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appal_jack

(3,813 posts)
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 07:13 PM Dec 2014

"Why Civil Rights and Gun Rights Are Inseparable"

I have not yet read the full book, Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms, by Nicholas Johnson, but the following review (from Reason Magazine) and excerpt of the book's introduction (at the author's own blog) have whetted my appetite.

First the review:

http://reason.com/archives/2014/05/10/why-civil-rights-and-gun-rights-are-inse

[blockquoteYet as Fordham law professor Nicholas Johnson explains in his riveting new book Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms, Martin Luther King, just like virtually every other civil rights activist at the time (and earlier), readily distinguished between what King called "violence as a tool of advancement," and "violence exercised merely in self-defense." The former, King argued, had no place in the freedom movement. But the latter, he added, was of course perfectly legitimate.

"The principle of self-defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi," King argued in his debate with Williams. "When the Negro uses force in self-defense, he does not forfeit support—he may even win it, by the courage and self-respect he shows."

King had no quarrel with black Americans keeping and bearing arms strictly in self-defense. In fact, King himself once applied for a permit to keep a concealed gun in his car in response to the many death threats he had received, though bigoted local officials denied him the permit on the arbitrary (and preposterous) ground that King lacked "good cause" to keep a gun at the ready.

Nor was King alone in that regard. As Negroes and the Gun makes clear, a vast number of nonviolent civil rights activists either carried arms themselves or were surrounded by others who did, including Rosa Parks, who described her dinner table "covered with guns" at a typical strategy session in her home, and Daisy Bates, "the first lady of Little Rock," who played a pivotal role in the famous battle to integrate her city's Central High School. Thurgood Marshall, who stayed with Bates in 1957 while litigating the Central High case, called her residence "an armed camp." Bates herself packed a .45 automatic pistol.


and the author's blog:

http://law.fordham.edu/30743.htm

[blockquoteGun! Just the word raises the temperature. Add Negroes and the mixture is incendiary, evoking images of hopeless young gangsters terrorizing blighted neighborhoods.
This book tells a dramatically different story. It chronicles a tradition of church folk, merchants and strivers, the very best people in the community, armed and committed to the principle of individual self-defense. This black tradition of arms takes root early and ranges fully into the modern era. It is demonstrated in Fredrick Douglass’ advice of a good revolver as the best response to slave catchers. It is evident in mature form in 1963, when Hartman Turnbow of Mississippi fought off a Klan attack with rifle fire. Turnbow considered this fully consistent with the principles of the freedom movement, explaining, “I wasn’t being non-nonviolent, I was just protectin’ my family”.

The black tradition of arms has been submerged because it seems hard to reconcile with the dominant narrative of nonviolence in modern civil rights movement. But that superficial tension is resolved by the longstanding distinction that was vividly evoked by movement stalwart Fannie Lou Hamer. Hamer’s advice about segregationists who dominated Mississippi politics was, “Baby you just got to love ‘em. Hating just makes you sick and weak.” But asked how she survived the threats from midnight terrorists Hamer responded, “I’ll tell you why. I keep a shotgun in every corner of my bedroom and the first cracker even look like he wants to throw some dynamite on my porch won’t write his mama again.”
Like Hartman Turnbow, Fannie Lou Hamer embraced private self- defense and political nonviolence without any sense of contradiction. In this she channeled a more than century old practice and philosophy that evolved through every generation, sharpened by icons like Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. Dubois, pressed by the burgeoning NAACP, and crystallized by Martin Luther King who articulated it this way:

Violence exercised merely in self-defense, all societies, from the most primitive to the most cultured and civilized, accept as moral and legal. The principle of self-defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi. … When the Negro uses force in self-defense, he does not forfeit support he may even win it, by the courage and self-respect it reflects.
…But violence as a tool of advancement, involving organization as in warfare… poses incalculable perils.


I found the King quote to be sufficiently powerful to be worth re-quoting twice...

