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The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement
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.
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.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 17, 2023
Interesting look at the history of Civil Rights within the US. I had heard of the organization, just not by name, and by the results achieved. The material is high level, with ample documentation to research further
One of the best summations is from the text itself:
In an ideal world, rational argument and moral suasion should settle all conflicts. But that was not the history of the civil rights movement. We can predict with the precision of science that problems of inequality and ethnic competition for power and resources will persist well into the future. What the Deacons tell us is that when appeals to reason and morality fail, oppressed people will turn to coercive methods of disruption, force, and violence. ...... there is something inspiring in a story of people who stood up to injustice when everyone around them was afraid..."
November 9, 2015
The University of North Carolina Press has contributed an impressive array of titles to field of African-American history and this one of their best. This one is among a recent surge of historiography dedicated to dispelling what Lance Hill calls “The Myth of Nonviolence” in the African-American freedom struggle. (Others include Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power by Timothy B. Tyson, This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible by Charles E. Cobb Jr., and We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement by Akinyele Omowale Umoja). I can do no better than to quote Hill in his conclusion to concisely provide his thesis, one shared by some others in this trend in historical research:
”According to conventional wisdom, nonviolence provided the impetus for change during the civil rights movement. In some quarters it has become heresy to suggest otherwise. Historians, for the most part, continue to labor under this truism. But the experience of the Deacons…stubbornly contradict the myth of nonviolence.
“Nonviolence as the motive force for change became a reassuring myth of American moral redemption--a myth that assuaged white guilt by suggesting that racism was not intractable and deeply imbedded in American life, that racial segregation and discrimination were handily overcome by orderly polite protest and a generous American conscience, and that the pluralistic system for resolving conflicts between competing interests had prevailed. The system had worked and the nation was redeemed.
“It was a comforting but vacant fiction. In the end segregation yielded to force as much as it did to moral suasion. Violence in the force of street riots and armed self-defense played a fundamental role in uprooting segregation and economic and political discrimination from 1963 to 0165. Only after the threat of black violence emerged did civil rights legislation move to the forefront of the national agenda. Only after the Deacons appeared were the civil rights laws effectively enforced and the obstructions of terrorists and complicit local law enforcement agencies neutralized.”
As Hill notes later, “One of the great ironies of the civil rights movement was that black collective force did not simply enhance the bargaining power of moderates; it was the very source of their power.”
This is one of the best works of African-American history and of American radical history I have read. The Deacons for Defense is a must read and, along with the other titles I cited above, a vital corrective to the safe and self-congratulating view of the history of race relations in America promoted by mainstream historians.
”According to conventional wisdom, nonviolence provided the impetus for change during the civil rights movement. In some quarters it has become heresy to suggest otherwise. Historians, for the most part, continue to labor under this truism. But the experience of the Deacons…stubbornly contradict the myth of nonviolence.
“Nonviolence as the motive force for change became a reassuring myth of American moral redemption--a myth that assuaged white guilt by suggesting that racism was not intractable and deeply imbedded in American life, that racial segregation and discrimination were handily overcome by orderly polite protest and a generous American conscience, and that the pluralistic system for resolving conflicts between competing interests had prevailed. The system had worked and the nation was redeemed.
“It was a comforting but vacant fiction. In the end segregation yielded to force as much as it did to moral suasion. Violence in the force of street riots and armed self-defense played a fundamental role in uprooting segregation and economic and political discrimination from 1963 to 0165. Only after the threat of black violence emerged did civil rights legislation move to the forefront of the national agenda. Only after the Deacons appeared were the civil rights laws effectively enforced and the obstructions of terrorists and complicit local law enforcement agencies neutralized.”
As Hill notes later, “One of the great ironies of the civil rights movement was that black collective force did not simply enhance the bargaining power of moderates; it was the very source of their power.”
This is one of the best works of African-American history and of American radical history I have read. The Deacons for Defense is a must read and, along with the other titles I cited above, a vital corrective to the safe and self-congratulating view of the history of race relations in America promoted by mainstream historians.
May 22, 2022
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February 27, 2018
Real history real people and their struggles, suprising facts on the movement not taught and how battles were won by not backing down using weapons of self defense
July 18, 2013
I read this long ago. Lance Hill, the author is a long time friend. We met in Lawrence, Kansas where we were both active in the 60s. We were both members of the Sojourner Truth Organization in the 70s and 80s. He has been involved in organizing, activism, and anti racist work for decades and is now at Tulane where, although employed in academia, he continues his work (as do I). I believe right now we could sure as hell use the DEACONS FOR DEFENSE. I believe right now you should read this book. As so many struggle to figure out what to do in light of the legal lynching of Trayvon Martin, a look at the history of the DEACONS is in order as part of the answer.
February 6, 2010
this is the best book i have read so far about the civil rights movement and the local organizing that happened in the deep south. essential reading for all organizers and radicals!
