We Will Shoot Back Quotes

“During the summer of 1964, in the face of intensified racial terror and limited federal protection, local community residents organized themselves to protect their communities and hundreds of volunteers who came to support voter and human rights efforts in the state. Armed resistance by local people was a common feature and practice during Freedom Summer.”
― Akinyele Omowale Umoja, We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement

“After midnight, state and city police fired hundreds of rounds into Alexander Hall, a female dormitory, from which officers claimed snipers had fired. Alexander Hall and other student residences were riddled with bullet holes, looking more like a war zone than a college campus. A 21-year-old Jackson State student, Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, and seventeen-year-old high school student, James Earl Green, lay dead from the assault of police officers on campus.”
― Akinyele Omowale Umoja, We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement

“In addition to the economic reprisals, terrorist violence was directed at the Hazelwood household. Crosses were burned on the lawn of the Hazelwood residence. Nightriders drove by the Hazelwood domicile and fired into the home. Regular raids on the Hazelwood home had become so common that the family became accustomed to sleeping on the floor with their son under the bed to better avoid gunfire from nightriders. The Hazelwood family had become so accustomed to responding to gunfire that Luella Hazelwood joked that her eight-year-old son once said, “Didn’t President [John] Kennedy know you are supposed to duck when someone is shooting?”
― Akinyele Omowale Umoja, We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement

“McComb became popularly known as the “bombing capital of the world” in 1964.89 There were twelve bombings of homes, churches, and businesses in the Black community of McComb between June 22nd and August 12th. The perpetrators of the rash of bombing were the local Klavern of the United Klans of America.”
― Akinyele Omowale Umoja, We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement

“McComb became popularly known as the “bombing capital of the world” in 1964.89 There were twelve bombings of homes, churches, and businesses in the Black community of McComb between June 22nd and August 12th.”
― Akinyele Omowale Umoja, We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement