I called one of the leaders of the community, and he suggested that we go downtown to see the Mayor, who ran the local hardware store. And while we were there, he called the head of Sunnyland Packing Company and Flowers Bakery. They were the two largest employers in the town. They decided with us that they would not let the Klan come into the black community and intimidate us and interfere with our voter registration drive. But they would respect the Klan’s right to have a meeting on the courthouse steps. So that was my first test of nonviolence. What it taught me was that the best way to avoid violence is to head it off. Not wait for a confrontation where violence is almost inevitable, but that you’ve got to be more aggressive in pursuing what Gandhi called “organized, aggressive, disciplined goodwill.”