May 2, 2017
A history of the single most effective organization of Blacks in the US south in the 60s. The only way to beat the KKK and the terrorist racist police forces was not calling for Federal action, it was showing the terrorist racists that they would no longer have a monopoly of force.
Unlike the mainstream, non-violent civil rights organisations, the Deacons were started on the ground in Northern Louisiana as an informal group to defend the CORE organizers in Jonesville. Again, unlike other such informal groups, they decided to go public. They quickly spread across Louisiana and Mississippi, confronting the Kluxers and the terrorist police forces, asserting their right to defend their families and homes as a collective group.
Their actions forced the Johnson administration to confront the possibility of real shooting war in the South, shooting both ways; after five years of doing absolutely nothing about the KKK in response to the non-violent organisations' policy of shaming them into it, the Justice Department and the FBI were made to actually act against the White Terror. Within months, faced with armed resistance and government action, the KKK were effectively dead in the lower Mississippi Valley.
Unlike the mainstream, non-violent civil rights organisations, the Deacons were started on the ground in Northern Louisiana as an informal group to defend the CORE organizers in Jonesville. Again, unlike other such informal groups, they decided to go public. They quickly spread across Louisiana and Mississippi, confronting the Kluxers and the terrorist police forces, asserting their right to defend their families and homes as a collective group.
Their actions forced the Johnson administration to confront the possibility of real shooting war in the South, shooting both ways; after five years of doing absolutely nothing about the KKK in response to the non-violent organisations' policy of shaming them into it, the Justice Department and the FBI were made to actually act against the White Terror. Within months, faced with armed resistance and government action, the KKK were effectively dead in the lower Mississippi Valley.
September 10, 2011
A solid primary document and oral history based monograph on a significant organization deliberately ignored by dogmatic non-violent historiographers. Well done!
March 19, 2022
there is zero in history books about armed civil rights resistance, therefore, this book provides much needed edification. an organized and effective armed resistance is however, mostly hype.
While some did bear arms, these militia, in various southern cities had varied states of organization and effectiveness. the best were as effective as the most broadcast/reported marches, boycotts and sit-ins. the worst were thuggish groups who turned weapons on their own members/constituents, an attempt of discipline through terror.
the author made some tenuous connections with non-violent civil rights leaders. not clear if armed resistance was simply tolerated, secretly championed, or actively subverted.
While some did bear arms, these militia, in various southern cities had varied states of organization and effectiveness. the best were as effective as the most broadcast/reported marches, boycotts and sit-ins. the worst were thuggish groups who turned weapons on their own members/constituents, an attempt of discipline through terror.
the author made some tenuous connections with non-violent civil rights leaders. not clear if armed resistance was simply tolerated, secretly championed, or actively subverted.
September 22, 2020
This was kind of a slow read for me, but overall it is excellent, full of detailed, perspective-changing information, covering the whole history of the Deacons for Defense, an armed Black self-defense group born in the Deep South in the 1960s. The important context is the prevalence of violence in the communities, at the hands of an emboldened Ku Klux Klan, and more official channels. The collaboration local business and government, and especially the police, with the Klan and with violent segregationists is detailed in full. A few of the other significant threads include: the historical evidence that even low-level consequences for the Klan and white mob members caused the groups and the power to diminish very quickly. Just arresting a few Klansmen for crimes they openly committed, applying the law to them, even if it mainly meant fines and court dates, had an out-sized impact. Another is the fact that, with racism applied differently in the North and in the South, it was difficult to get significant cross-cultural cooperation between the geographical areas. It's one thing to know the historical background and factors of the different regions, but as we see groups and individuals interact, it becomes much clearer that the struggles were very different. Something similar is seen in the larger theme of the book, which is the conflict between officially nonviolent civil rights activists and local communities.
There's a lot to take in here, but despite the large cast and unfolding of facts, Hill avoids the academic slant that can be off-putting to readers, and the legacy of the Deacons is important for Americans to know about.
There's a lot to take in here, but despite the large cast and unfolding of facts, Hill avoids the academic slant that can be off-putting to readers, and the legacy of the Deacons is important for Americans to know about.
April 1, 2023
I watch the movie (Deacons for Defense, 2003) twice before reading the book. As usual the book had more details that would never have been shown in the movie. I have to say I remember hearing about some the bad racial things that took place in the south and why my parents left there. WOW! I'm glad the Deacons for Defense (all ex-military and thank you for your service) stayed and fought for our freedom, again. Because evil flourish when good men and women do nothing. A good tell it like it was book to read!!!
August 15, 2020
Very Good book about a forgotten part of The civil rights movement. A book that should be required reading.
January 12, 2026
3.5 rtc
April 8, 2015
Lots of fascinating information in this book. Did you know in Jonesboro black people had no home mail delivery but white people did? And black people could only see a doctor at the hospital on Thursdays, since there was no black hospital in the town. And if a black woman delivered a baby there, the white nurses would often not wash the baby.
However, I found myself having difficulty staying engaged in this book.
However, I found myself having difficulty staying engaged in this book.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews