Deacons for Defense and Justice
Encyclopedia
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 to the United States Constitution
.
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.”
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. 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?” 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.
, the eloquently blunt Mississippi militant who outraged Lyndon B. Johnson
at the 1964 Democratic Convention, confessed that she kept several loaded guns under her bed. Others such as Robert F. Williams
also practiced self-defense. Williams transformed his local NAACP branch into an armed self-defense unit, for which transgression he was denounced by the NAACP and hounded by the federal government (he found asylum in Cuba
).
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was no stranger to the idea of self-defense. According to Annelieke Dirks, “Even Martin Luther King Jr.—the icon of nonviolence—employed armed bodyguards and had guns in his house during the early stages of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956. Glenn Smiley, an organizer of the strictly nonviolent and pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), observed during a house visit that the police did not allow King a weapon permit, but that ‘the place is an arsenal." Efforts from those like Smiley convinced Dr. King that any sort of weapons or “self-defense” could not be associated with someone like him in the position that he held. Dr. King agreed.
In many areas of the “Deep South” the federal and state governments had no control of local authorities and groups that did not want to follow the laws enacted. One of these groups, the Ku Klux Klan
, is one of the most well-known and widely publicized organizations that openly practiced acts of violence and segregation based on race. As part of their strategy to intimidate this community [African Americans], the Ku Klux Klan initiated a “campaign of terror” that included harassment, the burning of crosses on the lawns of African-American voters, the destruction (by fire) of five churches, a Masonic hall, and a Baptist center, and murder. These incidents were not isolated but a significant amount of this victimization of African-Americans occurred in Jonesboro, Louisiana in 1964.
Not wanting to fall victims any longer to groups like the Klan the African-American community felt that a response of action was crucial in curbing this terrorism because of the lack of support and protection by State and Federal authorities. A group of African American men in Jonesboro, Louisiana
led by Earnest "Chilly Willy" Thomas and Frederick Douglas Kirkpatrick founded the group in November 1964 to protect civil rights workers, their communities and their families, against the violence of the Ku Klux Klan
. Most of the Deacons were war veterans with combat experience from the Korean War
and World War II
. The Jonesboro chapter later organized a Deacons chapter in Bogalusa, Louisiana
led by Charles Sims, A.Z. Young and Robert Hicks. The Jonesboro chapter initiated a regional organizing campaign and eventually formed 21 chapters in Louisiana, Mississippi
, and Alabama
. The militant Deacons' confrontation with the Klan in Bogalusa was instrumental in forcing the federal government to invervene on behalf of the black community and enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act and neutralize the Klan.
Ernest “Chilly Willy” Thomas was born in Jonesboro, Louisiana, on November 20, 1935. Being born in a time of extreme segregation in places like Jonesboro, Thomas understood that things were secured by force rather than moral appeal. Civil Rights organization CORE
had a freedom house in Jonesboro which became the target of the Klan. The practice, referred to as “nigger knocking,” was a time honored tradition among whites in the rural South. Because of repeated attacks on the Freedom House, the Black community responded. Earnest Thomas was one of the first volunteers to guard the house. According to Lance Hill, “Thomas was eager to work with CORE, but he had reservations about the nonviolent terms imposed by the young activists.” Thomas, who had military training, quickly emerged as the leader of this budding defense organization that would guard the Jonesboro community in the day with their guns concealed and carried their guns openly during the cover of night to discouraged any type of Klan activity.
There is no definitive answer on how the group obtained their name. There are many accounts but according to Lance Hill the most plausible explanation is, “the name was a portmanteau that evolved over a period of time, combining the CORE staff’s first appellation of ‘deacons’ with the tentative name chosen in November 1964: ‘Justice and Defense Club’. By January 1965 the group had arrived at is permanent name, ‘Deacons for Defense and Justice.’” The organization wanted to maintain a level of respectability and identify with traditionally accepted symbols of peace and moral values. As one ex-Deacon wrote in a lyric of a song, “the term ‘deacons’ was selected to beguile local whites by portraying the organization as an innocent church group...”