-app
64 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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"Why Civil Rights and Gun Rights Are Inseparable" (Original Post) appal_jack Dec 2014 OP
So what do you think would happen if ten upaloopa Dec 2014 #1
What do you think should happen... beevul Dec 2014 #9
Black men in target with AR 15s would be the target. Sweeney Dec 2014 #27
Why is it you ask a question instead of answering me? upaloopa Dec 2014 #35
Because it wasn't addressed to me. beevul Dec 2014 #49
I did I thought upaloopa Dec 2014 #50
What should happen? I think what should happen upaloopa Dec 2014 #51
Youre so cute when you answer a question I didn't ask. beevul Dec 2014 #55
I think they should pack it up and leave. That is what should happen. upaloopa Dec 2014 #57
Already has happened. Open Carry protest of John Crawford's death at Wal-Mart. kioa Dec 2014 #36
Excellent link & photo, kioa. Thanks for tackling this particular rhetorical question. appal_jack Dec 2014 #37
What would happen is a lot of people would be scared upaloopa Dec 2014 #38
Lets assume that your speculation is correct. kioa Dec 2014 #39
I don't support infringing on anyone's rights. upaloopa Dec 2014 #40
That's already the law. kioa Dec 2014 #41
Huh? GGJohn Dec 2014 #43
Any state that is an open carry shedevil69taz Dec 2014 #44
Ok I didn't know that upaloopa Dec 2014 #45
We never know anything Duckhunter935 Dec 2014 #53
It is already law Duckhunter935 Dec 2014 #52
I have been guilty of that but I will try not too upaloopa Dec 2014 #56
Why, thank you Duckhunter935 Dec 2014 #58
And to you too upaloopa Dec 2014 #59
Reason Magazine is a right-wing rag funded by the Koch Brothers Bjorn Against Dec 2014 #2
You might want to e-mail the Black author to inform him of your disapproval of his title. pablo_marmol Dec 2014 #5
Maybe I should e-mail Clarence Thomas while I am at it Bjorn Against Dec 2014 #6
The black author of this book also happens to be a Fordham Law Professor. appal_jack Dec 2014 #8
I never attacked the professor's character Bjorn Against Dec 2014 #10
The fact will remain that the peaceful Civil Rights Movement was supported with firepower. pablo_marmol Dec 2014 #20
No, you were whitesplaining until you were informed that the author is African-American friendly_iconoclast Dec 2014 #21
I have never proclaimed anyone represents the black community Bjorn Against Dec 2014 #28
I will assume you are actually ignorant of the historical record, and not simply in denial friendly_iconoclast Dec 2014 #29
"Remembering Robert Hicks and the Deacons of Defense" friendly_iconoclast Dec 2014 #33
Here's some more whitesplaining from your side of the issue friendly_iconoclast Dec 2014 #31
Yes! That *was in fact* an epic takedown! What happened to Bjorn?! NT pablo_marmol Jan 2015 #62
Bjorn is busy calling other DUers "murder advocates": friendly_iconoclast Jan 2015 #63
There's that DU double standard rearing it's "lovely" head again. NT pablo_marmol Jan 2015 #64
"......just because a person is Black that does not make them representative pablo_marmol Dec 2014 #19
His charge of funding by the anti-progressive Koch Brothers still stands. Fred Sanders Dec 2014 #23
Those who think funding from Michael Bloomberg is acceptable... friendly_iconoclast Dec 2014 #25
So what. Did the Koch brothers fund the book in question? pablo_marmol Dec 2014 #30
An friend of the Koch's is no friend of mine that I would care to listen to and be polluted by. Fred Sanders Dec 2014 #34
Ah, so you're the spokesperson DU chose? DonP Dec 2014 #42
Let the record show that Mr. Sanders ran from the question: pablo_marmol Jan 2015 #61
Here are some words from King the Koch Brothers are unlikely to share... Bjorn Against Dec 2014 #3
King's support of individual self-defense continued. appal_jack Dec 2014 #11
Did you even bother to read your own link? Bjorn Against Dec 2014 #13
"Taking up arms" is quite different from individual self defense. appal_jack Dec 2014 #14
Self defense is not just about guns Bjorn Against Dec 2014 #15
King gave up his own prerogative to own & employ personal firearms as a strategic CHOICE. appal_jack Dec 2014 #16
I don't see any quotes of him urging people to take up arms ownership either Bjorn Against Dec 2014 #17
Apparently, quoting him twice in the OP was not sufficient for you? appal_jack Dec 2014 #18
Nowhere in that quote is the word "gun" used Bjorn Against Dec 2014 #22
Well, I doubt he was speaking of spears... appal_jack Dec 2014 #26
"Nowhere in that quote is the word "gun" used. pablo_marmol Dec 2014 #32
Speaking of 'disingenuous'.... kioa Dec 2014 #46
I'm not required to defend a statement I didn't make. pablo_marmol Dec 2014 #47
Replied to the wrong statement. kioa Dec 2014 #48
Silly genetic fallacies and cheap diversions notwithstanding....... pablo_marmol Dec 2014 #4
This is the path true civil rights progressives should take the 2A. ileus Dec 2014 #7
This has to be sarcasm right? Bjorn Against Dec 2014 #12
He thinks firearms will be useful at the End of Days for shoot in' up some food, so, no, not sarcasm..... Fred Sanders Dec 2014 #24
I don't think he's joking. shenmue Dec 2014 #54
Indeed, Gun Rights ARE Civil Rights! NYC_SKP Jan 2015 #60

