#14,035 in History books
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Reddit mentions of The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement

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Reddit mentions: 4

We found 4 Reddit mentions of The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement. Here are the top ones.

The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement
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University of North Carolina Press
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Height9.06 Inches
Length6.14 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateFebruary 2006
Weight1.31 Pounds
Width0.91 Inches

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Found 4 comments on The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement:

u/greenclayrooster · 3 pointsr/TrueReddit

If anyone wants to read more about similar armed resistance patrols throughout history there is a great book called "Deacons of Defense" about a similar movement during the 1960s in Louisiana and East Texas. Amazon Link Here

u/falafel1066 · 2 pointsr/AskHistorians

First, what do you mean by "violent protest"? Are you talking about organized armed self-defense? Or are you talking about non-organized violent insurrection, like riots? There is also violent individual protest, which is harder to characterize, as it was often spur-of-the-moment, reactionary response.

Assuming the first, organized armed self-defense has always been present in African American history. During the mainstream Civil Rights era (roughly 1954-1967), groups like the Deacons for Defense and Justice, organized at local, grassroots levels and then expanded to a national organization that had thousands of members. The Deacons advocated armed patrol and defense against abusive law enforcement and racist groups like the KKK. Lance Hill argued in his book The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement, that the Deacons grew from local patrols to a national organization that could rival the non-violence method of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr.

Though non-violence was the dominant ideology behind the mainstream civil rights movement, there were certain local groups that advocated a stronger resistance. For example, Robert Williams was the leader of the Monroe, North Carolina NAACP chapter, where he began to see how non-violence was failing his local community. He and his cohorts mirrored the violence they saw from groups like the KKK, which included use of machine guns, molotov cocktails, and dynamite, in order to stand up for themselves. For national NAACP leaders, this was exactly the opposite of their mission. The NAACP prided itself on a moderate approach to civil rights- victories through legal battles like Brown v. Board. Armed resistance was too radical for their likes, and Williams resigned from the NAACP. He went on to write Negroes With Guns, which greatly influenced co-founder of the Black Panther Party, Huey Newton. For more, see Timothy Tyson's Radio-Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power.

If you are interested in violent insurrection, the most famous of the civil rights era was the Watts Riots in 1965, wherein over 30 people were killed. It started with a routine traffic stop of a young African American male by a white police officer. The situation escalated quickly, a crowd was draw, someone pulled out a gun, rocks were thrown, and soon it erupted into a city-wide 6 day riot. Advocates of non-violence, like MLK, preached tolerance and peaceful resolution to racial tensions in Watts and around the country. People like Huey Newton and Bobby Seale saw Watts as an indicator that non-violence was not working for African Americans, and two years later organized the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.

Now, your question, "to what extend was violent protest the most important factor," is problematic, because there was never a "most important factor" in the civil rights movement. It was a complex interplay of politics, individuals, communities, ideology, and so on. The violent reactions I outlined above were certainly influential, but were not defining features of the civil rights movement. Certainly, today we remember the movement for its non-violence. However you are correct in acknowledging that violent protest DID play a role, and much bigger than we usually remember, especially on the local grassroots level, which the books mentioned above detail.

u/notacrackheadofficer · 2 pointsr/occupywallstreet

HOW did the CIVIL RIGHTS movement really HAPPEN .
MLK was great and he sure didn't do it by himself. There were plenty of civil rights leaders and methods and philosophies, and I don't blame you for not knowing. Who researches the truth of the 50s and 60s?
If they let them on TV and in school books, that does not necessarily make them the most important.

u/zenlite · 1 pointr/Anarchism

Protest itself is problematic, for all kinds of reasons that any text on direct action vs. protest ought to be able to address.

As to violence vs. nonviolence, this is the text you ought to read and meditate upon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Deacons-Defense-Resistance-Movement/dp/0807857025