"Mississippi in 1962 was a totally repressive state, the most repressive in the country. It was a 'closed society,' choking in its grip of white supremacy. And what helped keep white supremacy so powerfully in place was not only simple violence but also old habits of thought. Black people had been taught to believe in their own inferiority and to accept that white power determined their rights and could not be dislodged or challenged. Organizers going from door to door to encourage voter registration attempts often heard in response to their efforts, 'That's white folks business' . 'Ain't fooling around with that mess.'
"In this context, Joe McDonald's decision to use a book to assert his gun rights was a critical breakthrough. Mr. Joe could neither read nor write, noted Charles McLaurin, and had also never stood up to white authority in the way he did that day. Joe McDonald had never looked a white man in his face and demanded anything in his life,' said
McLaurin years later:
"'And now here he was, this seventy-six year old black guy who can't read and write inspired enough by these young Negroes to go down to City Hall and challenge the mayor with his book. Think about it! The mayor was known to carry a pistol ; he'd pulled a gun on any black person who challenged him. He pulled a gun on us! But Joe went down there. We gave Mr. Joe the ammunition he needed to face the [white] man. And I think the mayor gave Mr. Joe his gun back to try to keep down 'trouble '--folks in Ruleville responding to us. He probably said to himself, 'Let me give Joe his gun back 'cause I don't want no more trouble from these boys. We empowered Mr. Joe and that helped our work in the community.'...
"Yet most blacks were not organizing paramilitary units or much self-defense beyond that which protected their own homes and immediate community , which helps to explain why the mayor of Ruleville returned McDonald's shotgun to him. Dorrough obviously thought it unlikely that Joe McDonald would use his gun in any type of aggressive or retaliatory violence. Like denim overalls, shotguns and pistols were an ordinary part of everyday southern life. Indeed, Mississippi 's gun control culture proved so powerful that in 1954, when state legislator Edwin White expressed alarm that too many blacks were buying firearms and introduced a bill requiring gun registration '[to
protect] us from those likely to cause trouble,' the bill never made it out of committee.
"Like many in the generally impoverished rural South--impoverished for many whites as well as black people--Joe McDonald mainly used his gun to put food on the table. Mayor Durrough surely knew that. Guns were undeniably possessed for self-defense too, but to a lesser extent, and blacks exercised caution when it came to this, and the mayor certainly knew that as well. Moreover, Joe McDonald was seventy-six years of age and known to be a man of great dignity and probity; his having a gun posed no danger of aggressive violence to anyone in the black or white community. He was not going to climb into his pickup truck and drive through town shooting into the homes of his neighbors or lead a posse of black vigilantes into the white community. Dorrough, his racial prejudices notwithstanding, had to have known this too."
P. 121-122, 125-126, "I Wasn't Being Nonviolent," THIS NONVIOLENT STUFF'LL GET YOU KILLED: HOW GUNS MADE THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT POSSIBLE by Charles E. Cobb, Jr. (2016)

Tuesday, September 19, 2017
THIS NONVIOLENT STUFF..., EXCERPT
"Mississippi in 1962 was a totally repressive state, the most repressive in the country. It was a 'closed society,' choking in its grip of white supremacy. And what helped keep white supremacy so powerfully in place was not only simple violence but also old habits of thought. Black people had been taught to believe in their own inferiority and to accept that white power determined their rights and could not be dislodged or challenged. Organizers going from door to door to encourage voter registration attempts often heard in response to their efforts, 'That's white folks business' . 'Ain't fooling around with that mess.'
"In this context, Joe McDonald's decision to use a book to assert his gun rights was a critical breakthrough. Mr. Joe could neither read nor write, noted Charles McLaurin, and had also never stood up to white authority in the way he did that day. Joe McDonald had never looked a white man in his face and demanded anything in his life,' said
McLaurin years later:
"'And now here he was, this seventy-six year old black guy who can't read and write inspired enough by these young Negroes to go down to City Hall and challenge the mayor with his book. Think about it! The mayor was known to carry a pistol ; he'd pulled a gun on any black person who challenged him. He pulled a gun on us! But Joe went down there. We gave Mr. Joe the ammunition he needed to face the [white] man. And I think the mayor gave Mr. Joe his gun back to try to keep down 'trouble '--folks in Ruleville responding to us. He probably said to himself, 'Let me give Joe his gun back 'cause I don't want no more trouble from these boys. We empowered Mr. Joe and that helped our work in the community.'...
"Yet most blacks were not organizing paramilitary units or much self-defense beyond that which protected their own homes and immediate community , which helps to explain why the mayor of Ruleville returned McDonald's shotgun to him. Dorrough obviously thought it unlikely that Joe McDonald would use his gun in any type of aggressive or retaliatory violence. Like denim overalls, shotguns and pistols were an ordinary part of everyday southern life. Indeed, Mississippi 's gun control culture proved so powerful that in 1954, when state legislator Edwin White expressed alarm that too many blacks were buying firearms and introduced a bill requiring gun registration '[to
protect] us from those likely to cause trouble,' the bill never made it out of committee.
"Like many in the generally impoverished rural South--impoverished for many whites as well as black people--Joe McDonald mainly used his gun to put food on the table. Mayor Durrough surely knew that. Guns were undeniably possessed for self-defense too, but to a lesser extent, and blacks exercised caution when it came to this, and the mayor certainly knew that as well. Moreover, Joe McDonald was seventy-six years of age and known to be a man of great dignity and probity; his having a gun posed no danger of aggressive violence to anyone in the black or white community. He was not going to climb into his pickup truck and drive through town shooting into the homes of his neighbors or lead a posse of black vigilantes into the white community. Dorrough, his racial prejudices notwithstanding, had to have known this too."
P. 121-122, 125-126, "I Wasn't Being Nonviolent," THIS NONVIOLENT STUFF'LL GET YOU KILLED: HOW GUNS MADE THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT POSSIBLE by Charles E. Cobb, Jr. (2016)