Kristian Williams - Our Enemies in Blue - Police and Power in America

power, or direct attempts to replace policing with other means of preserving order.The role of the police in breaking strikes did not escape the attention ofthe workers on the picketline.l \ In the early twentieth century, labor unionsworked strenuously to oppose the creation of the state police and to dissolvethem where they existed. These efforts led, for a time, to restrictions on theuse of state cops against strikers-but this victory has been practically forgottentoday. 16 More significant, for the purposes of this discussion, are the unions'efforts to keep order when class warfare displaced the usual authorities.The classic example is the Seattle General Strike of 1919. Coming to theaid of a shipbuilders' strike, 110 union locals declared a citywide sympathystrike and 100,000 workers participated. Almost at once the city's economyhalted, and the strike committee found itself holding more power than thelocal government. The strike faced three major challenges: starvation, staterepression, and the squeamishness of union leaders. Against the first, thestrikers themselves set about insuring that the basic needs of the populationwere met, issuing passes for trucks carrying food and other necessities, settingup public cafeterias, and licensing the operation of hospitals, garbagecollectors, and other essential services.1e Recognizing that conditions couldquickly degenerate into panic, and not wanting to rely on the police, they alsoorganized to ensure the public safety. The "Labor War Veteran's Guard" wascreated to keep the peace and discourage disorder. Its instructions were writtenon a blackboard at its headquarters:The purpose of this organization is to preserve law and order without theuse offorce. No volunteer will have any police power or be allowed to carryweapons of any sort, but to use persuasion only. ISIn the end, the Seattle General Strike was defeated, caught between thethreat of military intervention and the fading support of the AFI.:s internationalofficers. 19 While the strike did not end in victory, it did demonstrate the possibilityof working-class power-the power to shut down the city, and also the powerto run it for the benefit of the people rather than for company profit.The strike was broken, but it did not collapse into chaos. Mayor Ole Hansonnoted, while denouncing the strike as "an attempted revolution," that "therewas no violence ... there were no flashing guns, no bombs, no killings." 2o Indeed,there was not a single arrest related to the strike (though later, there wereraids) , and other arrests decreased by half. 2 1 Major General John Morrison,in charge of the federal troops, marveled at the orderliness of the city. 22Almost fifty years later, more sustained efforts at community defense grewout of the civil rights movement. As the militancy of the movement increasedand its perspective shifted toward that of Black Power, African Americans preparedto defend themselves-first against Klansmen and cops, later againstcrime in the ghetto. As early as 1957, Robert Williams armed the NAACP chapterin Monroe, North Carolina, and successfully repelled attacks from the KuKlux Klan and the police. 2 3 Soon other self-defense groups appeared in Blackcommunities throughout the South. The largest of these was the Deacons forDefense and Justice, which claimed more than fifty chapters in the Southernstates. The Deacons made it their mission to protect civil rights workers and theBlack community more generally. Armed with shotguns and rifles, they escort-227