1. Hill, Lance Edward. “The Deacons for ... - Freedom Archives

was a complex web of social and political customs, proscribed behaviors, government
policies and taws Some aspects ofracism were more endurable than others . At its most
innocuous, segregation was little more than demeating symbolism . For the most part,
blacks and whites drank the same water, ate the same foods and rode the same busses .
But some racist practices were intolerable insults to black manhood .
Compromising the sanctity of family was one ofthose transgressions. "The
things that go with racial segregation . . . you lived with that," says Cathy Patterson of
separate seating and other peculiarities of physical segregation . "They were things you
just had to accept ." But violence against family and home violated the ancient right to a
safe hearth and home . "When they saw their own children get hit or beaten," recalls
Patterson, the men "reacted very differently." Nonviolence obliged black men to stand
idly by as their children and wives were mercilessly beaten, a debasement that most black
men would not tolerate . They clung tenaciously to their fragile claims to manhood and
honor . It should have surprise no one that nonviolence ultimately discouraged black men
from participating in the civil rights movement in the South, turning it into a movement
ofwomen and children. Black men, unlike their crusading saviors, understood that there
was no equality without honor.
CORE began to slowly grasp the dilemma they had created for black men. The
compromise with armed self-defense provoked "intense philosophical discussion and
debates" within the CORE summer task force in Jonesboro . The controversy eventually
led some activists, like Mike Lesser, to leave CORE . But for most activists, the palpable
fear in Jonesboro was gradually eroding their faith in the grand intellectual theories .
There was a conflict over the issue of nonviolence, says Patterson, but "there also was
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