upaloopa

(11,417 posts)
1. So what do you think would happen if ten
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 07:23 PM
Dec 2014

Black men walked into Target with AR15's?
My guess is we would hear on the news about the new, new Black Panther Party.

 

beevul

(12,194 posts)
9. What do you think should happen...
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 10:03 PM
Dec 2014

So what do you think should happen if ten Black men walked into Target with AR15's?




I'm all ears.

 

beevul

(12,194 posts)
49. Because it wasn't addressed to me.
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 06:52 PM
Dec 2014

Mine, however, was addressed to you.


How about answering it.

upaloopa

(11,417 posts)
51. What should happen? I think what should happen
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 07:01 PM
Dec 2014

is that carrying guns openly into public places scares people and should not be done out of respect for other people's feelings.
Legally I think nothing would be done.

 

beevul

(12,194 posts)
55. Youre so cute when you answer a question I didn't ask.
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 07:07 PM
Dec 2014

The question was this:

So what do you think should happen if ten Black men walked into Target with AR15's?

upaloopa

(11,417 posts)
38. What would happen is a lot of people would be scared
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 12:49 PM
Dec 2014

that they could be hurt and they would leave the store. I don't know what should happen in your sense. I guess legally nothing, but in my world it shouldn't happen out of respect for the feelings of others.
I also think if the folks were all Black there would be more police involvement than if they all were White.

 

kioa

(295 posts)
39. Lets assume that your speculation is correct.
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 01:16 PM
Dec 2014

Isn't that a problem of racism, not rights?

If a 'large group of black men' entered Wal-Mart with baggy coats 'scared a lot of people', would you support an infringement of the 4th amendment & insist on stop-and-frisk as policy?

upaloopa

(11,417 posts)
40. I don't support infringing on anyone's rights.
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 01:30 PM
Dec 2014

But I would be in favor of passing a law that would let business owners decide if guns can be carried in their place of business. Such as the no smoking laws in my state. Then people can decide if they want to do business there.
I wish it could be done voluntarily but I doubt that would work.

GGJohn

(9,951 posts)
43. Huh?
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 01:39 PM
Dec 2014

That's already law. a private business has the right to allow or exclude firearms in their establishments, whether open or concealed.

shedevil69taz

(512 posts)
44. Any state that is an open carry
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 01:43 PM
Dec 2014

state already has provisions for businesses to be able to choose if they allow it on their premises.

 

Duckhunter935

(16,974 posts)
52. It is already law
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 07:03 PM
Dec 2014

That is one reason it is to the advantage of some of the pro-controller side to engage firearms owners instead of name calling and demonizing. Not saying you did that but quite a few do.

Bjorn Against

(12,041 posts)
2. Reason Magazine is a right-wing rag funded by the Koch Brothers
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 07:55 PM
Dec 2014

Reason has a long history of racism and it is no surprise that they would endorse a book with a racial slur in the title, they also endorsed apartheid in South Africa in the past and even once had an issue promoting Holocaust denial.

Somehow I don't think too many black people are going to be convinced by a Koch funded racist magazine telling them that a book called "The Negro and the Gun" proves that guns are just as important as their civil rights however. As a matter of fact I think many black people who have seen other black lives lost from gun violence would be highly offended by the suggestion that gun rights are as important as their civil rights.

