Betty Owen Rape

In early May of 1959 four white men made the decision to rape a young woman named Betty Jean Owens on the way to a school event with a few of her friends (McGuire, 160). Owen was forced to a smear campaign when she faced her attackers in court, but it payed off when she won her case and her rapists were sent to jail (McGuire, 181-183). While her rapists didn't spend as long as many African-American men had when accused of raping women in years past, allowing one of the rapists to kill another women in an attempt at revenge, it was a victory that had been unprecedented in years past (McGuire, 184). Also, not only did this case work as a victory for allowing African-American rape victims to finally be able to prosecute their attackers, but it

In combination with the previous chapter, which looked at the way in which children were used and attacked during the Civil Rights movement, it made it only more clear the effect that children could have on a social movement. (Mcguire 135, 188). The evidence in this chapter points to the important power that young people, including people that are the age of myself and the others in my group, can have in a social movement; furthermore, our group found this to be a very important thing to focus on in our discussion. We decided to pose debate questions such as “Is the role of college students in the Black Freedom Struggle the same as it is now as it was in 1959?” and “Police Officer Joe D. Cooke Jr responded to Betty Jean Owens disappearance with immediate action and eventually found her. Cooke was 19 year old intern studying criminology at an all white university. Was his age a contributing factor to his response?” combined with a discussion question of, “What may have changed between Owen’s generation and the previous generation that produced a different reaction and indictment for Owen’s case?” in an attempt to get our fellow classmates to think about these issues of race in combination with the way in which they intersect with

This is when I brought attention to Robert F. Williams’s quote in which he says, “‘We cannot rely on the law,’ he said. ‘We get no justice under the present system. If we feel that injustice is done, we must write then and there on the spot be prepared to inflict punishment on these people… if it’s necessary to stop lynching with lynching,’ he argued ‘then we must be willing to resort from this method.’” (McGuire, 174) We decided to work this into a question to the class. We wanted them to give thought to whether or not it is sometimes reasonable. to fight violence with violence. Many people talk highly about Martin Luther King Jr. peaceful protests while talking down upon, or even completely ignoring, the methods of Civil Right’s leaders such as Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. It is rare for people to push themselves into a place where they may discuss the possible necessity of fighting violence with violence, or even simply employing self defense. This is something that we wanted to get people to discuss when it came to the context of this