From the Monroe Non-Violent Action Committee
Author: Monroe Non-Violent Action Committee
Date: August 21, 1961
Location: Monroe, N.C.
Genre: Letter
Topic: Freedom Rides
Nonviolence
Details
Following the arrest of SCLC representative Paul Brooks and the beating of a photographer, the Monroe Non-Violent Action Committee (MNAC) petitions King to aid their anti-discrimination campaign.1 SCLC sent Wyatt Tee Walker to Monroe on 29 August.2
rev martin luther king jr
auburn st atla
we the monroe non violent action committee plead for you to come to monroe to study the situation stop we are a newly composed group of freedom riders and monroe citizens stop your representative paul brooks has been arrested and one of our fellows has been beaten for taking pictures of the 30 minute picket of the jail in which paul was imprisoned stop this shows once more the dangerous situation exceeding herewhich mr brooks has previously expressed to you in his report stop bayard rustin has advised us to contact you and mr williams, the person we recognize as the community leader, has authorized this correspondence stop mr williams is committed to non violence on picket lines but has arms for defense of his home and his friends3 this crisis requires the attentions of persons experienced in the practice and theory of non violence if the correct paths to the just end we seek are to be taken stop thank you for your attention stop
the monroe non violent action committee.
1. On 19 August freedom riders and local activists from Monroe organized the MNAC with Richard J. Crowder as chairman (MNAC, “Minutes,” Founding meeting of the Monroe Non-Violent Action Committee, 19 August 1961; MNAC, “List of motions passed to date,” 22 August 1961). That same day, Brooks was arrested for running a stop sign, and after spending the night in jail, he was released on twenty dollars bond. Photographer and New York native Richard Griswold was choked and thrown to the ground by three white men as he took pictures of the demonstration outside the jail where Brooks was being held (“Traffic Violator Didn’t Want Bond,” Monroe Journal, 22 August 1961).
2. Two days before Walker arrived in Monroe, a white mob gathered near picketers and began rioting when an interracial group entered a taxi together. The violence made national headlines as shots were fired on both sides. Fearing a full-fledged assault by armed segregationists, residents in black neighborhoods prepared to defend their homes. G. Bruce and Mabel Stegall, a white couple from Marshville, North Carolina, drove into the neighborhood of local NAACP leader Robert F. Williams where local blacks ordered them from their vehicle. Williams came out of his home and assured the couple they would not be harmed, and that they were free to leave at any time. Williams, however, declined to provide the couple with an escort out of the neighborhood. The Stegalls left but before returning to Marshville, they filed a report with the Monroe police. The following day, Williams was charged with two counts of kidnapping (“Raid, Kidnap Charge Follow Race Rioting,” Washington Post, 29 August 1961; Williams, Negroes with Guns [New York: Marzani and Munsell, 1962], pp. 84–88). At SCLC’s annual meeting in September, Walker said that albeit difficult, SCLC assuaged the tensions between whites and blacks in Monroe. He also opined that the “dreadful experience” was a result of “unfortunate leadership” (Walker, “Report of the director,” 28 September 1961; see also Walker, “The Deep South in Social Revolution,” 10 November 1961).
3. Brooks claimed that Williams, despite publicly advocating self defense, was “misunderstood” by those unfamiliar with the situation in Monroe. Brooks recalled an incident where Williams, who was threatened by whites shouting offensive language, urged his guards not to shoot unless absolutely necessary (Walker to King, Burke Marshall, and James M. Lawson, 9 August 1961).
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954–1968, Boston University, Boston, Mass.