This Nonviolent Stuff Ll Get You Killed Summary

Before WORLD WAR I, military service represented a source of black pride. Black educators, clergymen, and the press frequently referred to Negro heroes of America’s past wars. After the Civil War, the U.S, Army maintained four regular Negro regiments –the 9th and 10th Calvary and the 24th and 25th Infantry. These units included veterans of the civil war and the frontier Indian fighting regiments. Retired sergeants often became respected, conservative leaders in their communities. This history set a foundation for black support and involvement in America’s future wars.

The civil rights movement was a time of great upheaval and change for the entire United States, but it was especially so in the South. The civil rights movement in the American South was one of the most triumphant and noteworthy social movements in the modern world. The civil rights movement was an enduring effort by Black Americans to obtain basic human and civil rights in the United States. Black Georgians formed part of this Southern movement for civil rights and the wider national struggle for racial equality. From Atlanta to Albany to the most rural counties in Georgia, black activists, and their white allies, protested white supremacy in a myriad of ways

Civil rights, a significant issue of the ‘60s, reached a climax in 1968 and hatched a novel approach racial strive. Even though Martin Luther King Jr. had waged a successful campaign of peaceful protests in US southern states, a growing number of younger activists began to feel that nonviolent tactics could not

Slavery was abolished after the Civil War, but the Negro race still was not accepted as equals into American society. To attain a better understanding of the events and struggles faced during this period, one must take a look at its' literature. James Weldon Johnson does an excellent job of vividly depicting an accurate portrait of the adversities faced before the Civil Rights Movement by the black community in his novel “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.” One does not only read this book, but instead one takes a journey alongside a burdened mulatto man as he struggles to claim one race as his own.

W.E.B. DuBois’ “Returning Soldiers,” an editorial piece written in May of 1919 for the NAACP’s publication The Crisis lays out for not just returning soldiers, but for African-Americans as a whole that the war is not over. While the Great War of 1914-1918 may have ended, there is still a greater war to continue to fight on the American homefront. “Returning Soldiers” calls out the United States government on the charges against its people as seen by DuBois and reiterates and rejuvenates the reader for the fight it still needs to take on. The black man soldier may have escaped the battlefields of France and now be able to shed the uniform that symbolizes the systematic injustices he faced, but upon returning, in his “civil garb” he is still a soldier, only in a different military.

Many African Americans would have separate schools, bus seats, and even fountain drinks for the “colored”. If an African American would ever break these “laws”, they were either jailed, beaten, or killed for it. In response, many Africans saw the negative effects of violence and instead of choosing to fight back violently, they chose to protest through “nonviolence [,] as it grows from Judaic-Christian traditions [and] seeks a social order of justice permeated by love” (Doc. A). Many African Americans believed that through nonviolence it would help benefit the fight for equality because it would help them gain sympathy and support from the people through the sight violence being used on peaceful people. However, many African American’s were getting frustrated at how long it was taking to gain equality, protection of civil rights, and justice in courts so many thought that the time had “come for black people to arm themselves against [violence] before it [was] too late” (Doc. F) Many African Americans then started to turn to violence to try to push the fight for equality, but this was ultimately a disastrous decision because this caused the Civil Rights Movement to lose a lot of support they had from the

According to the Virginia Historical Society there was a piece written by P. B. Young, editor of the Norfolk Journal and Guide, a newspaper at the time, wrote a few touching words to Liberals, "Help us get some of the blessings of democracy here at home before you jump on the 'free other peoples' band wagon and tell us to go forth and die in a foreign land." To add to this President Roosevelt’s wife, Eleanor, said "The nation cannot expect the colored people to feel that the U.S. is worth defending if they continue to be treated as they are treated now." Despite of the discrimination that young black men faced in the military it was still a better option than being unemployed and living in poverty.

