Despite the mythologies it fostered at the time, the very survival of the nonviolent movement would have been impossible absent the deterrent effect of a credible armed component, and such successes as it ultimately attained depended upon the backdrop of incipient guerrilla warfare and urban insurrections. Such, in variation, has been the case with all movements that have managed to improve the circumstances of their communities. To paraphrase Frederick Douglass, the capacity to deliver either words or blows is necessary, as both are invariably required. Should there be any question as to which should be deemed the more essential, the answer has all along been provided by the U.S. elites themselves. Witness the urgency with which they sought to prevent native peoples from acquiring anything resembling a parity of firepower with the settlers, criminalizing the sale of arms and munitions to Indians and doing everything in their power-including the repeated use of military force-to prevent trade between foreign powers and the indigenous nations located within territorial boundaries claimed by the U.S. That firearms were forbidden to slaves is a given, but much the same pertained to black freemen in the antebellum South, and thereafter, as much as possible, they were denied and taken from persons of African descent, including—or especially-former Union soldiers, through various contrivances under the Jim Crow system of apartheid.

Despite the mythologies it fostered at the time, the very survival of the nonviolent movement would have been impossible absent the deterrent effect of a credible armed component, and such successes as it ultimately attained depended upon the backdrop of incipient guerrilla warfare and urban insurrections. Such, in variation, has been the case with all movements that have managed to improve the circumstances of their communities. To paraphrase Frederick Douglass, the capacity to deliver either words or blows is necessary, as both are invariably required. Should there be any question as to which should be deemed the more essential, the answer has all along been provided by the U.S. elites themselves. Witness the urgency with which they sought to prevent native peoples from acquiring anything resembling a parity of firepower with the settlers, criminalizing the sale of arms and munitions to Indians and doing everything in their power-including the repeated use of military force-to prevent trade between foreign powers and the indigenous nations located within territorial boundaries claimed by the U.S. That firearms were forbidden to slaves is a given, but much the same pertained to black freemen in the antebellum South, and thereafter, as much as possible, they were denied and taken from persons of African descent, including—or especially-former Union soldiers, through various contrivances under the Jim Crow system of apartheid.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/512/776/021/945/159/original/d4cef322cd3a1841.jpeg

Notices where this attachment appears

Public

Notices where this attachment appears