The Fierce Urgency of ... 1967

She was a beautiful little girl, fourteen months old. She had an exuberant smile, with plump cheeks that begged to be kissed. Her name was Maleah Williams. On Christmas Day, in an apartment complex in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Maleah and her mother were outside celebrating Christmas with almost a dozen other children and their parents.

Maleah’s mother, Tylena Williams described what happened next. “….. I saw a car drive through the parking lot, then back up a hill before stopping near a set of dumpsters… then a man inside the car started spraying bullets into the yard below… he just started shooting and I started running… I felt my body being so warm and my baby was just bleeding so much and gasping for air, and I kept telling her I love her, please don’t leave me.” 

Maleah had been shot in the head. She would die three days later.

Maleah was not alone. According to the Washington Post, twenty six other people were shot and killed on Christmas Day, 2015. They would include a barbershop owner in Alabama, a grandfather in Texas, and a young couple in Ohio. In addition to that, 63 other people were injured by gunfire. Not to mention suicides. Incredibly, more people died on Christmas Day in the United States last year than the number of people killed in gun homicides for the entire year in Austria, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, Estonia, Bermuda, Hong Kong and Iceland combined.

Today, 45 of the 50 states have “open carry laws”, which allow citizens to openly carry firearms on the streets. Imagine what would happen if a group of determined Black men were to listen to police calls on police scanners, rush to the scene of black people being arrested with law books in hand and inform the person being arrested of their constitutional rights? What if those men also happened to carry loaded weapons (in accordance with the law) which were publicly displayed but were careful to stand no closer than ten feet from the arrest so as not to interfere with the arrest?

This is exactly what happened in Oakland, California in 1967. The California legislature responded to these “Patrols” with the “Mulford Act”, which banned open carrying of loaded firearms in California. The law was supported by the governor of California, Ronald Reagan. The bill’s conservative sponsor, Don Mulford, also a republican, argued as late as 1989 that “openly carrying a gun is an act of violence or near violence”. The bill also had the support of the NRA.

On May 2, 1967, a group of thirty young Black men and women arrived at the California State Capitol in Sacramento. They were armed with shotguns, but were careful to keep them pointed towards the sky. As they neared the entrance to the building, they were noticed by the Governor, Ronald Reagan, who was speaking with a group of children. Reagan turned and ran. The group continued into the building and eventually arrived on the Assembly floor, which was debating the Mulford Act. Bedlam ensued. Many of the legislators dived under their desks screaming “don’t shoot”. Security guards responded immediately, surrounding the group and pushing them out into a hallway. Reporters were everywhere, clamoring for information. They all seemed to be asking “who are you!!!” As the group was ushered into an elevator, one of them, a 16 year-old named Bobby Hutton replied, “We’re the Black Panthers. We’re Black People with guns. What about it?”

Less than a year later, On April 6, 1968, two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Bobby Hutton would be killed in a gun battle with Oakland police. He would be shot more than 12 times after he had surrendered and been stripped down to his underwear to ensure that he was unarmed. More than 1500 people would attend his funeral. More than 2,000 would attend a rally held after the funeral. Those in attendance included Marlon Brando and James Baldwin. Bobby Hutton was 17 years old.

The Mulford Act is still the law in California. California is one of only five states that still prohibits the open carrying of guns. The law was not conceived in ideology. The law was motivated by the fear of Black people with guns threatening the police and the lawmakers themselves not with actual violence, but the mere possibility of violence. Fear demands an immediate response. The fierce urgency of now.

Today, the National Rifle Association is a fierce opponent of any and all laws that might restrict in any way the purchase or ownership of guns. The NRA owns the United States Congress. They bought it fair and square with campaign contributions. They control it with fear. They use the same methods many parents in the South used on their children, I would often hear my parents say, “I brought you into this world (congress), and I’ll take you out”. Republican politicians wear their “A+” grades from the NRA like a badge of honor. They will not be moved by that bullet in Maleah Williams head on Christmas day.

But, as quiet as it’s kept, the NRA, for most of its existence, supported gun control. In the 1920’s the NRA proposed legislation requiring permits for concealed weapons, adding five years to prison sentences for crimes committed with guns, banning non-citizens from buying hand guns, requiring gun dealers to turn over sales records to police, and creating a one day waiting period to purchase a gun. The NRA helped Franklin Roosevelt draft the first federal gun controls; 1934’s National Firearms Act and 1938’s Gun Control Act. These laws imposed high taxes and registration requirements on machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and silencers, making it all but impossible for average people to own them. Gun makers and sellers had to register with the federal government and convicted felons were barred from gun ownership. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld these laws in 1939. The Gun Control Act of 1968 came in the aftermath of the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, the Black Panther’s visit to the California Legislature in 1967, and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassinations in 1968. The law added a minimum age for gun buyers, required guns have serial numbers, and excluded the mentally ill and drug addicts from owning guns. Only federally licensed dealers and collectors could ship guns over state lines. People buying certain kinds of ammunition had to show ID. The NRA supported all of these measures.

Today, on this national holiday on which we dedicate our thoughts to the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it seems as if we live in what seems to be an alternative universe. During the great March on Washington in 1963, in his iconic speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial Dr. King spoke of the “Fierce Urgency of Now”. That “Urgency” of 1967, to make the nation’s people safe by addressing the violence of guns cannot be found. As I celebrate, commiserate, contemplate, where we go from here on this very special day, I think of the victims, not just the high profile mass killings that make the national news and set the twitter world afire, but the Maleah’s and their parents, the daily carnage that makes our nation the most violent in the history of the world. None of us are safe. We must find the courage to fix this.

As Dr. King said on that historic day in Washington, “Now is the time…..”

Now is the Time.