The Koch Brothers have not exactly been champions of racial equality and if their magazine gives a positive review to a book with a racial slur in the title you can be assured they are not doing so because they support civil rights.

pablo_marmol

(2,375 posts)
5. You might want to e-mail the Black author to inform him of your disapproval of his title.
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 08:45 PM
Dec 2014

And the fact that Reason magazine has published a positive review of the book in no way suggests that it should be ignored.

Somehow I don't think too many black people are going to be convinced by a Koch funded racist magazine telling them that a book called "The Negro and the Gun" proves that guns are just as important as their civil rights however.

Strawman. Nobody has suggested this.

Bjorn Against

(12,041 posts)
6. Maybe I should e-mail Clarence Thomas while I am at it
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 08:54 PM
Dec 2014

I could also write to Ben Carson, Alan Keyes, Herman Caine, and Alan West.

It would be a waste of time however, just because a person is black that does not make them representative of the black community.

 

appal_jack

(3,813 posts)
8. The black author of this book also happens to be a Fordham Law Professor.
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 10:00 PM
Dec 2014

I find his perspective on Second Amendment liberties to be worthwhile. If you'd like to discuss these issues, great. But if you prefer to try character assassination via unrelated black leaders like "Ben Carson, Alan Keyes, Herman Caine, and Alan West," then I think it's safe to assume you've got nothin'.

-app

Bjorn Against

(12,041 posts)
10. I never attacked the professor's character
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 10:09 PM
Dec 2014

I was told to contact the "black author" and I pointed out that just because a person is black that does not mean the author represents the black community just as the people I listed do not represent the black community.

You say I got nothing but no one has responded to the King quote I posted, a quote in which King explicitly states that guns go against his principles of non-violence. The OP is extremely misleading as it presents King as an advocate for the use of guns in self defense while neglecting to mention that he later reconsidered his position and got rid of his gun.

pablo_marmol

(2,375 posts)
20. The fact will remain that the peaceful Civil Rights Movement was supported with firepower.
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 11:20 PM
Dec 2014

If you were to read the book I linked to, you'd get all the evidence you needed to understand that. But of course, you'll never read the book because you lack the courage to confront your biases.

As the book title honestly asserts - no guns, no Civil Rights Movement.

ETA: http://www.amazon.com/This-Nonviolent-Stuffll-Get-Killed/dp/0465033105/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419899081&sr=1-2&keywords=negroes+and+the+gun+-+the+black+tradition+of+arms

 

friendly_iconoclast

(15,333 posts)
21. No, you were whitesplaining until you were informed that the author is African-American
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 11:43 PM
Dec 2014

And here you are doing it again:

I pointed out that just because a person is black that does not mean the author represents the black community just as the people I listed do not represent the black community.


Who are you to proclaim just who does and does not "represent the black community"?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3130197

Bjorn Against (10,581 posts)
47. I am white...


Whitesplaining and mansplaining have long been practiced by gun control advocates at DU:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1172&pid=157704

(read down)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1172&pid=157792

All that mansplaining reminded me of iverglas's whitesplaining of the same subject

Hold your nose and read down, you'll find much of the same rigidity, self-righteousness,
and overweening sense of privilege:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x447729

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x459922#460759

As the saying goes, "Great minds..."







Bjorn Against

(12,041 posts)
28. I have never proclaimed anyone represents the black community
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 12:58 AM
Dec 2014

What I did say is that just because someone is black that does not mean they represent the black community, which is true. I already knew the author was African American before anyone in this thread "informed" me, but that did not change my opinion on the article any more than Clarence Thomas being black makes me change my opinion on his positions.

The fact that you use the term "whitesplaining" says more about you than it does about me.

 

friendly_iconoclast

(15,333 posts)
29. I will assume you are actually ignorant of the historical record, and not simply in denial
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 02:53 AM
Dec 2014
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php/http:/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x337407

SteveM Mon Aug-30-10 05:22 PM
Original message
Rosa Parks was an armed. No surprise from this Cracker.


Tim Tyson, Visiting Professor at Duke Divinity School, did a little "myth-busting" on NPR's "On The Media" last year, saying this about the fabled civil rights leader Rosa Parks:

"There's a sense in which Mrs. Parks is very important to our post-civil rights racial narrative, because we really want a kind of sugar-coated civil rights movement that's about purity and interracial non-violence. And so we don't really want to meet the real Rosa Parks. We don't, for example, want to know that in the late 1960s, Rosa Parks became a black nationalist and a great admirer of Malcolm X. I met Rosa Parks at the funeral of Robert F. Williams, who had fought the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina with a machine gun in the late 1950s and then fled to Cuba, and had been a kind of international revolutionary icon of black power. Ms. Parks delivered the eulogy at his funeral. She talks in her autobiography and says that she never believed in non-violence and that she was incapable of that herself, and that she kept guns in her home to protect her family. But we want a little old lady with tired feet. You may have noticed we don't have a lot of pacifist white heroes. We prefer our black people meek and mild, I think."

http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2010/08/27/02

_____________

Parks, like Fannie Lou Hammer, kept herself armed for immediate self-protection, and probably knew the limitations of violence within the civil rights movement, so "non-violence" was probably not a philosophical, but more a practical choice. I cannot help but notice that the Washington Post -- agitprop of record for gun-control -- continues to throw mythological pixie dust about in support of the myth of Ms. Parks.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deacons_for_Defense_and_Justice

Deacons for Defense and Justice

The Deacons for Defense and Justice is an armed self defense African American civil rights organization in the U.S. Southern states during the 1960s. Historically, the organization practiced self-defense methods in the face of racist oppression that was carried out by Jim Crow Laws; local and state agencies; and the Ku Klux Klan. Many times the Deacons are not written about or cited when speaking of the Civil Rights Movement because their agenda of self-defense, in this case, using violence (if necessary) did not fit the image of strict non-violence agenda that leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached about the Civil Rights Movement. Yet, there has been a recent debate over the crucial role the Deacons and other lesser known militant organizations played on local levels throughout much of the rural South. Many times in these areas the Federal government did not always have complete control over to enforce such laws like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Currently, this group is "calling for arms" in black communities both mentally and physically through the second amendment.

The Deacons are a segment of the larger tradition of Black Power in the United States. This tradition began with the inception of African slavery in the U.S. and began with the use of Africans as chattel slaves in the Western Hemisphere. Stokely Carmichael defines Black Power as, “The goal of black self-determination and black self-identity—Black Power—is full participation in the decision-making processes affecting the lives of black people, and recognition of the virtues in themselves as black people.”<1> Those of us who advocate Black Power are quite clear in our own minds that a “non-violent” approach to civil rights is an approach black people cannot afford and a luxury white people do not deserve.<1> This refers to the idea that the traditional ideas and values of the Civil Rights Movement placated to the emotions and feelings of White liberal supporters rather than Black Americans who had to consistently live with the racism and other acts of violence that was shown towards them.

The Deacons were a driving force of Black Power that Stokely Carmichael echoed. Carmichael speaks about the Deacons when he writes, “Here is a group which realized that the ‘law’ and law enforcement agencies would not protect people, so they had to do it themselves...The Deacons and all other blacks who resort to self-defense represent a simple answer to a simple question: what man would not defend his family and home from attack?”<1> The Deacons, according to Carmichael and many others were the protection that the Civil Rights needed on local levels, as well as, the ones who intervened in places that the state and federal government fell short.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php/http:/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x337407

More on Timothy Tyson, Robert F. Williams, and armed African-Americans:

Edited on Tue Aug-31-10 01:30 PM by friendly_iconoclast
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Tyson

....In 1998, Tyson published an influential article in the Journal of American History, "Robert F. Williams, 'Black Power,' and the Roots of the Black Freedom Struggle." The following year, his Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power, published by UNC Press, won the Frederick Jackson Turner Prize for best first book in U.S. history from the Organization of American Historians, as well as the James A. Rawley Prize for best book on the subject of race. "Radio Free Dixie" provided the foundation for "Negroes with Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power", a documentary film made by Sandra Dickson and Churchill Roberts at the University of Florida's Documentary Institute and broadcast on national television in February 2007. "Negroes with Guns," for which Tyson served as lead consultant, won the Erick Barnouw Award for best historical film from the Organization of American Historians....

An interview with Robert F. Williams:



You can buy the DVD of "Negroes with Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power" here:

http://newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0178


And watch the whole thing here, albeit in low resolution:




http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/02/opinion/blow-rosa-parks-revisited.html?_r=0

"Rosa Parks, Revisited"

...On the verge of the 100th anniversary of her birth this Monday comes a fascinating new book, “The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks,” by Jeanne Theoharis, a Brooklyn College professor. It argues that the romanticized, children’s-book story of a meek seamstress with aching feet who just happened into history in a moment of uncalculated resistance is pure mythology.