The work of the Deacons is the subject of a 2003 Television movie
, Deacons for Defense. The film, produced by Showtime
stars academy-award winner Forest Whitaker
, Ossie Davis
and Jonathan Silverman
. The film is based on the actual Deacons for Defense and their struggle to fight against the Jim Crow South in a powerful area of Louisiana that is controlled by the Ku Klux Klan. The film bases the story around a white-owned factory that controls the economy of the local society and the effects of racism and intimidation on the lives of the African-American community. The film follows the psychological transition of a family and community members from ones that believe in a strict non-violent stance to ones that believe in self-defense.
Scholar Akinyele O. Umoja speaks about the group’s effort more specifically. According to Umoja it was the urging of Stokely Carmichael that the Deacons were to be used as security for the march. Many times protection from the federal or state government was either inadequate of not given, even while knowing that groups like the Klan would commit violent acts against civil rights workers. An example of this was the Freedom Ride
where many non-violent activists became the targets of assault for angry White mobs. After some debate and discussion many of the civil rights leaders compromised their strict non-violent beliefs and allowed the Deacons to be used. One such person was Dr. King. Umoja states, “Finally, though expressing reservations, King conceded to Carmichael’s proposals to maintain unity in the march and the movement. The involvement and association of the Deacons with the march signified a shift in the civil rights movement, which had been popularly projected as a ‘nonviolent movement.”‘
Umoja suggests that ideological shifts in the movement were becoming apparent even before the March Against Fear. By 1965, both SNCC and CORE supported armed self-defense. National CORE leadership, including James Farmer, publicly acknowledged a relationship between CORE and the Deacons for Defense in Louisiana. This alliance between to the two organizations highlighted the support and concept of armed self-defense many southern-born Black people embraced. A significant portion of SNCC’s southern-born leadership and staff also supported armed self-defense.
The Deacons had a relationship with other civil rights groups that advocated and practiced non-violence: the willingness of the Deacons to provide low-key armed guards facilitated the ability of groups such as the NAACP
and CORE
to stay, at least formally, within their own parameters of non-violence.
Although many local chapters felt it was necessary to maintain a level of security by either practicing self-defense as some CORE, SNCC, and NAACP local chapters did, the national level of all these organizations still maintained the idea of non-violence to achieve civil rights. Nonetheless,in some cases,their willingness to respond to violence with violence, led to tension between the Deacons and the nonviolent civil rights workers whom they sought to protect.Organizations like SNCC, CORE, and SCLC all had major roles in exposing the brutal tactics that were being used against Black people in America, particularly to Southern Blacks. This was seen as crucial to getting legislation passed that would protect African-Americans from this oppression and help develop their status of equality in America. However, according to Lance Hill, author of, The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement, “the hard truth is that these organizations produced few victories in their local projects in the Deep South—if success is measured by the ability to force changes in local government policy and create self-governing and sustainable local organizations that could survive when the national organizations departed...The Deacons’ campaigns frequently resulted in substantial and unprecedented victories at the local level, producing real power and self-sustaining organizations.” According to Hill, this is the true resistance that enforced civil rights in areas of the Deep South. Many times it was local (armed) communities that laid the foundation for equal opportunities to be attained by African-Americans. National organizations played their role, exposing the problems, but it was local organizations and individuals who implemented these rights and were not fearful of reactionary Whites who wanted to keep segregation alive. Without these local organizations pushing for their rights and, many times, using self-defense tactics, not much would have changed, according to scholars like Hill.
An example of the need for self-defense to enable substantial change in the Deep South took place in early 1965. Black students picketing the local high school were confronted by hostile police and fire trucks with hoses. A car of four Deacons emerged and, in view of the police, calmly loaded their shotguns. The police ordered the fire truck to withdraw. This was the first time in the twentieth century, as Lance Hill observes, “an armed black organization had successfully used weapons to defend a lawful protest against an attack by law enforcement.” Another example, as Hill writes, was, “In Jonesboro, the Deacons made history when they compelled Louisiana governor John McKeithen to intervene in the city’s civil rights crisis and require a compromise with city leaders — the first capitulation to the civil rights movement by a Deep South governor.”
