The Deacons for Defense : Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement / Lance Hill.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hill, L. (Lance)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African American civil rights workers--History--20th century--Louisiana--Jonesboro.

African American civil rights workers.

Self-defense--Political aspects--History--20th century--Southern States.

Self-defense.

Political violence--History--20th century--Southern States.

Political violence.

African Americans--Civil rights--History--20th Century--Southern States.

African Americans.

Civil rights movements--Southern States--History--20th century.

Civil rights movements.

Southern States--Race relations.

Southern States.

Louisiana--Race relations.

Louisiana.

Mississippi--Race relations.

Mississippi.

Deacons for Defense and Justice--History.

Deacons for Defense and Justice.

Ku Klux Klan (1915- )--History--20th century.

Ku Klux Klan (1915- ).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (398 p.)

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In 1964 a small group of African American men in Jonesboro, Louisiana, defied the nonviolence policy of the mainstream civil rights movement and formed an armed self-defense organization--the Deacons for Defense and Justice--to protect movement workers from vigilante and police violence. With their largest and most famous chapter at the center of a bloody campaign in the Ku Klux Klan stronghold of Bogalusa, Louisiana, the Deacons became a popular symbol of the growing frustration with Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent strategy and a rallying point for a militant working-class movement in the South.Lance Hill offers the first detailed history of the Deacons for Defense and Justice, who grew to several hundred members and twenty-one chapters in the Deep South and led some of the most successful local campaigns in the civil rights movement. In his analysis of this important yet long-overlooked organization, Hill challenges what he calls'the myth of nonviolence--the idea that a united civil rights movement achieved its goals through nonviolent direct action led by middle-class and religious leaders. In contrast, Hill constructs a compelling historical narrative of a working-class armed self-defense movement that defied the entrenched nonviolent leadership and played a crucial role in compelling the federal government to neutralize the Klan and uphold civil rights and liberties.

Contents:

Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. Beginnings; 2. The Deacons Are Born; 3. In the New York Times; 4. Not Selma; 5. On to Bogalusa; 6. The Bogalusa Chapter; Section of Illustrations; 7. The Spring Campaign; 8. With a Single Bullet; 9. Victory; 10. Expanding in the Bayou State; 11. Mississippi Chapters; 12. Heading North; 13. Black Power—Last Days; Conclusion: The Myth of Nonviolence; Notes; Bibliography; Index;

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

ISBN:

9798890872098

9780807863602

0807863602

OCLC:

476236858