James Bevel, an SCLC minister who wears overalls and an embroidered skull cap, pushed his way through the crowd shouting pleas for nonviolence. Forman, Willie Ricks, and Ben Ware, all of SNCC, stood on orange crates in the middle of the streets and yelled for silence. Meanwhile Negro teenagers on the sidewalks gathered bricks and bottles and screamed along with many white Northern students, "Get the cops. Don't let 'em get away with it this time."
One motorcycle man suddenly gunned his engine and drove through the crowd. A white boy was caught under a plastic saddlebag and dragged several feet before the officer stopped. Immediately hands reached out and grabbed the policeman, pulling his heavy bulk towards the angry people. But the boy who had been run over jumped up and pushed the crowd back from the policeman.
Forman talked with Lackey and then Lackey gave orders to his men. The motorcycle engines went dead. And there was silence. Bevel spoke first:
"... If you want to use violence, okay. Go to the rifle range and practice and then wipe out these cops in an even battle ... But if you're gonna be nonviolent and lie in the street you gotta accept the consequences. You can't lie in the street and then cry the blues when you get run over. [Boos greated this] ...
Ricks spoke also, and soon everyone was speaking, telling the watching policemen what the Negro community thought of white cops. As the speeches went on, Lackey withdrew his men to the ends of the streets, and soon the threat of violence action was swept away in the violence of words. Ambulances were still riding in and out of the area, carrying injured to the hospital. At least ten people received hospital treatment.
Night fell, and rumors spread. King was in town and the people clung to that. "I sure hope King has something good to say about all this." Some local Negroes displayed revolvers, threatening. "There are 40 of us armed like this, and we've each picked out the cop we're gonna With evening, many of the people was home to supper. At 9 p.m. over