Eye for an Eye: The Role of Armed Resistance ... - Freedom Archives

Robert Williams . Thomas had read and shared Williams' book Neg oer s With
Guns with his Deacon comrades . Thomas was responsible for organizing new
chapters and not only traveled throughout the South but traveled to Northern cities
like Chicago to recruit members and financial support for the work of the organi-
zation."
One of the most important recruiting ventures Thomas made was his trip
to Bogalusa, a town in southeast Louisiana. In Bogalusa, local police, Klan, and
other segregationist forces intensified a violent campaign of terror in 1964. In
1964 Bogalusa had a Black population of 8000 and a total population of 25,000 .
Like Jonesboro, Bogalusa was a one company town. The three local manufactur-
ing plants, a paper mill, a box factory, and a bag plant were owned by the same
San Francisco-based company Crown Zellerbach . Crown Zellerbach was the
"only industry " and "the largest employer" in the city. Though Crown Zellerbach
was a northern based company, its policies in its Bogalusa plants were formally
segregated . Crown Zellerbach had two labor unions at its Bogalusa plants, one
white and one Black. Promotion was also segregated as Black workers regardless
of seniority were frozen at low paying, unskilled positions . Whites were generally
promoted over Black workers who had more seniority . The Klan was very active
in Bogalusa . Bogalusa had "perhaps the highest percentage of active Klans men
of any city in the South ." 19
Just as in Jonesboro, in the summer of 1964, after the passage of the Civil
Rights Bill there was an acceleration of activity by the local Voters League with
assistance from CORE . Members of the Bogalusa Voters League began to test
segregated venues after the passage of the Civil Rights Bill. In response to this