Black Power leader H. Rapp Brown, national chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, sought today to compare the situation of Negroes with that of Jews in Nazi Germany and belittled the lack of resistance by the Jews.
Brown told a press conference at SNCC headquarters that “if you (whites) intend to play Nazis” in suppressing Negro violence, “black people ain’t going to play Jews.”
The SNCC leader is free on bond awaiting charges of inciting riots and arson. He will be tried by Maryland authorities for causing a riot and destruction in the town of Cambridge. Brown said “violence is necessary” and that “if America don’t come around, we’ll burn it down.”
Explaining why Negroes would behave differently than European Jews, Brown said “violence is part of America’s culture and is as American as apple pie.”
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