unacceptable to the person
really concerned about the black man's
degrading mistreatment in America.
Riots only compound the mistreatment
of an oppressed people. The victims of
Watts, Newark, and Detroit were not the
white racists who have created slums and
perpetuated the degrading process of
discrimination but rather the oppressed
black men and women. In their zeal to
burn white businesses, which were often at
least partially covered with insurance,
many arsonists burned down the slum
homes of black people including their
meager possessions. Almost all of the
deaths and injuires sustained in riots are
borne by black people.
In the last year more and more black
people are at last coming to a realization of
this established reality. Although militantly
aggressive in their struggle for equality,
they are intolerant of extremists burning
down their neighborhoods and killing their
families. Such an attitude is long overdue.