As Theoharis points out, “Rosa’s family sought to teach her a controlled anger, a survival strategy that balanced compliance with militancy.”

Parks was mostly raised by her grandparents. Her grandfather, a follower of Marcus Garvey, often sat vigil on the porch with a rifle in case the Klan came. She sometimes sat with him because, as the book says she put it, “I wanted to see him kill a Ku Kluxer.”...

...Rosa married Raymond Parks, a civil rights activist who sometimes carried a gun and who impressed her because, she said, “he refused to be intimidated by white people.”


http://www.amazon.com/Rebellious-Life-Mrs-Rosa-Parks/dp/0807033324


 

friendly_iconoclast

(15,333 posts)
33. "Remembering Robert Hicks and the Deacons of Defense"
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 04:00 AM
Dec 2014
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=331645&mesg_id=331645

friendly_iconoclast Donating Member Thu Jul-22-10 12:57 AM
Original message
Remembering Robert Hicks and the Deacons of Defense


Edited on Thu Jul-22-10 01:01 AM by friendly_iconoclast

http://www.thesouthernshift.com/news/2010/04/remembering-robert-hicks-and-deacons-defense

Remembering Robert Hicks and the Deacons of Defense
Submitted by Southern Shift on Mon, 2010-04-26 11:32

The story around Robert Hicks and his group Deacons for Defense have all but been erased from public consciousness. You check on familiar touch points like YouTube and there's nothing there. Pictures are hard to find and articles are scant. The thought of armed Black men standing up to the KKK and successfully protecting lives and propert during the harsh days of the Jim Crow South is a scary thought for many. The truth of the matter is many African Americans did not sit back and just allow themselves to be beaten and terrorized by the KKK. Hicks represented an underplayed part of our history..


The passing of Robert Hicks will not be acknowledge on the same scale as the passing of Guru, Dr Dorothy Height and Benjamin Hooks but he is no less important. We tip our hat because he did what many have come to belive was the unthinkable.We also encourage folks to try and pick up a copy of the movie that stars Forest Whitaker


-Davey D-



http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/us/25hicks.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=robert%20hicks&st=cse


Robert Hicks, Leader in Armed Rights Group, Dies at 81
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: April 24, 2010

Someone had called to say the Ku Klux Klan was coming to bomb Robert Hicks’s house. The police said there was nothing they could do. It was the night of Feb. 1, 1965, in Bogalusa, La.

The Klan was furious that Mr. Hicks, a black paper mill worker, was putting up two white civil rights workers in his home. It was just six months after three young civil rights workers had been murdered in Philadelphia, Miss.

Mr. Hicks and his wife, Valeria, made some phone calls. They found neighbors to take in their children, and they reached out to friends for protection. Soon, armed black men materialized. Nothing happened.

Less than three weeks later, the leaders of a secretive, paramilitary organization of blacks called the Deacons for Defense and Justice visited Bogalusa. It had been formed in Jonesboro, La., in 1964 mainly to protect unarmed civil rights demonstrators from the Klan. After listening to the Deacons, Mr. Hicks took the lead in forming a Bogalusa chapter, recruiting many of the men who had gone to his house to protect his family and guests....



To this day, some will deny that there was an armed element to the struggle for civil rights.

I salute you, Mister Hicks. You were a true patriot.
 

friendly_iconoclast

(15,333 posts)
63. Bjorn is busy calling other DUers "murder advocates":
Sat Jan 3, 2015, 08:01 PM
Jan 2015
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1262&pid=7632

I do not trust the murder advocates in the NRA and the gungeon with guns however, and I do not apologize for calling them murder advocates because that is what they are.

pablo_marmol

(2,375 posts)
19. "......just because a person is Black that does not make them representative
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 11:16 PM
Dec 2014

......of the Black community."

Obviously not -- however your charge of a "racist book title" is quite ridiculous.

pablo_marmol

(2,375 posts)
30. So what. Did the Koch brothers fund the book in question?
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 03:24 AM
Dec 2014

No? So your point is a childish one - and that's putting it very politely.

All of the author's points are supported by another Black writer - Charles E. Cobb Jr. in "This Non-violent Stuff'l Get You Killed". What are you going to pull out of your backside to dismiss Mr. Cobb?

Fred Sanders

(23,946 posts)
34. An friend of the Koch's is no friend of mine that I would care to listen to and be polluted by.
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 09:06 AM
Dec 2014

I think you will find folks at DU share this same sentiment about the fascist brothers with excellent reasons. Do you know what they could be?

 

DonP

(6,185 posts)
42. Ah, so you're the spokesperson DU chose?
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 01:35 PM
Dec 2014

We were all wondering who Skinner appointed to define what the folks here all thought.

Congratulations on knowing the minds of "the folks at DU" on all things Democrat.

Good to know.

A little narcissism goes a long way. Try speaking for your self and don't try and interpret what others think.

pablo_marmol

(2,375 posts)
61. Let the record show that Mr. Sanders ran from the question:
Fri Jan 2, 2015, 10:56 PM
Jan 2015

All of the author's points are supported by another Black writer - Charles E. Cobb Jr. in "This Non-violent Stuff'll Get You Killed". What are you going to pull out of your backside to dismiss Mr. Cobb?

Bjorn Against

(12,041 posts)
3. Here are some words from King the Koch Brothers are unlikely to share...
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 08:17 PM
Dec 2014
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/01/21/what-gun-advocates-get-wrong-about-dr-martin-lu/197665

Meanwhile I reconsidered. How could I serve as one of the leaders of a nonviolent movement and at the same time use weapons of violence for my personal protection? Coretta and I talked the matter over for several days and finally agreed that arms were no solution. We decided then to get rid of the one weapon we owned. We tried to satisfy our friends by having floodlights mounted around the house, and hiring unarmed watchmen around the clock. I also promised that I would not travel around the city alone. 

I was much more afraid in Montgomery when I had a gun in my house. When I decided that I couldn't keep a gun, I came face-to-face with the question of death and I dealt with it. From that point on, I no longer needed a gun nor have I been afraid. Had we become distracted by the question of my safety we would have lost the moral offensive and sunk to the level of our oppressors.


So as we can see the Koch Brother's magazine left out a key part of the story. While they tell us that King applied for the gun permit, they omit the fact that he later determined that guns went against his principles of non-violence and he got rid of his gun. It seems this would be a crucial fact to anyone looking for the whole story, but the whole story of Martin Luther King does not fit well with the Koch's agenda so they leave out key context.

 

appal_jack

(3,813 posts)
11. King's support of individual self-defense continued.
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 10:11 PM
Dec 2014

The quote of King's I shared in the excerpts above was from 1959:

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/the_social_organization_of_nonviolence/

and the quote you shared was from 1958:

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/kingpapers/article/chapter_8_the_violence_of_desperate_men/

Are you now going to attempt to lump Dr. King in with Alan Keyes, etc.?

I prefer to place Dr. King with another inspiration, Whitman:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)


http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/whitman/song.htm


-app

Bjorn Against

(12,041 posts)
13. Did you even bother to read your own link?
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 10:19 PM
Dec 2014

Apparently not, because if you had read it you would have seen this at the beginning of the article...

Though King points out that the principle of self-defense “has never been condemned, even by Gandhi,” he rejects Williams’s suggestion that black people take up arms: “There is more power in socially organized masses on the march than there is in guns in the hands of a few desperate men.


That does not look like pro-gun advocacy to me.

 

appal_jack

(3,813 posts)
14. "Taking up arms" is quite different from individual self defense.
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 10:25 PM
Dec 2014

"Taking up arms" means a group is organizing and drilling as a militia, in order to combat the government or other social order. You & I agree that King opposed violence as an instrument of social policy. Even our Second Amendment says that militias themselves are to be "well-regulated."

But you seem to be operating under the fallacy that personal firearm ownership and employing firearms for self-defense was also something that Dr. King opposed. This is not the case.

-app

Bjorn Against

(12,041 posts)
15. Self defense is not just about guns
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 10:35 PM
Dec 2014

I posted a quote above in which King very explicitly said that he gave up his personal firearm because it went against his principles of non-violence. He was clearly talking about individual defense in that quote, he was not suggesting he got rid of his gun to prevent himself from taking up arms.

Contrary to what the NRA tries to pretend there are ways to defend yourself without a gun.

 

appal_jack

(3,813 posts)
16. King gave up his own prerogative to own & employ personal firearms as a strategic CHOICE.
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 10:45 PM
Dec 2014

Again, look at the link to understand his full quote from 1958 in context:

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/kingpapers/article/chapter_8_the_violence_of_desperate_men/

"How could I serve as one of the leaders of a nonviolent movement and at the same time use weapons of violence for my personal protection?"

He is saying that the hassle of parsing self-defense from violent social policy such as organizing a black militia was not worthwhile TO HIM as a civil rights leader. He was more concerned about how he would be perceived, and how that perception would be used to degrade the movement as a whole. That was his choice. I have no argument with the choices he made for himself, especially those that served the greater good. He was an incredible, dedicated, intelligent, visionary human being.

But I have seen no quotes from him urging others to give up firearms ownership.

Sure, there are ways to practice self-defense besides guns. But that also does not argue against personal firearm ownership for those that choose it.

-app

Bjorn Against

(12,041 posts)
17. I don't see any quotes of him urging people to take up arms ownership either
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 10:57 PM
Dec 2014

You can try all you want to try to explain King's words for us, but people can read his words for themselves and see what he is very clearly saying.

Gun advocates need to stop invoking King's name to promote their own agenda.

 

appal_jack

(3,813 posts)
18. Apparently, quoting him twice in the OP was not sufficient for you?
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 11:03 PM
Dec 2014

Let's try bold-facing for emphasis this time:

Violence exercised merely in self-defense, all societies, from the most primitive to the most cultured and civilized, accept as moral and legal. The principle of self-defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi. … When the Negro uses force in self-defense, he does not forfeit support he may even win it, by the courage and self-respect it reflects.
…But violence as a tool of advancement, involving organization as in warfare… poses incalculable perils.




-app

Bjorn Against

(12,041 posts)
22. Nowhere in that quote is the word "gun" used
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 11:47 PM
Dec 2014

I know you really want to believe King was promoting guns, but self defense is not just about guns. The quotes I provided show that King had serious reservations about guns.

 

appal_jack

(3,813 posts)
26. Well, I doubt he was speaking of spears...
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 12:47 AM
Dec 2014

Firearms have been the preeminent personal defensive (and offensive) weapon for soldier and civilian alike since at least the 18th Century.

Though for beating dead horses, the buggy whip is still used plenty around these parts...

-app

 

kioa

(295 posts)
46. Speaking of 'disingenuous'....
Tue Dec 30, 2014, 01:59 PM
Dec 2014

Please explain to me how the words "weapons" and "bloodshed" when talking about self-defense exempts firearms.

"The principle of self-defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, "

pablo_marmol

(2,375 posts)
4. Silly genetic fallacies and cheap diversions notwithstanding.......
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 08:28 PM
Dec 2014

.....armed self defense was critical to the success of the civil rights movement -- and I have little doubt, based on what I've read, that this book is likely a strong read.

Here's another strong book on the subject written by a Black man:

http://www.amazon.com/This-Nonviolent-Stuffll-Get-Killed/dp/0465033105/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419899081&sr=1-2&keywords=negroes+and+the+gun+-+the+black+tradition+of+arms

ileus

(15,396 posts)
7. This is the path true civil rights progressives should take the 2A.
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 09:01 PM
Dec 2014

Before all else we must assure our ability to protect ourselves and loved ones.

Water, Food, Shelter, Country all come in a distant second.

Bjorn Against

(12,041 posts)
12. This has to be sarcasm right?
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 10:13 PM
Dec 2014

You honestly think guns are more important than food, water, and shelter? What good does your gun do for you if you are dehydrated and starving to death?

I hope you are joking because if you are not then this is one of the dumbest posts I have seen on DU.

Fred Sanders

(23,946 posts)
24. He thinks firearms will be useful at the End of Days for shoot in' up some food, so, no, not sarcasm.....
Mon Dec 29, 2014, 11:54 PM
Dec 2014
 

NYC_SKP

(68,644 posts)
60. Indeed, Gun Rights ARE Civil Rights!
Fri Jan 2, 2015, 03:36 PM
Jan 2015

It's pretty explicitly stated in California's state constitution, even comes before freedom of the press, IIRC.

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