The Ballot and the Bullet

Abstract

The June 1966 March Against Fear from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi represented a significant shift in the character and balance of forces in the southern civil rights During a late night meeting in a Memphis church, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) chairman Stokely Carmichael argued that White participation in the march be de-emphasized. Carmichael also proposed that armed security be provided by the Deacons for Defense and Justice, a Louisiana-based paramilitary organization. Floyd McKissick, the chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), supported Carmichael's positions. Martin Luther King, Jr., the chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, continued to argue for the practice of nonviolence and a multiracial emphasis in civil rights marches. Finally, though expressing reservations, King conceded to Carmichael's proposals to maintain unity in the march and the The involvement and association of the Deacons with the march signified a shift in the civil rights movement, which had been popularly projected as a movement. Beginning with the sit-in movement of 1960 and the Freedom Rides of 1961, CORE and SNCC were two of the principal organizations committed to eliminating segregation in the South through nonviolent passive resistance. By 1966, both organizations had endorsed armed self-defense as a legitimate and viable tactic in the struggle to achieve civil and human rights (Hampton & Fayer, 1990; Sellers, 1990). Many CORE and SNCC