We
had nothing to offer that they could see, except to go out and be
beaten again. We helped to build their frustration."
As early as 1957, Robert F. Williams, then the N.A.A.C.P. leader in
Monroe, North Carolina, concluded that nonviolence could not be looked
upon as a cure-all for all the problems of the Afro-American
community. In his opinion the right for an Afro-American to sit in the
front of the bus in Montgomery was not so spectacular a victory:
"The Montgomery bus boycott was a victory--but it was limited. It did
not raise the Negro standard of living; it did not mean better
education for Negro children, it did not mean economic advances."
Williams compared the Montgomery boycott to an incident in Monroe:
"It's just like our own experience in Monroe when we integrated the
library. I just called the chairman of the board in my county. I told
him that I represented the NAACP, that we wanted to integrate the
library, and that our own library had burned down. And he said, 'Well,
I don't see any reason why you can't use the same library that our
people use.
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