Speaker 1: Clo and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff, the
Speaker 1: podcast that is totally not advocating for people to do crime,
Speaker 1: despite being a podcast almost exclusively what people who did crime.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Margaret Kildoy, and our guest this week
Speaker 1: is the one and only Jewa Minique. Well, how are
Speaker 1: you doing on this day of the week That is
Speaker 1: totally a different day of the week and not just
Speaker 1: the same day that we recorded the previous It is
Speaker 1: not still gray out, and then I guess that it's
Speaker 1: colder because it's a week later into December, and I
Speaker 1: will say I'm good, still bundled up in these sweaters
Speaker 1: and under blankets, just making it through the winter time. Excellent, excellent.
Speaker 1: And our producer Sophie is out this week because she's
Speaker 1: on a top secret undercover mission into a land of evil.
Speaker 1: But our here, Ian is now our producer, Ian, how
Speaker 1: are you. I'm doing good, Margaret, I'm just honored to
Speaker 1: be on Mike. I'm just happy to be here. You know,
Speaker 1: it's you know, sometimes people don't like to know how
Speaker 1: the sausage is made, but here I am ruining this price.
Speaker 1: And our audio engineers, of course, Ian, and our theme
Speaker 1: music was done for the show by the wonderful musician
Speaker 1: on Woman, which sometimes people must hear me as saying
Speaker 1: a woman, but no it is not. I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: it is a woman, but her name is on Woman,
Speaker 1: and you can find her music wherever you listen to music.
Speaker 1: I don't know whatever. So this is part two of
Speaker 1: a two part series on the armed civil rights movement
Speaker 1: of the nineteen sixty South, and it probably won't make
Speaker 1: much sense if you don't listen to part one. I
Speaker 1: would never tell you what to do, dear listener, but
Speaker 1: you might want to consider listening to part one before
Speaker 1: part two if you haven't done that yet. Where we
Speaker 1: last left our heroes, they were organizers, just disaggregating places
Speaker 1: and registering voters. But just as heroic were the armed
Speaker 1: black families that kept guard over them as they slept
Speaker 1: and drove back klansmen with rifles and shotguns and revolvers
Speaker 1: and apparently molotovs. And some of these people are about
Speaker 1: to get organized, and that's what we're gonna talk about today.
Speaker 1: You're excited, you ready, I'm thrilled. That is like a
Speaker 1: boom moment for me, Like, let's hear about the start
Speaker 1: of organization. Yeah. The first organized group of black defenders
Speaker 1: of the civil rights movement that I was able to
Speaker 1: find was paradoxically under the name the N Double A
Speaker 1: c P. Amazing yeah, um, the National Association for the
Speaker 1: Advancement of Colored People who show up sometimes on this show,
Speaker 1: not just this episode, but other shows, because a ton
Speaker 1: of RAT people have done work with the NA Double
Speaker 1: a CP over the years. But during the Civil rights
Speaker 1: era they were not known as one of the more
Speaker 1: radical organizations. They still did. Really not trying to say
Speaker 1: anything negative about them here, but like you know, they're
Speaker 1: not known as like in the way that Snick and
Speaker 1: Corps were, as like pushing the envelope, right, but a
Speaker 1: chapter of them in Monroe, North Carolina went rogue. Yeah,
Speaker 1: go on, go on, all right, So you can trace
Speaker 1: this back to there was a black vet named Benny Montgomery,
Speaker 1: UM who came home from World War Two. He does
Speaker 1: steal plate in his skull because he got wounded while
Speaker 1: you know, stopping the fucking Nazis. His white employer back
Speaker 1: in North Carolina treated him like ship I presume was
Speaker 1: a racist based on everything else that happened in this
Speaker 1: whole thing. They got into an argument and Benny slid
Speaker 1: his boss's throat in the resulting fight, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: He stopped the Nazis and he killed a racist white boss.
Speaker 1: I've got no problem with Benny Montgomery so far. Benny's
Speaker 1: really aces for me. It sounds like a hero to
Speaker 1: the state of North Carolina did not find Benny to
Speaker 1: be a hero for this particular action, and they executed him. Um,
Speaker 1: of course it should have been the end of it.
Speaker 1: And it was like God and the way it's sometimes
Speaker 1: written about it presents us if it's like this, like
Speaker 1: great justice because he didn't get lynched like they the
Speaker 1: clan tried to before he was executed. They tried to
Speaker 1: um drag him out of the jail. But it's like,
Speaker 1: but justice prevailed and he wasn't lynched. He was instead
Speaker 1: just as lynch by the state instead whatever. Like yeah, okay, people,
Speaker 1: that is a wild thing that continues to happen today.
Speaker 1: We can look at Britney Griner's case where people are like, well,
Speaker 1: she did a crime, so now she has to go
Speaker 1: to jail. And I just if you hear people in
Speaker 1: your circle, imagine if he lils into this podcast. You
Speaker 1: hopefully don't have those thoughts. But if you, you know,
Speaker 1: are surrounded by people who are like that, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe just remind them we don't necessarily need prisons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, just imagine a world where we don't have
Speaker 1: to lock up people for petty fucking crimes like having
Speaker 1: very small amounts of weed. It's ridiculous, ridiculous. So so Benny, yeah,
Speaker 1: gets executed. This should have been the end of it.
Speaker 1: But the clan they're salty that they They're also like,
Speaker 1: this is grave injustice that the state is the one
Speaker 1: who killed him instead of us. Um, okay, so they
Speaker 1: try to lynch his dead body. Oh my god. They
Speaker 1: tell the funeral home director that if they don't hand
Speaker 1: the body over to them, they'll kill him. Um, this
Speaker 1: doesn't have spoiler, This doesn't happen. That clan doesn't get
Speaker 1: their way. A bunch of Black Vets met up at
Speaker 1: a barber shop and they were like, no, we we
Speaker 1: can't let that happen. So almost forty Vets with their
Speaker 1: service rifles stood guard outside the funeral home. The clan
Speaker 1: like drove by, ready to like go be evil, and
Speaker 1: they took one look at the service rifles, which included
Speaker 1: Benny's own rifle, which I think is yeah, and the
Speaker 1: clan just noped out of there. They were like, we're gone, goodbye,
Speaker 1: plan horrible people Westborough back is asked bitches like almost
Speaker 1: like every time they face any kind of opposition, they're
Speaker 1: just like, oh wait, never mind, they can fight back.
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, yeah, suddenly uninterested, like I'm sure there's counter examples,
Speaker 1: but I haven't found them yet. Um never find them,
Speaker 1: I know. So the local Double A CP in Monroe
Speaker 1: had started out like a lot of n Double A
Speaker 1: CP chapters, a sort of a social club for middle
Speaker 1: class black folks. But in the nineteen fifties, the clan
Speaker 1: started fucking with them in Monroe, and most of the
Speaker 1: Double A CP members left the organization because they're like,
Speaker 1: oh this this is hard and scary. But a few
Speaker 1: of them remained. Um, and two of them remained were vets,
Speaker 1: and they immediately started recruiting the working class to the
Speaker 1: Double A CP. And they did something that no other
Speaker 1: U A CP was doing. And this one's kind of funny.
Speaker 1: They formed a chapter of the n r A. Officially,
Speaker 1: they like wrote the n r A and we're like,
Speaker 1: we would like to form a chapter called the Monroe
Speaker 1: Rifle Club or the Blackguards as they called themselves or
Speaker 1: get called. What is it? The only story I've found
Speaker 1: so far at any of my research where the n
Speaker 1: r A affiliated people did anything cool, but Wow, m
Speaker 1: are allowed you to go back and look at your
Speaker 1: history because you're not out here defending black people using
Speaker 1: stand their ground, you know, like the girls who are
Speaker 1: being trafficked and then shoot their abusers, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: get back into your old hat. Amazing. Yeah, No, totally,
Speaker 1: And I think there's like within the sort of a
Speaker 1: political gun culture, there are people who are like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's cool when people fight against depression, you know, but
Speaker 1: they're not clearly the dominant arc of the n r
Speaker 1: A or gun culture in the United States. So you
Speaker 1: now have the Blackguards. In ninety seven in Monroe, North Carolina,
Speaker 1: a kid drowned in the unsafe swimming holes that the
Speaker 1: local black kids were forced to use because the pool
Speaker 1: was segregated. So the vice president of the Double A
Speaker 1: CP was a guy named Dr Perry. He was one
Speaker 1: of the kind of holdovers from when it was middle class,
Speaker 1: but he was one of the ones. Maybe he rules
Speaker 1: and he decides to stay to sit in at the
Speaker 1: white only pool, and he organizes with a bunch of
Speaker 1: kids who go and like wait in um in their
Speaker 1: swim trunks and towels, like waiting to be let into
Speaker 1: the pool. And of course they're not that into the pool. Um.
Speaker 1: And the fucking bravery of those kids, Like it's hard
Speaker 1: to wrap my head around how brave those kids are
Speaker 1: to go stand there and there swim trunks and towels.
Speaker 1: This is and this is three years before the sid
Speaker 1: In movement. Yeah, that's uh, kids are I feel like
Speaker 1: kids are aware but naive about end results, right, and
Speaker 1: so they have this idea of like especially I think
Speaker 1: you know, as a black kid for my generation. I
Speaker 1: can't speak on this generation too much, but like the
Speaker 1: idea of these are your rights and you should be
Speaker 1: allowed allowed access to them is the thing that we
Speaker 1: were taught a lot, and so you know, we would
Speaker 1: do bold ass things as an adult you know I
Speaker 1: may not do. And so can you can you tell
Speaker 1: me any of those legally good stories? Um so, And
Speaker 1: I tell you that story I will say in broad
Speaker 1: in broad strokes, when properly eight was happening and we
Speaker 1: were marching a lot. This is like my early college years. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there may have been some verbal harassments against
Speaker 1: some armed government officials as we were moving through the
Speaker 1: streets that you know today I would not I would
Speaker 1: definitely not do. But we were angry, and we were young,
Speaker 1: and we were absolutely willing to tell people about themselves
Speaker 1: and what they should do with her. Granted, not as
Speaker 1: brave as these kids, because we were surrounded. There are
Speaker 1: thousands of us in the street. Um. I think it's
Speaker 1: incredibly brave to be in the fifties standing outside of pool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, without it sounds like any weapons are just
Speaker 1: and there's one trumps and towels. It's amazing, an amazing
Speaker 1: decision they made. Yeah, and I don't have any record
Speaker 1: of anything bad happening to them as a result of it. Um.
Speaker 1: And so the clan they fucking hate Dr Perry. They
Speaker 1: already didn't like him vice President a CP. He's black
Speaker 1: and middle class and educated. He's throwing down with the
Speaker 1: working class. He wasn't scared of them. And also he
Speaker 1: was Catholic, and the clan has this whole thing against
Speaker 1: the Catholics. Wow, that is a full plate of things
Speaker 1: that the k k K is not about. No, no,
Speaker 1: not at all. So they the clan got together their
Speaker 1: show of force on October five seven. They had a
Speaker 1: big old rally with a big old cross burning, and
Speaker 1: then they drove ton our motorcade to Dr Perry's house.
Speaker 1: They were going to stop Dr Perry once and for all,
Speaker 1: but um Dr Perry and the Blackguards they didn't scare
Speaker 1: and they knew the Clan was coming, and they were
Speaker 1: they were vets. They're seeing combat before. Okay, so they
Speaker 1: instead of a scared middle class doctor hiding in his house,
Speaker 1: they found sand bag fortifications with automatic weapons. Oh hell yeah,
Speaker 1: like action. They wanted all the smoke. I love it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so the clan shows up and they start shooting.
Speaker 1: The Clan start shooting at the sand bag fortifications because
Speaker 1: they're not known for their intelligence. The Blackguard fire back,
Speaker 1: and they intentionally fire into the ground because they they
Speaker 1: it was a defensive gesture, right, and it was meant
Speaker 1: to scare the clan off, and it worked. The Clan
Speaker 1: stopped their raids, not just on Dr Perry, but just
Speaker 1: in the area. Just the Clan's just done. The next day,
Speaker 1: the city council bans plan motor kids because they're like,
Speaker 1: this is we can't have this this will go bad.
Speaker 1: I love this news. This is a wonderful. That's one
Speaker 1: thing about the clan. They're consistent and I know because
Speaker 1: I mean, what is racism, But this ideology of fear,
Speaker 1: it's this, I want to be in charge all the
Speaker 1: time of everyone, and everyone has to do what I say,
Speaker 1: and I'm afraid that that will change. It's like a
Speaker 1: perceived threat to your power, your established you know, societal standing,
Speaker 1: and that scares the ship out of people. It's also
Speaker 1: it's weird, irrational. I want to stress that word, irrational,
Speaker 1: fear that if there's equity, black people will try to
Speaker 1: turn the tables and enslave white people, which is a
Speaker 1: thing we hear them talk about all the damn time.
Speaker 1: And it's just like, I just want y'all to know
Speaker 1: that slavery sounds hard, like for both people. It's exhausting.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to force people to stay or brutalize
Speaker 1: their body like nobody wants this except you, or trying
Speaker 1: to make sure we do on backslide okay, black and
Speaker 1: left alone. Yeah, And it seems, you know, it's very
Speaker 1: obvious growing up, I mean, having decent politics like this
Speaker 1: seems very obvious. To me, you know, I really struggle
Speaker 1: to imagine the mindset of these like nineteen fifties white racists,
Speaker 1: and like, but yeah, they fucking you're talking. It's exactly
Speaker 1: that they're afraid of fucking turning the tables, like whatever.
Speaker 1: Fucking cowards. So the local leader of the Monroe and
Speaker 1: Double A CP was a man named Robert Williams. He
Speaker 1: later wrote a book called Negroes with Guns and as
Speaker 1: influential on the Black Panthers. He wrote in ninety nine,
Speaker 1: I wish to make it clear that I do not
Speaker 1: advocate violence for its own sake or for the sake
Speaker 1: of reprisals against whites, Nor am I against the passive
Speaker 1: resistance advocated by Reverend Martin Luther King and others. My
Speaker 1: only difference with Dr King is that I believe in
Speaker 1: flexibility in the freedom struggle. Robert had a rough couple
Speaker 1: of years as a result of his advocacy for armed defense,
Speaker 1: as like one of the first prominent black people being like,
Speaker 1: we actually are completely fine with using violence as necessary
Speaker 1: to defend ourselves. Then Double A c CP disavowed him,
Speaker 1: like canceled the Monroe chapter over the issue of violence,
Speaker 1: and then he was framed almost certainly by the FEDS.
Speaker 1: It's like not proven, but we've all read about co
Speaker 1: intel prob and ship. He was framed for kidnapping a
Speaker 1: white couple and he had to flee the country. Him
Speaker 1: and his wife had to flee the country for about
Speaker 1: a decade later, he was found innocent at trial, and
Speaker 1: the white couple had been pressured, presumably by the FEDS,
Speaker 1: to lie and claim that he had kidnapped them. So
Speaker 1: that's the first organized black armed civil rights or defense
Speaker 1: organization I know about. Wasn't the last, wasn't the largest,
Speaker 1: but it was the first that I found. And they're cool.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna tell you about another one, and this
Speaker 1: one doesn't have a name. This one is in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Speaker 1: The clan was running rampant, and so a group of
Speaker 1: about a hundred or so local folks organized a nameless,
Speaker 1: militarily structured, semi secret society of armed Community Defenders. Okay,
Speaker 1: can we just pause right there. Here's what I love
Speaker 1: about everything you just said. They said, don't give it
Speaker 1: a fucking name. Don't let them be able to search us.
Speaker 1: They can't find us if they don't know who we are.
Speaker 1: Keep it secret, don't talk about it in public. It
Speaker 1: was definitely fight club rules. I feel I'm inferring. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate this approach to it. That's amazing. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're you're you're really onto what they were onto. Like
Speaker 1: they and they came from all walks of life. Uh.
Speaker 1: They were factory workers to businessmen to gang members. Which
Speaker 1: is not the first time. There's two times I talked
Speaker 1: about in the last episodes that I did about people
Speaker 1: fighting the clan, about gang members versus the clan. All
Speaker 1: of them had combat experience, all of them were picked
Speaker 1: for being trustworthy and of good character. There's like this
Speaker 1: like intense background check to join this secret society. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be like these are the rules
Speaker 1: that other people should use. But you had to be married,
Speaker 1: you couldn't be a drunk, and you had to have
Speaker 1: a reputation for keeping your fucking mouth shut. Um. And
Speaker 1: I think I think this one was all men. Um.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about later about when this wasn't wasn't And
Speaker 1: the certainly the decentralized groups included a large number of women,
Speaker 1: as like you know, a lot of the examples are
Speaker 1: like the seven year old woman, the shotgun or whatever. Right,
Speaker 1: But this nameless organization they avoided all press and publicity.
Speaker 1: And what they did is they set up armed guards
Speaker 1: outside of activists residents. Like basically, if someone would like
Speaker 1: slow down they didn't recognize them, they'd be like keep
Speaker 1: sucking driving, or sometimes they as people would drive up
Speaker 1: to places, they would set up a checkpoint and stop
Speaker 1: them and if the people couldn't prove why they were there,
Speaker 1: sometimes shoot at the car or whatever. Yeah, like and uh.
Speaker 1: And then they would also act as bodyguards to the
Speaker 1: like non violent. Once again, this is tied in to
Speaker 1: the non violence movement. So one white activist talked about
Speaker 1: how she didn't even know she was being protected until later.
Speaker 1: People just followed her at a distance, concealed carrying, ready
Speaker 1: to fight if need be, because people were getting killed
Speaker 1: for this work. You know, before the Defenders, the clan
Speaker 1: had run patrols outside of the activist meetings. They would
Speaker 1: just like drive by and keep track of who was
Speaker 1: there or whatever. They got faced down one time and
Speaker 1: they never returned. On July, a few black teenagers went
Speaker 1: to a movie theater to test desegregation, and over two
Speaker 1: hundred white racists were there to attack these few black teenagers.
Speaker 1: So these secret defenders showed up with two cars full
Speaker 1: of armed men, picked the teenagers up and drove them
Speaker 1: away from the mob. But the klansmen were waiting at
Speaker 1: the entrance to the black neighborhood where they knew that
Speaker 1: these people would be going right, and they opened fire
Speaker 1: on the cars. The combat vets open fire right, the
Speaker 1: fun back, the clan went running, and the clan kept
Speaker 1: its head down after that. You know what's interesting, Okay,
Speaker 1: m So if we look at police shooting records, they're
Speaker 1: all over the map, and if they're shooting against like
Speaker 1: a lot of gangsters of all ilk like don't have
Speaker 1: their terrible shooters because you're not going frequently. But police,
Speaker 1: you know, they have to do target practice or whatever,
Speaker 1: and then their police so they're used to drawing or
Speaker 1: guns or whatever. But going up against military people is
Speaker 1: an entirely different game changing scenario. Like you are not
Speaker 1: prepared for battle the way that they are. And I
Speaker 1: love the idea, man. This I think is something that
Speaker 1: we're starting to talk about and seymore in our popular culture.
Speaker 1: But the return of World War two vets is a
Speaker 1: huge impact in the civil rights movement. Strictly because like,
Speaker 1: when you understand what it is to be liberated, you
Speaker 1: actually have helped liberate cities. You're treated with respect um,
Speaker 1: and then you come home and expected to you know,
Speaker 1: for lack of a better word, go back to being
Speaker 1: a nigga. Like it's really I think empowering to then
Speaker 1: say you know what, no, we have all of the
Speaker 1: tools and skills because white America didn't want to go
Speaker 1: fight this war. Like that is bananas, Like you made
Speaker 1: the problem worse. You made the problems by not going
Speaker 1: to fight it yourself. I love this story, this is beautiful. Yeah, no, totally,
Speaker 1: And like it's not a coincidence to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: like obviously, like most of the wars the US has
Speaker 1: gotten involved in have not been good, right um, And
Speaker 1: like I know this is like the critique to be
Speaker 1: made of the good war or whatever. Like overall, it
Speaker 1: is good that people wouldn't stop the fucking Nazis, right
Speaker 1: Whereas yeah, and they had a good time to a stop.
Speaker 1: The current US wars are not ones that I would
Speaker 1: be like, oh, that's cool, right, But it's still not
Speaker 1: a coincidence that some of the people, one of the
Speaker 1: people who stop the Colorado. Maybe two of the people
Speaker 1: who stop the Colorado Spring shooters wells, both of them
Speaker 1: were vets, Yeah, and complicated feelings about all of it,
Speaker 1: but learning how to engage in bad situations is a
Speaker 1: skill that is useful within our communities. And we've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of vets become vocal about over policing and
Speaker 1: the fact that the police haven't describe themselves as being
Speaker 1: in combat zones when they're like, you are not, and
Speaker 1: he's if you were, this is not how you'd be
Speaker 1: allowed to behave if you were part of the military.
Speaker 1: Get the hell out. And I hope Welly continue to
Speaker 1: see arise in that because it should be different. And
Speaker 1: you know, I don't like people playing military like you
Speaker 1: either are or you aren't. But to be out here
Speaker 1: and regale you talking about how you're in an armed
Speaker 1: force when you've never served a day in your life
Speaker 1: is pathetic. Yeah, totally, you're in an armed And then
Speaker 1: also just like talking about that being like, so you're
Speaker 1: in a war against the American people, great, awesome, cool,
Speaker 1: if you're in a war against the American people, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm one of the American you know, Like, I guess it.
Speaker 1: I don't even want to say that out loud. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well this actually next one will tie into policing in
Speaker 1: a little bit interesting way. The group from this era
Speaker 1: that actually, wait, maybe it's time to tell you instead
Speaker 1: of about this group from this era, maybe it's time
Speaker 1: to tell you about capitalism and how you can engage
Speaker 1: in it. And all of us who are on this
Speaker 1: podcast like routinely eating food. I'm just going on a limb.
Speaker 1: You speak for you, but like I like eating food
Speaker 1: every days, addicted to food, and I like eating it,
Speaker 1: and I use money for most of my food. My
Speaker 1: gardening skills are not quite there yet. Yeah, they haven't
Speaker 1: made it free yet. Yeah, I will say here's the
Speaker 1: secret though, I get paid whether or not you buy
Speaker 1: the things from the supposed to know. Yeah, by it
Speaker 1: out all right? Ads back from ads, Welcome back from ads.
Speaker 1: Those are some good services. It's usually pot When I
Speaker 1: listened to cool Zone shows, I mostly hear ads for
Speaker 1: other podcasts, which is actually fine by me. I like podcasts.
Speaker 1: There's a reason past. Yeah, big fan. So we have
Speaker 1: the unnamed Defenders and now we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the group from this era that did all of this
Speaker 1: most famously into grades effect, we're gonna talk about the
Speaker 1: Deacons for Defense and Justice. And it's funny too because
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, the most famous group about this, Like,
Speaker 1: I didn't know about this group until very recently because
Speaker 1: I just didn't hear much about the armed component of
Speaker 1: the non violent struggle because when I was in school,
Speaker 1: they just taught me about pacivism, and then when I
Speaker 1: was like getting into you know, political radicalism or whatever,
Speaker 1: I would just mostly hear about the Black Power era,
Speaker 1: on the Black Panthers and the stuff that comes later. Um,
Speaker 1: but so this sort of I didn't hear about the
Speaker 1: Deacons for Defense and Justice. Nobody talks about the organizers.
Speaker 1: It's not glamorous, it's not scary or dangerous or cool.
Speaker 1: It's just work. But it's in this sorry, but it's
Speaker 1: essential work. It's absolutely necessary work for any of the
Speaker 1: other things to happen. No, totally, totally, Well, this one
Speaker 1: is gonna get a little scary, but it's gonna work
Speaker 1: out for most of the people in the story. Jonesborough, Louisiana,
Speaker 1: is a tiny fucking town. About four thousand people lived
Speaker 1: there in nineteen sixty, not the size of town that
Speaker 1: most people think about. Very often the soil there was shitty,
Speaker 1: which meant that there were no plantations there, but it
Speaker 1: was hella segregated and poor and had a huge clan presence,
Speaker 1: and most people white or black work for the paper
Speaker 1: mill or the chemical factory. There's been an n Double
Speaker 1: A c PEA chapter there in the forties, but Louisiana
Speaker 1: passed a law forcing and the Double A c P
Speaker 1: chapters I think specifically to disclose their memberships because they're racist,
Speaker 1: and so they changed their name from then Double A
Speaker 1: CP to the Jackson Parish Progressive Voters League in order
Speaker 1: to not have to give all of their names to
Speaker 1: the funtimes. You got to play these games, okay, even
Speaker 1: coming here being racist actually gotta outsmart you protected by
Speaker 1: people that is not to be like, hey, can we
Speaker 1: get a hit list please? Oh my god, yeah, we
Speaker 1: changed our name. No more Double A CP because this
Speaker 1: other thing doesn't even mention race. It's just so happens
Speaker 1: that everyone who cares about progress in this town is
Speaker 1: the church, you claim, except everybody so perfect. So in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, the Voting Rights Act had passed, making
Speaker 1: all voter registration and all that ship illegal. But of
Speaker 1: course nothing changed on the ground in and of itself.
Speaker 1: And so that's what you know Snick and Cora and
Speaker 1: all these other groups were doing was in some ways okay.
Speaker 1: So it's like a maz you're a part of us history,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to race relations. Is the federal
Speaker 1: government finally fucking passing some basic human decency laws, but
Speaker 1: then not actually enforcing them or being capable of enforcing
Speaker 1: them depending on the time and whether or not they
Speaker 1: care different places. Um, so people actually have to go
Speaker 1: out and do it right against their own local governments
Speaker 1: and their sheriffs and their ship and all that ship
Speaker 1: four Jones burroh Louisiana almost at Alabama, but Jones Burro Louisiana.
Speaker 1: The clan is running around being fucked up. They burned
Speaker 1: like four or five black churches, They burned down a
Speaker 1: Masonic hall, they burned down a Baptist center, and black
Speaker 1: and white core organizers came to town to work on
Speaker 1: voter registration and they had been invited by the local
Speaker 1: Black Baptist church and they were housed in a house
Speaker 1: that got called Freedom House that the local community fixed
Speaker 1: up for them, which is like cool and also has disadvantages.
Speaker 1: Most of the time, organizers would come in and stay
Speaker 1: with a family, which gives a certain amount of protection.
Speaker 1: But instead the community was able to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: we have this dilapidated house, will fix up for you
Speaker 1: and you can all live there. But unfortunately target yeah
Speaker 1: full of non violent people. Um, and non violent people
Speaker 1: are a little bit at risk because they're known to
Speaker 1: not be carrying firearms. So as soon as the core
Speaker 1: starts coming to town, students in the area start fighting
Speaker 1: against segregation, specifically black students. I don't think the white
Speaker 1: kids were super woke. The clan of course, was like,
Speaker 1: what's that black people voting and having a say and
Speaker 1: how their lives are ran There's some of them are
Speaker 1: swimming in public or reading in the library. We can't
Speaker 1: have that, um, because that's how they all talk. Totally
Speaker 1: no that that was a spot on, thank you. I'm
Speaker 1: definitely not getting any acting jobs out of this podcast.
Speaker 1: But and so they started doing more clan ship and
Speaker 1: they started harassing the house and any picket lines that
Speaker 1: people were forming. And they first they will like drive
Speaker 1: by yelling ship at the house, and then they would
Speaker 1: drive by shooting guns in the air at the house,
Speaker 1: and then they just drive by shooting the house, right,
Speaker 1: and since core was non violent, they weren't armed, but
Speaker 1: a few locals were, including a guy known to history
Speaker 1: with the awesome name Chili Willie. Hell, Yes, Ernest Chili
Speaker 1: Willie Thomas. I'm actually sort of annoyed most history books,
Speaker 1: like his name is clearly Chili Willie. That's why it's
Speaker 1: in quote. It's the name he actually wanted to go by. Um,
Speaker 1: But most people, most of the history books like avoid
Speaker 1: specifically calling them that. They just called Ernest over or whatever. Again, listen,
Speaker 1: if somebody has a dove nickname and it's referred to,
Speaker 1: that gives you so much character, like depiction and inspiration,
Speaker 1: Like you understand, like a you don't funk with someone
Speaker 1: named Chili Willi, Okay, under all circumstances, you do not
Speaker 1: want to pick a fight, Okay. But it's also it's
Speaker 1: like that's what he wanted to be called. Just call
Speaker 1: him that, totally. So, Chili Willie and a few of
Speaker 1: his friends started hanging out at Freedom House. They're just
Speaker 1: start sitting on the porch or shadowing the activists as
Speaker 1: they moved through town. Basically, the deal was like, y'all
Speaker 1: can be non violent that's great us. We're not nonviolent.
Speaker 1: We'll defend you. To quote a CORE organizer, Fred Brooks,
Speaker 1: if we had a picket line, these guys were standing
Speaker 1: on the corner on both sides of the street. Wherever
Speaker 1: we went, it was like a caravan. These guys in
Speaker 1: the pickup trucks with the high powered rifles up in
Speaker 1: the back. White people didn't mess with us. The defenders
Speaker 1: would come by at night and want to know what
Speaker 1: the next day's agenda was. Different ones of them took
Speaker 1: different patrols. We told them. They told us we were
Speaker 1: not to leave the black community without security. And to
Speaker 1: quote another organizer about the impact of the experience, he's
Speaker 1: like writing back to the rest of CORE, the concept
Speaker 1: that we are going to go south and through love
Speaker 1: and patients change the hearts and minds of southern whites
Speaker 1: should be totally disregarded. So some new defenders. So you
Speaker 1: have these defends right, they don't have a name. Yet
Speaker 1: another group of folks want to do it legit as
Speaker 1: best as they could, so they go to the local
Speaker 1: as the local high school football coach. His name is
Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas Kirkpatrick, and he goes to the police chief
Speaker 1: and he's like, let me set up an all volunteer
Speaker 1: black auxiliary to the police to protect the black community
Speaker 1: and Core and the police chief went for it. The
Speaker 1: black auxillary got no, I know you see, yeah, my
Speaker 1: mind is melting white. It's gonna get messy, it's gonna
Speaker 1: get interesting. Um yeah. No. So that the Black auxiliary
Speaker 1: has given an old cop car and handcuffs, you'll be
Speaker 1: shocked to know that close relations between the police and
Speaker 1: the black community didn't last. Chili Willie and the original Defenders,
Speaker 1: for their part, they are not fucking stoked about this, right.
Speaker 1: They do not trust the black cops. They figured these
Speaker 1: black cops are going to do the dirty work for
Speaker 1: the white cops. They're all blue. Yeah. Yeah. So that
Speaker 1: summer we're still some Core organizers get ambushed by the
Speaker 1: clan who you turned in the middle of the highway
Speaker 1: to trap the Core organizers. But the Core organizers get
Speaker 1: out of it with like sick driving skills. They like
Speaker 1: floor it and they basically like almost run a clan
Speaker 1: car off the road. I think they almost run someone over,
Speaker 1: like they get the funk out of there. That's horrifying.
Speaker 1: But the clans people they go and and snitch them
Speaker 1: out for their dangerous driving. The clan people go to
Speaker 1: the cops and are like, hey, these Core organizers almost
Speaker 1: killed us on the road. You should arrest them. So
Speaker 1: the white chief of police tells one of the black
Speaker 1: deputies go arrest these Core organizers. Deputy is like, that's
Speaker 1: not so. I have to go back to my community
Speaker 1: after this. I don't little my mom and the eyes like,
Speaker 1: please don't ask me to do this. Yeah, and so,
Speaker 1: you know, deputy is like, well, that's not what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do. So so instead the black deputies go and
Speaker 1: provide an armed escort to help the Core organizers get
Speaker 1: out of town away from an arrest warrant. Okay, come on,
Speaker 1: and so but there's still like, maybe there's something to it,
Speaker 1: maybe we can still be the black deputies. So then
Speaker 1: there are ordered to arrest some black teenagers who are
Speaker 1: at the swimming pool, and they refused again. And then
Speaker 1: the final straw, the Klan drove through the black part
Speaker 1: of town with the police escort throwing out leaflets about
Speaker 1: outside agitators because that's like been the rhetoric that the
Speaker 1: right wing is used forever as being like these outside
Speaker 1: agitators whatever, and Kirkpatrick is finally like, oh yeah, and
Speaker 1: the clan have a police escort as they're driving through
Speaker 1: the black community throwing this out, and so the deputies
Speaker 1: and Kirkpatrick are like never mind. Specifically, he told the
Speaker 1: chief of police that if the clan convoy ever comes
Speaker 1: back through town, quote, there was going to be some
Speaker 1: killing going on. Well, I thought it was gonna be poetic, like,
Speaker 1: I just want to let you know, some murder will happen.
Speaker 1: You have to kill because I'm gonna make some this happens.
Speaker 1: After this, the two groups, Kirkpatrick's deputies and Chili Willie's defenders,
Speaker 1: they feel all right with each other now, and the
Speaker 1: deputies proved that they weren't going to be pawnsed for
Speaker 1: the white power structure. Good and as a ship heated up,
Speaker 1: more and more black defenders started showing up, and the
Speaker 1: spirit of we're not gonna put up with this was
Speaker 1: spreading throughout the town and not just the defenders. At
Speaker 1: one point, some klansmen tried to burn across in one
Speaker 1: of the reverend's yards, only to be scared off by
Speaker 1: the reverend's wife, who started shooting at them with a rifle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and once again, majority of these defenders were vets World
Speaker 1: War Two and the Korean War vets, and they skewed
Speaker 1: at older than the activists they were protecting. They also
Speaker 1: had strict membership requirements. Everyone had to be committed to
Speaker 1: defense only. Everyone had to be committed to keep been
Speaker 1: a cool head about them. And then kind of famously,
Speaker 1: they weren't ideological. A lot of the stuff that comes later,
Speaker 1: for better and worse, is ideological, right in different ways.
Speaker 1: These people were not socialists, they were not communists, they
Speaker 1: weren't anything as a group. Individuals within them were all
Speaker 1: kinds of different things, I'm sure, including conservatives, including liberals,
Speaker 1: and their ideology, as far as I can tell, is
Speaker 1: basically like we shouldn't let people funk up the black
Speaker 1: community and murder civil rights activists. But I think also,
Speaker 1: you know, to your point, if they're all slightly older
Speaker 1: than the people they're protecting, there's absolutely like a generational
Speaker 1: thing of like, you know, our grandparents were enslaved, perhaps
Speaker 1: some of their parents were enslaved. This is liberation at
Speaker 1: a next level. And what we're not going to do
Speaker 1: is allow you to kill our young without putting up
Speaker 1: a fight first, yea and I think it's a really
Speaker 1: beautiful intergenerational play of like, Okay, you guys have this
Speaker 1: vision for the future, you go out and claim that
Speaker 1: we'll do our best to keep you safe while you
Speaker 1: do that. I think that's really beautiful. No, that is
Speaker 1: so fucking beautiful, and that's so accurate. That's exactly what's
Speaker 1: happening here. And it's like, wow, I care about that
Speaker 1: a lot. I talk sometimes about, like, you know, in
Speaker 1: the trans community, about how like, oh, well, like I'm
Speaker 1: I'm not that old, but I'm like, you know, about forty,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you know, we do anything to protect
Speaker 1: the like young trans kids, right and like you know
Speaker 1: who who don't appreciate it, you know, like and like
Speaker 1: I that I don't want to draw a direct one
Speaker 1: to one struggles. Listen as somebody who is queer, like
Speaker 1: there isn't absolutely a direct correlation between communities that are
Speaker 1: actively being haunted, right, like literally hunted, and and and
Speaker 1: then you know, legislated against is an entirely different mind
Speaker 1: funk of of how do I just actively live my
Speaker 1: life in society without being sucked by the government that's
Speaker 1: supposed to be protecting me, And how we how we
Speaker 1: treat our young you know, we want them as much
Speaker 1: as young people often can't appreciate what's being done for
Speaker 1: them because their worldview is different, right, Like, they're all
Speaker 1: we need to be in the streets, So we're going
Speaker 1: to be vocal. We're going to make the change that
Speaker 1: you guys couldn't accomplish happen, which is a thing I hear.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of young black activists or even
Speaker 1: before their activists more more, you know, as they're beginning
Speaker 1: their journey into activism, ilse say often they're like, well,
Speaker 1: we're not going to be like you'd be like, okay,
Speaker 1: we we find had won a lot of battles, but
Speaker 1: which just it's not done yet, but we will still
Speaker 1: no matter how you feel, we don't want you to
Speaker 1: be hurt in the same way as we were hurt,
Speaker 1: in the same way we saw our elders hurt. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's generationally, the only thing I think that
Speaker 1: a lot of marginalized communities can do is do their
Speaker 1: best to build a wall of protection around the next
Speaker 1: generation coming up, so hopefully they can get a little
Speaker 1: bit further. I think there's a direct correlation, no, and
Speaker 1: that that makes so much sense in it. I think it.
Speaker 1: You know, if one of the main themes of this
Speaker 1: episode is about how two different strategies can work together.
Speaker 1: In this case, it's non violence and self defense. You
Speaker 1: know that the like in a similar way that like,
Speaker 1: you carry this further, but we will stand here and
Speaker 1: protect you as you do it. Like here are all
Speaker 1: the resources that we have acquired, that we have built
Speaker 1: up so that you can do this thing. Now that's
Speaker 1: really I really like that, um And I guess that
Speaker 1: what Alla Baker was doing, you know, um by like
Speaker 1: being the mentor to snick without like and even if
Speaker 1: her main advice was you all should figure out what
Speaker 1: you want to do and don't listen to the charismatic
Speaker 1: leaders who tell you that you should do what they
Speaker 1: wanted you to do. I love it, Like I remind
Speaker 1: you a lot of what Art is doing in her
Speaker 1: later years. You know, also like being a symbol of
Speaker 1: this one very specific and vital movement, but then also
Speaker 1: you know, actively working behind the scenes to help support
Speaker 1: this next generation as they continued the fight, I mean,
Speaker 1: being boots on the ground talking to be like she
Speaker 1: she's such so much larger than that one moment. But
Speaker 1: again didn't bother to try and take up space that
Speaker 1: wasn't that was meant for the people and not for
Speaker 1: an individual. Just it's so selfless, this work for the
Speaker 1: people who are doing it right, and it's just incredibly impressive. Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: And I you know, one of the things I struggle
Speaker 1: with on this show is that I'm like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about cool people, but I don't believe in like heroes.
Speaker 1: I believe in like role models, or I believe in
Speaker 1: like respecting the work people have done, you know, and
Speaker 1: respecting these stories. Not so that we can be like,
Speaker 1: oh well I'm not as cool as that person ill
Speaker 1: or do anything, but instead so that people could know,
Speaker 1: like we are all. You know, this person wasn't like
Speaker 1: you know, I doubt when Ella Baker first started, Ella
Speaker 1: Baker was like, I'm the one who's gonna change all.
Speaker 1: This ship just did what it was in front of her,
Speaker 1: you know, I I don't know, Yeah, yeah, she's got
Speaker 1: to the work just started. She was like, no, this
Speaker 1: has to be different, and it's yeah, it'll be interesting
Speaker 1: going forward how we as a society manage our heroes.
Speaker 1: I think, particularly with the rise of social media, we're
Speaker 1: seeing a decline in celebrity. Right, there's we don't have
Speaker 1: um your Michael Jackson's where people are fainting just passing
Speaker 1: them in the street. They're like, oh my god, I'm
Speaker 1: in the vicinity of this person. And I think celebrity
Speaker 1: is going to become to some degree. I think that
Speaker 1: I think ale still have popular people that were interested
Speaker 1: in following their stories. But I think that era of
Speaker 1: hero icon worship is we're moving past it slowly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's dead. What we should be worshiping is potatoes. Yeah, potatoes,
Speaker 1: um and whatever. Literally whatever the first ad you hear
Speaker 1: once we cut two ads is should be your new God. Awesome.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to figure out where that is. I
Speaker 1: hope it's not the Highway State patrol or gold or
Speaker 1: one of the other many mean and evil and what
Speaker 1: you're really worshiping is your fear of Yeah, here's some
Speaker 1: ads a k A. Your new Gods. Okay, we are
Speaker 1: back and we were talking about how Chili Willie and
Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas are getting together, and it was actually this
Speaker 1: person who was ideologically not an ideologically convinced white core organizer,
Speaker 1: who was very into non violence, was kind of the
Speaker 1: one who was like, no, you all need to sit
Speaker 1: down and actually have these meetings and figure out what
Speaker 1: you're doing. His name was Charlie Fenton. He spent most
Speaker 1: of his summer in jail and then he came to
Speaker 1: Jonesborough and he was super ideologically committed to non violence
Speaker 1: um but he he quickly realized that the two things
Speaker 1: went very well together. That building a non violence resistance
Speaker 1: movement in Durrance, but Jonesborough required the work of these defenders,
Speaker 1: and so he was like, hey, maybe you all should
Speaker 1: have some structure. And so in November nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: the two groups met up in the Masonic Hall and
Speaker 1: they formed a protective Association. The core organizer wasn't part
Speaker 1: of it. Fortunately, he was like, hey, maybe meet up
Speaker 1: and then dipped out, which is good, that is what
Speaker 1: he should have done. On January five, sixty five, they
Speaker 1: formally incorporated with the name they were the Deacons for
Speaker 1: Defense and Justice. And what's another thing that I think
Speaker 1: is really cool. The two founders Chili William Kirkpatrick. They
Speaker 1: didn't become the leaders. The president was another one of
Speaker 1: the defenders, the vice president another one of the deputies.
Speaker 1: The founders stayed part of it, but they didn't take
Speaker 1: control of it. And they set up a structure as
Speaker 1: really interesting to me. There's members pay dues of two
Speaker 1: dollars a month, which is basically pooling money for ammunition.
Speaker 1: Everyone provided their own rifles, and they set up for
Speaker 1: membership tiers, which wasn't like a hierarchy of command. They
Speaker 1: had a command structure, but it's unrelated when talking about
Speaker 1: you had your core group of dues paying activists, and
Speaker 1: then a broader group of people who sometimes paid dues,
Speaker 1: and then you had an even broader group of reinforcements
Speaker 1: who could be called upon in time of need. And
Speaker 1: then you had a fourth tier, which was basically like, look,
Speaker 1: if you're like doing really good ship, you want to
Speaker 1: call yourself a deacon. That's chill, And that seems like
Speaker 1: a really smart way to run a community defense organization
Speaker 1: that acknowledges that not everyone is going to make it
Speaker 1: the center of their lives. It sounds like radical acceptance,
Speaker 1: like come as you are, Like if you want to
Speaker 1: be all in, great, if you just kind of want
Speaker 1: to hang around and see what that's about, Hell cool,
Speaker 1: We just accept you as you are. Just be about
Speaker 1: the mission. Yeah. Yeah. At first, it was more or
Speaker 1: less all men except some one or two women who
Speaker 1: were helping on an organizational level. Slowly, more women started
Speaker 1: becoming involved, especially as Core's influence rubbed off on it,
Speaker 1: because Core was actually fairly actively gender integrated. And Kirkpatrick,
Speaker 1: the guy who had been a deputy, he got fired
Speaker 1: from the high school for starting the deacons, which led
Speaker 1: to the deacon's first conflict with the authorities. Students at
Speaker 1: that school started picking because of his dismissal and for
Speaker 1: black control of black schools, which stands out from the
Speaker 1: broader civil rights movement at the time, which was much
Speaker 1: more focused on desegregation, whereas in this case these students
Speaker 1: were focused on black autonomy. Um, it's is a fairly
Speaker 1: major tension that was going to emerge more clearly in
Speaker 1: a couple of years. But the kids are picketing their
Speaker 1: high school and firefighters show up ready to hose them
Speaker 1: down right because they're being fox The good use of
Speaker 1: the fire department, super good use of water aces job everyone. Well.
Speaker 1: The deacons staunch conservative conservationists. They take firing positions and
Speaker 1: say to the to the firefighters, quote, if you turn
Speaker 1: those water hoses on those kids, there's going to be
Speaker 1: some blood out here today. Okay, again just not mixing
Speaker 1: the words of just letting you know immediately, don't look around,
Speaker 1: it's just what what will happen? And the firefighters left
Speaker 1: goodbye again, we say, because they're just walking around it
Speaker 1: so ridiculous. And the deacons, after they win this fight,
Speaker 1: they get popular. A whole new group of people start
Speaker 1: joining the civil rights movement, folks who have hadn't been
Speaker 1: attracted to the more middle class sensibilities of the older groups.
Speaker 1: Uh and nor the people who hadn't been attracted to
Speaker 1: the specifically youth non violent spirit. You get the sort
Speaker 1: of like third basically the people who are like, oh shit, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is the tactic that appeals to us.
Speaker 1: It works. I it was the response because you when
Speaker 1: you hear not violence, you're like, I'm not about to
Speaker 1: be in these shoots getting my ass whooped. Like it
Speaker 1: just does not sound like it's not feeling at least
Speaker 1: to me as an individual anyway. I understand the logic
Speaker 1: behind doing it, but the peple of like and now
Speaker 1: we're just gonna allow ourselves to be be as a
Speaker 1: showing of like what happens to us anyway is God,
Speaker 1: it's so brave. But then you know this idea of like,
Speaker 1: oh no, actually you can be armed, and we helped
Speaker 1: protect and save kids. Those water hoses break bones, like
Speaker 1: it's really dangerous. That's incredible. Yeah. I could definitely see
Speaker 1: just regular community folk being like, okay, we have a
Speaker 1: system now. Yeah, totally. And So there's another mill town
Speaker 1: in Louisiana. It's like opposite side of Louisiana, feels like
Speaker 1: three miles away or some ship. It's called Boga Loosa,
Speaker 1: and it was one of the worst hot beds of
Speaker 1: clan activity in the in the in the country. It
Speaker 1: had the most klansmen per capita anywhere in Louisiana, which
Speaker 1: is an impressive state to have the most clansmen per capita.
Speaker 1: In klansmen held office. They had enough power that when
Speaker 1: President Lyndon Johnson sent a special aid to go let
Speaker 1: give a talk about desegregation, he wasn't able to speak
Speaker 1: the President's fucking aid like. The event was shut down
Speaker 1: by burning crosses and angry racists. They went out and
Speaker 1: passed the clans people went out and passed handbills to
Speaker 1: every white family in town saying if you show up
Speaker 1: to this meeting, we will kill you. Where they're strong repression,
Speaker 1: they're strong resistance. Black farmers in the area already had
Speaker 1: a very strong They had a lot of advantages the
Speaker 1: black folks um from a strategic point of view, they
Speaker 1: had two things going for them. The rural nearby area.
Speaker 1: The black farmers in that area largely owned their own land,
Speaker 1: which made them substantially um instead of sharecropping or or
Speaker 1: anything like that. So they're much more resistant against economic repression.
Speaker 1: And then black workers in the town were largely incorporated
Speaker 1: into a few different unions, and therefore they had a
Speaker 1: lot of experience organizing. And so for decades the n
Speaker 1: double a CP had prevented the clan from purging black
Speaker 1: voters from the rolls. So that town they invite some
Speaker 1: core activists white some white core activists to come to
Speaker 1: town and house them in a black home. The clan
Speaker 1: shows up at the house, but so did armed Black
Speaker 1: towns people. The clan fucked off, as is their want.
Speaker 1: The core organizers tried to drive out of town, but
Speaker 1: they were followed by an angry mob in a car,
Speaker 1: and so they took refuge in a black cafe where
Speaker 1: the same scene repeated. Angry Fox showed up and started
Speaker 1: trying to surround the cafe, but so did armed defenders,
Speaker 1: and the clan fucked off again, and the basically the
Speaker 1: organizers escorted home out of town like by an armed
Speaker 1: caravan of defenders. One of the organizers later he said,
Speaker 1: I thought I was a pacifist, but then I realized
Speaker 1: I wasn't anymore. That's not a direct quote. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: said that in might direct quote voice, but that's my
Speaker 1: paraphrase voice. And so Bogolosa formed the second Deacons chapter
Speaker 1: after that event. By maye, the mayor of Bogolusa repealed
Speaker 1: all segregation mandates. And yeah, wow, I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: think of like, that's such a fast turnaround for a
Speaker 1: space that has numbers, which I think would be you know,
Speaker 1: a factor in the speed in which you'd be able
Speaker 1: to desegregate a space. Violence where or the threat of
Speaker 1: violence works, I guess like stopping other people's violence in
Speaker 1: this case, you know, because it's stopping letting their violence work.
Speaker 1: And again, it's funny because it's like, I'm not ideologically
Speaker 1: committed to non violence. I actually and I find it
Speaker 1: strategically interesting but not It's not a strategy that I've
Speaker 1: ever personally particularly employed, but like it's still interesting to
Speaker 1: me with it's within the tool the toolbox of activist tools,
Speaker 1: you know. But when the national director of CORE showed
Speaker 1: up in town, I think the I think the way
Speaker 1: it went down is that the like local police were like,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll protect you, and he was like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm good, the Deacons will protect me. Actually half people
Speaker 1: already for that, thank you, Oh my god. So okay.
Speaker 1: So that's like the either way non violence is relying
Speaker 1: on armed people, and it's trying to rely on cops
Speaker 1: and like federal troops and like the state as the
Speaker 1: armed force, right, and so instead he's saying, no, the
Speaker 1: armed force I trust are the Deacons, defense and justice.
Speaker 1: In the end, after only a few years, the Deacons
Speaker 1: had twenty one formal chapters and forty six affiliates throughout
Speaker 1: the country, but by night they were overshadowed by the
Speaker 1: Black Panther Party, which I'm sure we'll talk about more
Speaker 1: some other time, and sort of a close to this era.
Speaker 1: As the sixties were on, tensions are growing within the
Speaker 1: civil rights movement because it was it was finding itself,
Speaker 1: it was starting to be about more than just voting
Speaker 1: rights and desegregation. And you know this guy named James Meredith.
Speaker 1: Uh And I first wrote there was this guy, but
Speaker 1: there is a guy still alive. He's a black man
Speaker 1: with some Choctaw heritage. He was a vet. He spent
Speaker 1: nine years in the Air Force from ninety one to
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty. He's actually fairly conservative, but he's doesn't like
Speaker 1: white supremacy. He integrated the University of Mississippi, which did
Speaker 1: not want to be integrated by him. Miss still doesn't
Speaker 1: want to be You know, I believe that this is
Speaker 1: the like democratic governor who said, uh, like I will
Speaker 1: die before I allowed desegregation in my state or something
Speaker 1: like that. I can't remember exactly. You're welcome to do that,
Speaker 1: I know, right. Deacons of defense are like I volunteer um.
Speaker 1: It took a bunch of applicant aations and a lawsuit
Speaker 1: with help from the Double A c P and then
Speaker 1: federal intervention, and then he had to survive a frame
Speaker 1: up on voter fraud, all kinds of ship. They did
Speaker 1: everything they could to try and stop him. But when
Speaker 1: he finally went to go enroll because he had succeeded
Speaker 1: these lawsuits. It took four hundred law enforcement folks from
Speaker 1: various federal agencies and ships to protect him. UM and
Speaker 1: still racists, including mostly the fucking white racist students at
Speaker 1: this fucking university, rioted to try and prevent him from
Speaker 1: enrolling and like fought those four hundred cops or whatever.
Speaker 1: So he goes to the school, he graduates, He faces
Speaker 1: a ton of abuse the whole time from racist students,
Speaker 1: which is frankly most of the students. For his next degree,
Speaker 1: for some completely understandable reason, he goes to a university
Speaker 1: in Nigeria. Yes, get all the way out of no.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty six, he declares that he's going to
Speaker 1: do a march against fear, and he's going to do
Speaker 1: it without. He's going to go on a two mile
Speaker 1: march from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi. He didn't want
Speaker 1: any of the major civil rights organizations involved. UM And
Speaker 1: I believe I've read two different things. One is that
Speaker 1: he started alone and he intended to do it alone.
Speaker 1: And one is that he specifically said only black men
Speaker 1: can join me, and I think that meant black men,
Speaker 1: It absolutely meant no white people. I'm not certain whether
Speaker 1: he was trying to make a statement about gender, and
Speaker 1: he's just like, I'm not trying to do this like
Speaker 1: how other people are doing it. I'm going to do
Speaker 1: this thing, a march against fear. Literally the second day
Speaker 1: of the march, a white sniper shot him. He survived. Wow, right,
Speaker 1: because he's still alive. He said, I was like, I know,
Speaker 1: and like after a while in a hospital, he rejoins
Speaker 1: the march, and he didn't trust the other civil rights organizations,
Speaker 1: but he considered himself at war with white supremacy. So
Speaker 1: after this attack, leaders and and or delegates from various
Speaker 1: civil rights organizations they meet up in Memphis to decide
Speaker 1: what to do. Basically, they're like, violence can't stop our movement.
Speaker 1: We can't allow that to happen. But they were nowhere
Speaker 1: near consensus beyond this point. This is like it's nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six, and it's like coalition is really starting to
Speaker 1: come apart because they don't actually all want the same things, right,
Speaker 1: And they reached a compromise. They decided that they're going
Speaker 1: to go continue this march, which is a little bit funny.
Speaker 1: I kind of wonder what he thought about it. Because
Speaker 1: like his whole thing is he didn't want these people involved.
Speaker 1: But then again he also got I don't know what
Speaker 1: he wanted about this, you know, But the civil rights
Speaker 1: organizations they reached a compromise. Martin Luther King wanted no guns, yes,
Speaker 1: white people. Snick wanted deacons as an armed defense force
Speaker 1: and no white people, which fits better with James Meredith's
Speaker 1: original conception of the march anyway. And so they compromised
Speaker 1: white allies yes, deacons for defense yes. And the split
Speaker 1: in this movement is about ton of things. It's about
Speaker 1: the role of white organizers, and I think especially about
Speaker 1: white leadership and like direction. Um, but maybe I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that. I certain it's about the use of firearms.
Speaker 1: It's about the growing disenchantment with the political process, specifically,
Speaker 1: like there's this whole thing that I didn't even get into,
Speaker 1: where like the Democratic Party was like, nah, we actually
Speaker 1: don't care about you, fuck you. And and also there's
Speaker 1: this question about growing militancy. There's like this question about
Speaker 1: like what people actually like want, do people want to revolution,
Speaker 1: do they want to be accepted within mainstream society? And
Speaker 1: specifically about the desire for desegregation. Versus black power, which
Speaker 1: is not always a dichotomy, but it's like kind of
Speaker 1: presented as one in a lot of these conversations. But
Speaker 1: both SNICK and the SCLC and you know, these groups
Speaker 1: that don't like each other, they finished this march, the
Speaker 1: March Against Fear. Fifteen thousand people are on the march
Speaker 1: by the end of the march, including ten Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fucking cool and like, it's interesting because they had
Speaker 1: mostly moved away from protest marches, especially the like youth
Speaker 1: for organizers that are like, no, direct actionism is what matters, right,
Speaker 1: But I mean, I don't know, I think it's pretty
Speaker 1: direct action if you're getting shot for trying to do it,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, yeah, for sure. And it this included uh,
Speaker 1: ten buses of union auto workers from Chicago came down
Speaker 1: to join the march, just to shout out that the
Speaker 1: labor movement did do some good things at various points
Speaker 1: in the history. And along raise lines, four thousand people
Speaker 1: were registered to vote. Along the way and where we're
Speaker 1: going to end it, the last little thing is a
Speaker 1: sort of the end of this trunk. On June ninety six,
Speaker 1: snick's president Quam a tour a which is stokely Carmichael
Speaker 1: and all the history books. But he changed his name
Speaker 1: later in life, and so I'm using both so that
Speaker 1: people know who I'm talking about. But his name was
Speaker 1: Kami to right. And he gets arrested for trespassing on
Speaker 1: public property. Um, which is a cool, interesting trick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how do you do that? I'm not I think you'd
Speaker 1: just be black. Um ends in Greenwood, Mississippi in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six. He gets held for several hours. When he
Speaker 1: gets out, he goes back to the march. He gets
Speaker 1: up on the podium and he gives a speech, and
Speaker 1: he calls up a chant we want black power. It
Speaker 1: gets called his Black Power speech. It was, in his words,
Speaker 1: a call for black people in the country to unite,
Speaker 1: to recognize their heritage and build a sense of community.
Speaker 1: Quote more from him about this. When you talk about
Speaker 1: black power, you talk about bringing this country to its
Speaker 1: knees anytime it messes with the black man. Any white
Speaker 1: man in this country knows about power. He knows what
Speaker 1: white power is, and he ought to know what black
Speaker 1: power is. And this is not the end of the
Speaker 1: civil rights movement, but it's one of the places we
Speaker 1: can point to a split, and so it's kind of
Speaker 1: where I'm going to end it. Soon enough, you get
Speaker 1: the Black Panthers, who were ideological eclipsing the Deacons for
Speaker 1: Defense Snick and Core go radical as hell. They were
Speaker 1: done with non violence. Um Core at least embraced black nationalism.
Speaker 1: The s CLC and the Double A CP in turn
Speaker 1: rejected black power, not like as a as a slogan,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to be like complicated. Yeah, and going
Speaker 1: forward from there, there's so many other cool people who
Speaker 1: did cool stuff. But this is where we're going to
Speaker 1: leave the story. This was an amazing journey so many
Speaker 1: people I didn't know about. I love learning about the
Speaker 1: people who made the big moments possible, and especially hearing
Speaker 1: about the Rule South where shi it was real as
Speaker 1: health for people and like how did they deal with this?
Speaker 1: You know? It's like and also this idea of like
Speaker 1: we need multiple forms of activism to reach our end goal.
Speaker 1: I think that's what's most interesting about this because a
Speaker 1: lot of people have issues you know, with the in
Speaker 1: Double A c P at different times, for you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're focus was legality right first, and it's also
Speaker 1: like there are a lot of class issues. You know,
Speaker 1: they were recording a certain type of black person, and
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting to hear how at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, like all of these different divisions had
Speaker 1: to team up and compromise on their visions in order
Speaker 1: to move the needle. Um. Yeah, it gives me a
Speaker 1: lot of hope for where our activism is today and
Speaker 1: the things that were to accomplish a lot of times
Speaker 1: that in fighting can seem insurmountable and like it's halting things,
Speaker 1: but really I think it's just making the entire movement
Speaker 1: richer totally. Yeah, I think it's really you know, interesting,
Speaker 1: because there's no one right way to achieve you know,
Speaker 1: certain goals, and you might have to borrow from different baskets,
Speaker 1: and like you all said, it's it's about the combination
Speaker 1: or the mixture of in the compromise, you know, of
Speaker 1: all these different tactics to achieve the common goal. And
Speaker 1: sometimes you know there is in fighting and disagreements, but
Speaker 1: ultimately it's about just moving the needle forward. And I
Speaker 1: think that's really really interesting. Yeah. Well, thanks for coming
Speaker 1: on this this journey with me, um Joel, do you
Speaker 1: have anything that you'd like to plug here at the end.
Speaker 1: You know, I just come find me on the internet.
Speaker 1: It's where I live. I love hearing from you guys.
Speaker 1: You can find me actual Monique to j O E
Speaker 1: L L E M L A and I Q you
Speaker 1: E hell yeah bean, you got anything. I'll just say,
Speaker 1: listen to us some cool Zone media podcasts. Internet Hate
Speaker 1: Machine with Bridget Todd is our newest show. What's check
Speaker 1: that out? Wherever you listen to your podcasts? Um and yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all for me. I'll just say that Internet Hate
Speaker 1: Machine is my favorite way of keeping up on the
Speaker 1: Internet gossip and it is like not like like gossip
Speaker 1: about the inner or whatever. It's really good. You should
Speaker 1: listen to it. That's what. It's really good. It's super timely,
Speaker 1: especially with what's going on and our current Internet land escape.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I did episode where we talk about Twitter
Speaker 1: and and the Elon Musk change over. If you still
Speaker 1: need to catch up on that. Yeah, that one's fun.
Speaker 1: What a fun time we're all facing. Okay. The thing
Speaker 1: that I would like to plug is a diversity of
Speaker 1: tactics and learning to accept that not everyone is going
Speaker 1: to agree with you, but that we can still figure
Speaker 1: some things out together. That's what I want to shout
Speaker 1: out here at the end, the community. All right, see
Speaker 1: everyone next week. Good Bye bye. Cool People Who did
Speaker 1: Cool Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media, but
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Speaker 1: zone media dot com, or check us out on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.