Mabel Williams Speaks! "I have as much right to have a place in the world as any other human being"
Channel: Matthew Siegfried
Date: 2015-06-04

Mabel Williams Speaks! "I have as much right to have a place in the world as any other human being"

Oral History Interview: Part One August 20, 1999.

Mabel Williams paints a vivid picture of segregated Monroe, North Carolina, detailing the subjugation that ate away at African Americans' sense of self. Among those who resisted was Williams's husband, Robert, the descendant of a long line of assertive African Americans, who slept with a pearl-handled revolver under his pillow. Williams remembers Robert for much of this interview, describing how his militant, assertive conviction in racial equality clashed with the rigid segregationist mentality in Monroe. Unable to assimilate in the way that many African Americans did, Robert earned the ire of white city fathers, who prevented him from finding employment in a quest to injure him and his family and undermine his masculinity. The local newspaper stopped printing his letters, one of his only safety valves for expressing the frustrations that gave him migraine headaches. But these efforts at stifling Robert's activism failed; he only grew more determined to resist white supremacy, arming himself and training fellow African Americans in armed self-defense. Guns became an important part of the Williamses' lives, whether on Robert's hip or on the seat of the car next to Mabel. Thus protected, Robert organized demonstrations to desegregate an all-white swimming pool, and even ran for mayor. Williams eventually left not only Monroe, but the United States altogether. This interview is a detailed account of the life and work of one civil rights activist who believed in violent resistance in a time of nonviolent protest.
Includes: 
Segregation instills a subservient mind-set
African Americans struggle to cultivate pride amid a barrage of casual racism
Unhealthy conditions in black area of a segregated hospital
Racial discrimination in a wealthy home
Robert Williams's desire "to stand up for the right thing"
Robert Williams's bold legacy
Robert Williams's family history of empowerment
Materialism hurts the United States
Robert Williams's activism troubles some of his black peers
Letters to newspapers are a safety valve for the pressure of segregation
NAACP members face retaliation
Support from some churchmen for a black activist, but most whites seek to harm him
Founding The Crusader
African-American activists defend their home against violent attacks
Robert Williams's assertiveness unites the black community in Monroe
African Americans in Monroe facilitate Robert Williams's militant resistance
Demonstrations to desegregation a swimming pool
Robert Williams displays guns to intimidate white segregationists
Three attempts on Robert Williams's life
MABEL WILLIAMS, interviewee
DAVID CECELSKI, interviewer http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/K-0266/menu.html