Dr. King faced verbal and physical threats against his life while organizing civil rights movements in the Jim Crow South. White terrorists attacked his home. Determined to protect his wife and children, King armed himself.
One of King’s advisors, Rev. Glenn Smiley, said King had an arsenal. Journalist William Worthy once reported that when visiting King’s house in 1956, he almost sat on a loaded gun.
That same night, Rev. Smiley and Bayard Rustin argued with King late into the night about getting rid of them. If word got out that King owned weapons, it could harm the movement's image and that of its leaders.
Dr. King had already been denied a concealed carry permit in Montgomery, Alabama, after his home was firebombed. The official reason was that he was “unsuitable to carry.” King knew that the real reason was because he was a Black man seeking to defend himself against white terror.
Dr. King initially struggled to commit wholeheartedly to nonviolence because, like all of us, he wanted to protect his family. He eventually adopted nonviolence both as a tactic of organized protest and as a personal principle. He understood that we all want to feel safe, but we can’t allow hate to make us live in fear.