Not much history of the Civil Rights Movement is focused on organizations like the Deacons because of a number of reasons. First, the dominant ideology of the Civil Rights Movement is one of practicing non-violence and this overarching view has been the only accepted way to think about the Civil Rights Movement. Second, the threats to the livelihood of the members required secrecy to be maintained. The Deacons kept their membership secret to avoid terrorist attacks on their supporters, and they recruited mature and male members, in contrast to more informal self-defense efforts in which women and teenagers also played a role. Finally, with the shift to Northern Black plight and the idea of Black Power
emerging in major cities across America, the Deacons became the news of yesterday and organizations like The Black Panther Party gained notoriety and became the publicized militant Black organization.
The tactics of the Deacons attracted the attention and concern of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
, which commenced an investigation of the group. In the years to follow, the Bureau produced more than 1,500 pages of comprehensive and relatively accurate records on the Deacon’s activities, largely through numerous informants close to or even inside the organization. Members of the Deacons repeatedly were questioned and intimidated by F.B.I. agents. One member Harvey Johnson was “interviewed” by two agents who asked only about how the Deacons obtained their weapons. No questions about Klan activity or police brutality were ever asked. In February 1965, after a New York Times article was produced about the Deacons, J. Edgar Hoover became interested in the group. Lance Hill offers Hoover’s reaction which was sent to the field offices of the Bureau in Louisiana: “Because of the potential for violence indicated, you are instructed to immediately initiate an investigation of the DDJ [Deacons for Defense and Justice].” As was eventually exposed in the late 1970s, under its COINTELPRO
program, the FBI became involved in many illegal activities to spy on and undermine organizations that it deemed “a threat to the American way”. The Deacons, opposing White dominance (which the FBI seemed to conflate with "the American way"), were an organization that fell under this "threat" category for the FBI to spy on and undermine. However, with the advent of other militant Black Power
organizations and the Black Power Movement becoming the more visible movement towards the later part of the 1960s, the involvement of the Deacons in the civil rights movement declined (and FBI interference with them did as well), with the presence of the Deacons all but vanishing by 1968.
Roy Innis
has said of the Deacons that they "forced the Klan to re-evaluate their actions and often change their undergarments", according to Ken Blackwell
.
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
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
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
; 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
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
or Voting Rights Act
Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of national legislation in the United States that outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans in the U.S....
of 1965.
Currently, this group is "calling for arms" in black communities both mentally and physically through the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.In 2008 and 2010, the Supreme Court issued two Second...
.
The Deacons are a segment of the larger tradition of Black Power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
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
Stokely Carmichael
Kwame Ture , also known as Stokely Carmichael, was a Trinidadian-American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He rose to prominence first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party...
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.”
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. 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?” 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.
History
The Deacons were not the first champions of armed-defense during the Civil Rights Movement. Many activists and other proponents of non-violence protected themselves with guns. Fannie Lou HamerFannie Lou Hamer
Fannie Lou Hamer was an American voting rights activist and civil rights leader....
, the eloquently blunt Mississippi militant who outraged Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
at the 1964 Democratic Convention, confessed that she kept several loaded guns under her bed. Others such as Robert F. Williams
Robert F. Williams
Robert Franklin Williams was a civil rights leader, the president of the Monroe, North Carolina NAACP chapter in the 1950s and early 1960s, and author. At a time when racial tension was high and official abuses were rampant, Williams was a key figure in promoting both integration and armed black...
also practiced self-defense. Williams transformed his local NAACP branch into an armed self-defense unit, for which transgression he was denounced by the NAACP and hounded by the federal government (he found asylum in Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
).
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was no stranger to the idea of self-defense. According to Annelieke Dirks, “Even Martin Luther King Jr.—the icon of nonviolence—employed armed bodyguards and had guns in his house during the early stages of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956. Glenn Smiley, an organizer of the strictly nonviolent and pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), observed during a house visit that the police did not allow King a weapon permit, but that ‘the place is an arsenal." Efforts from those like Smiley convinced Dr. King that any sort of weapons or “self-defense” could not be associated with someone like him in the position that he held. Dr. King agreed.
