The Deacons for Defense and Justice: Armed self-defense and the civil rights movement
Description
Much of the history of the civil rights era rests on the myth of nonviolence: the notion that the civil rights movement achieved its goals through nonviolent direct action. This dissertation argues that, on the contrary, black violence and threat of civil disorder played an indispensable role in forcing the federal government to enforce the newly enacted civil rights laws Despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, many communities in the Deep South refused to desegregate. The Klan and other segregationist groups took the lead in using terror to discourage implementation of the new law. In response to this violence and intimidation, a group of black men from Jonesboro, Louisiana founded the Deacons for Defense and Justice, a black paramilitary organization formed to defend the black community and civil rights workers. Formed in 1964, the Deacons quickly grew to twenty-one chapters concentrated in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. With a total membership of several hundred--and thousands of ready supporters--the Deacons soon became a popular symbol of the growing frustration with Martin Luther King's nonviolent strategy The organization's activities reached their apex in 1965 in Bogalusa, Louisiana, when the Deacons' threats to launch a bloody civil war with the local Klan eventually forced the federal government to destroy the Klan and restore order