Compare And Contrast Martin Luther King Jr Vs Williams

“I advocated violent self-defense because I don’t really think you can have a defense against violent racists and against terrorists unless you are prepared to meet violence with violence, and my policy was to meet violence with violence” (Negros with Guns). These are the words that Robert Williams often advocated. This is the main thing that differentiated Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert Williams. Robert Williams felt that violence was the only answer, where Martin Luther felt that there were other ways other than violence. That’s a main reason why King was more popular than Williams. Everyone loves the more peaceful route when dealing with issues. “Rural southerners, black and white, grew up in a world were differences were often settled …show more content…
One major difference was that white people had more opportunities than the black people. White people had the opportunity to leave urban cities in order to go live in suburbs. They had the money and resources that black people unfortunately didn’t have. Black people had to continue to live in the urban areas even when white people would take all the economic resources with them to the suburbs. This left the black community to continue to live in slums because they didn’t have the ability to create a better living environment. They received a lot of discrimination based on housing. Whites that were still in the communities would demand that blacks to not be allowed to live in their communities. This was a huge disadvantage that the black community had in regard to the white community. Another main aspect that differentiated the blacks and whites was the idea of weapons. The white community were able to be armed and attack blacks. However, it was very discouraged when blacks would carry weapons. An Indian tribe group known as the Lumbees also faced discrimination. This was a group that weren’t white, but also weren’t black, so they were basically known “as the rest”. “In a society that had denied manly prerogatives to black men for centuries, the Lumbees sought to become not just men but white men, in a symbolic sense. More to the point, they had to become not black” (Tyson 140). …show more content…
They were convicted guilty of kissing a white girl so they had to be punished. This was a false sentence because the white girls sat on their laps and kissed them. At age 8 and 11 this was a silly game that they would play. However, the young boys, Simpson and Thompson, were sent to prison. In prison the young boys were beaten, Thompson states, “they threw us down and then started beating us. Body punches, hitting us hard in the chest and calling us all kinds of names” (Tyson 95). Having young boys convicted of a racial crime is intolerable, but the fact that they were put into more harm in prison which is much undeserved. African Americans were not given fair trials and Williams just tried to have everyone be fairly treated. Their families were also mistreated because of this. The boy’s mothers were afraid of getting lynched and both mothers even lost their jobs. Williams upheld protests for the boys stating that they were being treated unfairly. They were eventually released to their mothers. They were given apologies for the harm done to them, but at that point the damage was done. The lives of African Americans at this time was very tough. A quote by Thompson reads, “being a black kid growing up in that era, if the little white kids did something, you think it`s right. That`s what we were taught” (Tyson 93). This statement proves that black children during this time had to pretty