In many areas of the “Deep South” the federal and state governments had no control of local authorities and groups that did not want to follow the laws enacted. One of these groups, the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
, is one of the most well-known and widely publicized organizations that openly practiced acts of violence and segregation based on race. As part of their strategy to intimidate this community [African Americans], the Ku Klux Klan initiated a “campaign of terror” that included harassment, the burning of crosses on the lawns of African-American voters, the destruction (by fire) of five churches, a Masonic hall, and a Baptist center, and murder. These incidents were not isolated but a significant amount of this victimization of African-Americans occurred in Jonesboro, Louisiana in 1964.
Not wanting to fall victims any longer to groups like the Klan the African-American community felt that a response of action was crucial in curbing this terrorism because of the lack of support and protection by State and Federal authorities. A group of African American men in Jonesboro, Louisiana
Jonesboro, Louisiana
Jonesboro is a town in and the parish seat of Jackson Parish in the northern portion of the U.S. state of Louisiana. The population was 3,914 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Ruston Micropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:...
led by Earnest "Chilly Willy" Thomas and Frederick Douglas Kirkpatrick founded the group in November 1964 to protect civil rights workers, their communities and their families, against the violence of the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
. Most of the Deacons were war veterans with combat experience from the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The Jonesboro chapter later organized a Deacons chapter in Bogalusa, Louisiana
Bogalusa, Louisiana
Bogalusa is a city in Washington Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 13,365 at the 2000 census. It is the principal city of the Bogalusa Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Washington Parish and is also part of the larger New Orleans–Metairie–Bogalusa...
led by Charles Sims, A.Z. Young and Robert Hicks. The Jonesboro chapter initiated a regional organizing campaign and eventually formed 21 chapters in Louisiana, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, and Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
. The militant Deacons' confrontation with the Klan in Bogalusa was instrumental in forcing the federal government to invervene on behalf of the black community and enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act and neutralize the Klan.
Ernest “Chilly Willy” Thomas was born in Jonesboro, Louisiana, on November 20, 1935. Being born in a time of extreme segregation in places like Jonesboro, Thomas understood that things were secured by force rather than moral appeal. Civil Rights organization CORE
Congress of Racial Equality
The Congress of Racial Equality or CORE was a U.S. civil rights organization that originally played a pivotal role for African-Americans in the Civil Rights Movement...
had a freedom house in Jonesboro which became the target of the Klan. The practice, referred to as “nigger knocking,” was a time honored tradition among whites in the rural South. Because of repeated attacks on the Freedom House, the Black community responded. Earnest Thomas was one of the first volunteers to guard the house. According to Lance Hill, “Thomas was eager to work with CORE, but he had reservations about the nonviolent terms imposed by the young activists.” Thomas, who had military training, quickly emerged as the leader of this budding defense organization that would guard the Jonesboro community in the day with their guns concealed and carried their guns openly during the cover of night to discouraged any type of Klan activity.
There is no definitive answer on how the group obtained their name. There are many accounts but according to Lance Hill the most plausible explanation is, “the name was a portmanteau that evolved over a period of time, combining the CORE staff’s first appellation of ‘deacons’ with the tentative name chosen in November 1964: ‘Justice and Defense Club’. By January 1965 the group had arrived at is permanent name, ‘Deacons for Defense and Justice.’” The organization wanted to maintain a level of respectability and identify with traditionally accepted symbols of peace and moral values. As one ex-Deacon wrote in a lyric of a song, “the term ‘deacons’ was selected to beguile local whites by portraying the organization as an innocent church group...”
The work of the Deacons is the subject of a 2003 Television movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
, Deacons for Defense. The film, produced by Showtime
Showtime Networks
Showtime Networks, Inc. is the corporate division of media conglomerate CBS Corporation.The company was established in 1983 as Showtime/The Movie Channel, Inc. after Viacom and Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment merged their premium channels, Showtime and The Movie Channel respectively, into one...
stars academy-award winner Forest Whitaker
Forest Whitaker
Forest Steven Whitaker is an American actor, producer, and director. He has earned a reputation for intensive character study work for films such as Bird and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and for his recurring role as ex-LAPD Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh on the gritty, award-winning television...