The American Civil Rights Movement in the late 1950s and 1960s generated massive international following and controversy, which made the movement one of the most important in U.S. history. The movement’s legacy can still be felt today, with the positive aspects, such as voting rights to African Americans and wide spread desegregation of public facilities, still being felt in the United States, and in many similar models across the globe. Although there were many “battlegrounds” where civil issues were debated, many people who know of the movement today would argue that the movement’s heart was rooted in the Deep South, ironically where it could be argued that the mentality of people living in the area at the time were the most violently opposed to such civil rights. In contrast, those who championed the Civil Rights Movement chose the tactic of nonviolence, at least at first, as a tool to dismantle racial segregation, discrimination, and inequality. They followed models that Martin Luther King Jr. and other activists had commissioned, using principles of nonviolence and passive resistance. Civil rights leaders had understood that segregationists would do anything to maintain their power over blacks. So, in consequence, they believed some changes might be made if enough people outside the

Through the rise of groups such as the Black Panther Party, violence became increasingly prevalent. “The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense calls upon the American people in general and the black people in particular to take careful note of the racist California Legislature which is now considering legislation aimed at keeping the black people disarmed and powerless at the very same time that racist police agencies throughout the country are intensifying the terror, brutality, murder, and repression of black people (Document F).” As a result of the lack of movement on the bill previously proposed my Kennedy to remove segregation, many African-Americans began to give up on this method of peaceful protest. “All of these efforts have been answered by more repression, deceit, and hypocrisy (Document F).” This is because as it appeared to them, it was not working and had no effect on the government. Instead, they discovered a much more direct approach which, was assured to catch the eye of the government. This method was violence. “The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense believes that the time has come for the black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late (Document F).” Through violent “black power” groups such as the Black Panthers, the previously peaceful Civil Rights movement began to take on a new

African-Americans have fought on many of liberty’s battlefields from the pre-emancipated plantation to the killing fields of the Civil War. African-Americans have always been willing to fight not just for their freedom, but for their country as well. Yet, their country never lived up to its founding document that asserts that, “All men are created equal; ”instead,

Former student activist and SNCC field Secretary Charles Cobb, acknowledges that guns were imperative to the Freedom Movement. Cobb asserts in his book, This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed as well as in his interview with Eddie Conway--that guns are left out of the conversation but black people have owned guns since the ending of the civil war. Guns were used since the Reconstruction era against white supremacist organizations. In his interview with Eddie Conway Cobb states that guns fit into the story of the freedom movement because guns were a part of the culture, people would use to protect themselves and feed their families. Being that guns were a part of everyday life in the rural south, it should not be surprising that black people

As David Blight says in his novel, Race and Reunion, after the Civil War and emancipation, Americans were faced with the overwhelming task of trying to understand the relationship between “two profound ideas—healing and justice.” While he admits that both had to occur on some level, healing from the war was not the same “proposition” for many whites, especially veterans, as doing justice for the millions of emancipated slaves and their descendants (Blight 3). Blight claims that African Americans did not want an apology for slavery, but instead a helping hand. Thus, after the Civil War, two visions of Civil War memory arose and combined: the reconciliationist vison, which focused on the issue of dealing with the dead from the battlefields, hospitals, and prisons, and the emancipationist vision, which focused on African Americans’ remembrance of their own freedom and in conceptions of the war as the “liberation of [African Americans] to citizenship and Constitutional equality” (Blight 2).

This book explores the relationship between nonviolence and armed self-defense in the Civil Rights Movement in the South. Cobb points out the importance of armed self-defense in African American history and its role in the Civil Rights Movement. Cobb gives a voice to war veterans, nonviolent activists, and members of the armed self-defense groups to explain the significance of self-protection during the Civil Rights Movement. Cobb discusses how dangerous nonviolence political demonstrations were in an area (the South) where Jim Crow laws

The book is written by, Slotkin, Richard. Lost Battalions: The Great War and the Crisis of American Nationality. New York, N.Y: Henry Holt and Company, 2005. Print. During the Great War, American Nationality and a nation struggling with inequalities came to the forefront. Slotkin concentrates his writings on the heroic African American troops of the 369th Infantry and the legendary 77th “lost battalion” composed of New York City immigrants. These brave men fought in a foreign war they didn’t even believe in; what they were really fighting for was the right to be treated equal

The W.E.B DuBois refer to black soldiers as “Soldiers of Democracy” because they are coming back from war willing to fight for Democracy in the United States of America. They have fought in the war for the U.S and now they are coming to fight in it, to save Democracy. These soldiers claim that the problems of their country are their problems too, and that they would be cowards not to use their “brain and brawn to fight a sterner, longer, more unbending battle against the forces of hell in our own land”. These soldiers are aware of the rights deprived to the nation’s citizens and are not willing to stand for it. Now that they have returned from war they are ready to fight for a real Democracy