smash-pacifism-zine

pp. 47-48)
In 1964, Williams helped establish the Deacons for
Defense in Louisiana, a Black self-defence force with the
purpose of protecting Black civil rights workers. The
Deacons eventually had some 50 chapters across the
Southern states. Williams also formed the Revolutionary
Action Movement (RAM), an armed group advocating
guerrilla warfare. He was later charged with kidnapping as
a result of activities in Monroe, and fled to Cuba and then
China. He also wrote Negroes with Guns in
1962, which had some influence over the
emerging debates on self-defence at the
time.
Another Black revolutionary
organization Williams was involved in was
the Republic of New Afrika (RNA), which
sought the takeover of five southern states
(Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia,
and South Carolina). Williams resigned
from the RNA when he returned to the US
to fight the kidnapping charge.
By 1963, amidst ongoing white
racist violence against Blacks and civil
rights workers, as well as the rupture of the
Birmingham riots, the concept of armed
self-defence became more widely
promoted. Many 'nonviolent' organizers in
the South armed themselves, adopting a
measure already widely practised among
Blacks in the region:
“The advisability of self-defense—
which in the Deep South meant, in effect, carrying guns—
had long divided SNCC. Their experiences in Mississippi
persuaded many staff members of the futility of attempting
to dissuade local blacks from defending themselves against
white aggression. SNCC had accepted the fact that many
ordinary blacks possessed weapons and were prepared—
quite rightly, in the view of some SNCC field workers—to
use them in self-defense.
“During a debate on nonviolence in June 1964, the
executive committee agreed to stand by any SNCC worker
'caught in the home of another person who is armed.' But it
stopped short of approving the carrying of arms by SNCC
workers themselves. By 1965, however, many staff
members did possess guns.”
(To Redeem the Soul of America, p. 313)
“While the primarily northern urban riots were
challenging the non-violent dominance of the black
movement, the issue of self-defense was doing the same in
the South. Violent attacks on civil rights workers may have
bolstered the legitimacy of the cause, but this was little
comfort to those whose lives were on the line. Although
they did not make a public issue of it, almost every SNCC
worker in the field was carrying a firearm by the time of the
Malcolm X with M1 carbine;
an advocate of armed defence.
Mississippi Summer Project [1964].”
(Black Radicals and the Civil Rights Mainstream,
pp. 53-54)
Similarly, CORE workers had also begun to arm
themselves:
“In 1965 a CORE worker in Ferriday, Louisiana,
stated that self-defense in protection of one's home and
person was 'taken for granted' and that most of the
organization's headquarters in dangerous areas of Louisiana
and Mississippi had weapons on the
premises to protect against night attacks...
Although the members were not of one
mind on the subject, CORE was not strictly
committed to nonviolence after 1965... and
came very close to rescinding its official
policy on nonviolence at the national
convention that year.”
(Black Radicals and the Civil Rights
Mainstream, p. 54)
Indeed, against the growing
movement, white racists carried out a
campaign of terror under the banner of the
Ku Klux Klan or White Citizens Councils,
including assaults, mob violence,
bombings, and murders:
“1965 saw an alarming rise in the
number of civil rights-related murders:
twenty people were killed that year,
compared to fourteen in 1964 and thirteen
in 1963. Eleven of the 1965 murders took
place in Alabama and Mississippi, and no convictions had
been obtained in any of these cases.”
(To Redeem the Soul of America, p. 266)
Faced with this widespread rejection of pacifism
and the reality of racist violence in the South, King himself
had to concede that violent means were at times necessary.
In a 1966 article he wrote entitled “Nonviolence: The Only
Road to Freedom,” which he used to counter the popularity
of the slogan Black Power and militant resistance, he
conceded that:
“There are many people who very honestly raise
the question of self-defense. This must be placed in
perspective. It goes without saying that people will protect
their homes. This is a right guaranteed by the Constitution
and respected even in the worst areas of the South.”
(I Have A Dream, pp. 128-129)
In an earlier article against Robert Williams' use of
violence, King wrote “The Social Organization of
Nonviolence,” in 1959. King identified three types of
resistance: nonviolent, violent aggression, and violent selfdefence.
Even at this time, he had to concede the necessity
for defensive violence:
64