, Ossie Davis
Ossie Davis
Ossie Davis was an American film actor, director, poet, playwright, writer, and social activist.-Early years:...
and Jonathan Silverman
Jonathan Silverman
-Personal life:Silverman was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Devora and Hillel Emanuel Silverman, a rabbi. He is the grandson of famous Conservative Rabbi Morris Silverman. David Schwimmer was his best friend in high school. He is married to actress Jennifer Finnigan who he briefly co...
. The film is based on the actual Deacons for Defense and their struggle to fight against the Jim Crow South in a powerful area of Louisiana that is controlled by the Ku Klux Klan. The film bases the story around a white-owned factory that controls the economy of the local society and the effects of racism and intimidation on the lives of the African-American community. The film follows the psychological transition of a family and community members from ones that believe in a strict non-violent stance to ones that believe in self-defense.
Role
The Deacons were very instrumental in many campaigns led by the Civil Rights Movement. A good example of this is The June 1966 March Against Fear, which went from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi. The March Against Fear signified a shift in character and power in the southern civil rights movement and was an event that the Deacons participated in.Scholar Akinyele O. Umoja speaks about the group’s effort more specifically. According to Umoja it was the urging of Stokely Carmichael that the Deacons were to be used as security for the march. Many times protection from the federal or state government was either inadequate of not given, even while knowing that groups like the Klan would commit violent acts against civil rights workers. An example of this was the Freedom Ride
Freedom ride
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decisions Boynton v. Virginia and Morgan v. Virginia...
where many non-violent activists became the targets of assault for angry White mobs. After some debate and discussion many of the civil rights leaders compromised their strict non-violent beliefs and allowed the Deacons to be used. One such person was Dr. King. Umoja states, “Finally, though expressing reservations, King conceded to Carmichael’s proposals to maintain unity in the march and the movement. The involvement and association of the Deacons with the march signified a shift in the civil rights movement, which had been popularly projected as a ‘nonviolent movement.”‘
Umoja suggests that ideological shifts in the movement were becoming apparent even before the March Against Fear. By 1965, both SNCC and CORE supported armed self-defense. National CORE leadership, including James Farmer, publicly acknowledged a relationship between CORE and the Deacons for Defense in Louisiana. This alliance between to the two organizations highlighted the support and concept of armed self-defense many southern-born Black people embraced. A significant portion of SNCC’s southern-born leadership and staff also supported armed self-defense.
The Deacons had a relationship with other civil rights groups that advocated and practiced non-violence: the willingness of the Deacons to provide low-key armed guards facilitated the ability of groups such as the NAACP
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
and CORE
Congress of Racial Equality
The Congress of Racial Equality or CORE was a U.S. civil rights organization that originally played a pivotal role for African-Americans in the Civil Rights Movement...
to stay, at least formally, within their own parameters of non-violence.
Although many local chapters felt it was necessary to maintain a level of security by either practicing self-defense as some CORE, SNCC, and NAACP local chapters did, the national level of all these organizations still maintained the idea of non-violence to achieve civil rights. Nonetheless,in some cases,their willingness to respond to violence with violence, led to tension between the Deacons and the nonviolent civil rights workers whom they sought to protect.Organizations like SNCC, CORE, and SCLC all had major roles in exposing the brutal tactics that were being used against Black people in America, particularly to Southern Blacks. This was seen as crucial to getting legislation passed that would protect African-Americans from this oppression and help develop their status of equality in America. However, according to Lance Hill, author of, The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement, “the hard truth is that these organizations produced few victories in their local projects in the Deep South—if success is measured by the ability to force changes in local government policy and create self-governing and sustainable local organizations that could survive when the national organizations departed...The Deacons’ campaigns frequently resulted in substantial and unprecedented victories at the local level, producing real power and self-sustaining organizations.” According to Hill, this is the true resistance that enforced civil rights in areas of the Deep South. Many times it was local (armed) communities that laid the foundation for equal opportunities to be attained by African-Americans. National organizations played their role, exposing the problems, but it was local organizations and individuals who implemented these rights and were not fearful of reactionary Whites who wanted to keep segregation alive. Without these local organizations pushing for their rights and, many times, using self-defense tactics, not much would have changed, according to scholars like Hill.
