From The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, an interview with Angela Davis from that era (covered by Democracy Now in an interview with Danny Glover):
ANGELA DAVIS: You ask me, you know, whether I approve of violence — I mean, that just doesn’t make any sense at all — whether I approve of guns. I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. Some very, very good friends of mine were killed by bombs, bombs that were planted by racists. I remember — from the time I was very small, I remember the sounds of bombs exploding across the street, our house shaking. I remember my father having to have guns at his disposal at all times because of the fact that, at any moment, someone — we might expect to be attacked. The man who was at that time in complete control of the city government — his name was Bull Connor — would often get on the radio and make statements like “Niggers have moved into a white neighborhood; we better expect some bloodshed tonight.” And sure enough, there would be bloodshed.
After the four young girls who were — who lived very — one of them lived next door to me. I was very good friends with the sister of another one. My sister was very good friends with all three of them. My mother taught one of them in her class. My mother — in fact, when the bombing occurred, one of the mothers of one of the young girls called my mother and said, “Can you take me down to the church to pick up Carole? You know, we heard about the bombing, and I don’t have my car.” And they went down, and what did they find? They found limbs and heads strewn all over the place. And then, after that, in my neighborhood, all the men organized themselves into an armed patrol. They had to take their guns and patrol our community every night, because they did not want that to happen again. I mean, that’s why when someone asks me about violence, I just — I just find it incredible, because what it means is that the person who’s asking that question has absolutely no idea what black people have gone through, what black people have experienced in this country, since the time the first black person was kidnapped from the shores of Africa.
