The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement [Hardcover]

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0807828475 | ISBN-13: 978-0807828472 | Publication Date: April 26, 2004

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An engrossing, well-written study."
— Journal of American Studies

"This well-argued revisionist text should spur useful debate and encourage others to recast traditional civil rights-era narratives."
The Journal of American History

"Hill's ground-breaking, historical narrative adds not only to Southern historiography, but to that of the United States as well."
Louisiana History

"Hill has written a masterful account of a vital, understudied organization. This will undoubtedly be the book on the Deacons for a long time."
The Journal of Southern History

"This is a significant book."
The North Carolina Historical Review

"An engaging writer, Hill has written a graceful book that fills an important gap in civil rights scholarship."
Florida Historical Quarterly

From the Inside Flap

Hill offers the first detailed history of the Deacons for Defense and Justice, a black self-defense organization particularly influential in Louisiana and Mississippi from 1964 to 1967. Frustrated with the policy of nonviolence espoused by Martin Luther King Jr., the Deacons sought a new form of armed resistance to constant threats of violence from whites.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (April 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807828475
• ISBN-13: 978-0807828472
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #456,479 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights M, July 23, 2004

By 

Robert M. Johnson (Bogalusa, LA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement (Hardcover)

This is an excellent book, a long awaited and much needed factual account of a group of courageous men whose activism had major impact on the movement. Hill has produced a wealth of documentation to prove the history he has brought to the fore.
This account does tribute to those brave and unsung (heretofore)
heroes who refused to further degrade themselves and thier communities by turning the other cheek! Must reading.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "When you're dealing with the wolf,, January 9, 2007

By 

Bicycle Day - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement (Paperback)

you have to speak the language of the wolf." - Henry Austin, Deacons for Defense

This is truly a lost history of the civil rights movement that author Lance Hill has found under the layers upon layers of mainstream narratives which conveniently dictate false truths that - when repeated enough - become larger than life.

Following the organized self-defense philosophy espoused by Robert F. Williams in Monroe, N.C., a small group of men in Jonesboro, Louisiana, founded an organization that had great influence in the civil rights movement of the mid-1960s. The success the Deacons had in defeating the KKK and other haters on the streets by standing up, moving forward and staring them down with guns loaded brought a new sense of empowerment in demanding that justice truly be served today.

Hill explains how he became aware of the Deacons and then began his quest to research the history. Initially founded to protect civil rights workers, the Deacons' influence in the Deep South grew with a regional organizing campaign in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, along with chapters being founded in several Northern cities.

The success and expansion of the program brought interest from the FBI, coverage by an oftentimes adverse media and linkage - oftenetimes quite temporary - with a number of revolutionary organizations.

But through the comparatively brief time the Deacons operated - about four years - Hill successfully argues that the organization forced the federal government to aggressively enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act and was the bridge to the Black Power movement that emerged later in the decade.

The Deacons' legacy continues, as former members have strongly stated over the years that the group has never actually gone away. And, as Hill writes, "Finally, there is something inspiring in a story of people who stood up to injustice when everyone around them was afraid. That is a fable that will always serve us well."

The Deacons for Defense lives in the souls of those who do their part on a daily basis to bring real justice to this country.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Book on the Civil Rights Movement in Years!, July 28, 2004

By 

Kenyatta Woods "Kenyatta" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement (Hardcover)

This book kept me up reading all night. I had in the past heard that their had been a group that pre dated The Black Panther Party, and were operating in the deep south. However there was not much information on this clandestine group. Well there is now. This is the book. My chest burst with pride as the tears fell down my cheeks. If you read nothing else this year please read this book if you want to know what our people were really doing during the "movement". The media had been lying to us about our role in our own history! This book is about us!