An example of the need for self-defense to enable substantial change in the Deep South took place in early 1965. Black students picketing the local high school were confronted by hostile police and fire trucks with hoses. A car of four Deacons emerged and, in view of the police, calmly loaded their shotguns. The police ordered the fire truck to withdraw. This was the first time in the twentieth century, as Lance Hill observes, “an armed black organization had successfully used weapons to defend a lawful protest against an attack by law enforcement.” Another example, as Hill writes, was, “In Jonesboro, the Deacons made history when they compelled Louisiana governor John McKeithen to intervene in the city’s civil rights crisis and require a compromise with city leaders — the first capitulation to the civil rights movement by a Deep South governor.”
Not much history of the Civil Rights Movement is focused on organizations like the Deacons because of a number of reasons. First, the dominant ideology of the Civil Rights Movement is one of practicing non-violence and this overarching view has been the only accepted way to think about the Civil Rights Movement. Second, the threats to the livelihood of the members required secrecy to be maintained. The Deacons kept their membership secret to avoid terrorist attacks on their supporters, and they recruited mature and male members, in contrast to more informal self-defense efforts in which women and teenagers also played a role. Finally, with the shift to Northern Black plight and the idea of Black Power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
emerging in major cities across America, the Deacons became the news of yesterday and organizations like The Black Panther Party gained notoriety and became the publicized militant Black organization.
The tactics of the Deacons attracted the attention and concern of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
, which commenced an investigation of the group. In the years to follow, the Bureau produced more than 1,500 pages of comprehensive and relatively accurate records on the Deacon’s activities, largely through numerous informants close to or even inside the organization. Members of the Deacons repeatedly were questioned and intimidated by F.B.I. agents. One member Harvey Johnson was “interviewed” by two agents who asked only about how the Deacons obtained their weapons. No questions about Klan activity or police brutality were ever asked. In February 1965, after a New York Times article was produced about the Deacons, J. Edgar Hoover became interested in the group. Lance Hill offers Hoover’s reaction which was sent to the field offices of the Bureau in Louisiana: “Because of the potential for violence indicated, you are instructed to immediately initiate an investigation of the DDJ [Deacons for Defense and Justice].” As was eventually exposed in the late 1970s, under its COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.COINTELPRO tactics included discrediting targets through psychological...
program, the FBI became involved in many illegal activities to spy on and undermine organizations that it deemed “a threat to the American way”. The Deacons, opposing White dominance (which the FBI seemed to conflate with "the American way"), were an organization that fell under this "threat" category for the FBI to spy on and undermine. However, with the advent of other militant Black Power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
organizations and the Black Power Movement becoming the more visible movement towards the later part of the 1960s, the involvement of the Deacons in the civil rights movement declined (and FBI interference with them did as well), with the presence of the Deacons all but vanishing by 1968.
Roy Innis
Roy Innis
Roy Emile Alfredo Innis is an African American civil rights activist. He has been National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality since his election to the position in 1968....
has said of the Deacons that they "forced the Klan to re-evaluate their actions and often change their undergarments", according to Ken Blackwell
Ken Blackwell
John Kenneth Blackwell is an American politician and activist who served as the mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio from 1979 to 1980 and Ohio Secretary of State from 1999 to 2007. A Republican, he was the first African-American to be the candidate for governor of a major party in Ohio. In 2006, Blackwell...
.
Further reading
- The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement, Lance Hill, University of North Carolina PressUniversity of North Carolina PressThe University of North Carolina Press , founded in 1922, is a university press that is part of the University of North Carolina....
(2004, ISBN 0-8078-2847-5).
External links
- "Niggers Ain't Gonna Run This Town" a prize-winning student paper
- The Education of Lance Hill How Lance Hill came to write The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement